Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/179

Rh shall never out-pray my hideous sin, never, never. All my fasts and hymns and prayers have been in vain. I might as well have sinned all the time; all lost in one foul moment! Alas! alas!"

But the other hermit went on singing, quietly, joyfully.

"What!" cried the first hermit. "Have you gone out of your mind?"

"Why?" asked the joyful one.

"Why don't you repent?"

"What is there for me to repent of?" asked the joyful one.

"And Alexandria, have you forgotten it?" asked his companion.

"What of Alexandria? Glory be to the Almighty who preserves that famous and honourable town!"

"But what did we do in Alexandria?"

"What did we do? Why we sold our baskets of course, prayed upon the ikon of holy St. Mark, visited several churches, walked a little in the town hall, conversed with the virtuous and Christly Leonila. . . ."

The repentant hermit stared at the other in pale stupefaction.

"And the house of ill-fame in which we spent the night . . . " said he.

"God preserve us!" said the other. "The evening and night we spent in the guest-house of the patriarch."

"Holy martyrs! God has already blasted his