"Do you hear me, Juventinus?"
"Old man," answered the patrician mother, "you will not carry off a
son from her that bore him!... Listen, if it must be so, I will deny
the faith of my fathers; I will believe in the Crucified!... I will
become a nun!"
"Ah, pagan! thou canst not understand the law of Christ. A mother
cannot be a nun, nor can a nun be still a mother."
"I have borne him in anguish; he is mine!"
"It is not the soul, but the body, that you love."
The patrician woman cast at Didimus a look full of hatred.
"Be then accursed for your lying speeches," she exclaimed; "accursed,
you stealers of children--tempters of the guileless! ye black-robed
fearers of the celestial light--slaves of the Crucified! destroyers of
all beauty and joy!"