She still continued kneeling, with a touching earnestness of face and demeanour, and with her hands crossed upon her breast.

“I have reckoned,” she replied; “heaven and hell: I prefer heaven.”

“You are on earth,” said Cæcilius; “not in heaven or hell. You must bear the pangs of earth before you drink the blessedness of heaven.”

“He has given me the firm purpose,” she said, “to gain heaven, to escape hell; and He will give me too the power.”

“Ah, Callista!” he answered, in a voice broken with distress, “you know not what you will have to bear, if you join yourself to Him.”

“He has done great things for me already; I am wonderfully changed; I am not what I was. He will do more still.”

“Alas, my child!” said Cæcilius, “that feeble frame, ah! how will it bear the strong iron, or the keen flame, or the ruthless beast? My child, what do I feel, who am free, thus handing you over to be the sport of the evil one?”

“Father, I have chosen Him,” she answered, “not hastily, but on deliberation. I believe Him most absolutely. Keep me not from Him; give Him to me, if I may ask it; give me my Love.”

Presently she added, “I have never forgotten those words of yours since you used them; ‘Amor meus crucifixus est.’ ”

She began again, “I will be a Christian; give me my place among them. Give me my place at the feet of Jesus, Son of Mary, my God. I wish to love Him. I think I can love Him. Make me His.”

“He has loved you from eternity,” said Cæcilius, “and, therefore, you are now beginning to love Him.”

She covered her eyes with her hands, and remained in profound meditation. “I am very ignorant—very sinful,” she said at length; “but one thing I know, that there is but One to love in the whole world, and I wish to love him. I surrender myself to Him, if He will take me; and He shall teach me about Himself.”

“The angry multitude, their fierce voices, the brutal executioner, the prison, the torture, the slow, painful death.” He was speaking, not to her, but to himself. She was calm, in spite of her fervour; but he could not contain himself. His heart melted within him; he felt like Abraham, lifting up his hand to slay his child.

“Time passes,” she said; “what may happen? you may be discovered. But, perhaps,” she added, suddenly changing her tone, “it is a matter of long initiation. Woe is me!”

“We must gird ourselves to the work, Victor,” he said to his deacon who was with him. Cæcilius fell back and sat down, and Victor came forward. He formally instructed her so far as the circumstances allowed. Not for baptism only, but for confirmation, and Holy Eucharist; for Cæcilius determined to give her all three sacraments at once.