nilda looked into her lover's face with a tender anxiety.

'And you fear him, O Basil? It is he that is our enemy?'

'Not so, sweetest. No foe of mine is he who wears the crown of
Theodoric. They whom I fear and abhor are the slaves of Justinian, the
robber captains who rule at Ravenna and in Rome.'

As she heard him, Veranilda trembled with joy. She caught his hand, and
bent over it, and kissed it.

'Had I been the enemy of Totila,' said Basil, 'could you still have
loved me as a wife should love?'

'I had not asked myself,' she answered, 'for it was needless. When I
look on you, I think neither of Roman nor of Goth.'

Basil spoke of his hope that Rome might be restored to the same freedom
it had enjoyed under the great king. Then they would dwell together in
the sacred city. That, too, was Veranilda's desire; for on her ear the
name of Rome fell with a magic sound; all her life she had heard it
spoken reverentially, with awe, yet the city itself she had never seen.
Rome, she knew, was vast; there, it seemed to her, she would live
unobserved, unthought of save by him she loved. Seclusion from all
strangers, from all who, learning her origin, would regard her
slightingly, was what her soul desired.

Day had broken; behind the mountains there was light of the sun. Once
more they held each other heart to heart, and Veranilda hastened
through the garden to regain her chamber. Basil stood for some minutes
lost in a delicious dream; the rising day made his face beautiful, his
eyes gleamed with an unutterable rapture. At length he sighed and awoke
and looked about him. At no great distance, as though just issued from
the ilex wood, moved a man's figure. It approached very slowly, and
Basil watched until he saw that the man was bent as if with age, and
had black garments such as were worn by wandering mendicant monks.
Carelessly he turned, and went his way back to the villa.

An hour later, Aurelia learnt that a 'holy man,' a pilgrim much travel
worn, was begging to be admitted to her. She refused to see him. Still
he urged his entreaty, declaring that he had a precious gift for her
acceptance, and an important message for her ear. At length he was
allowed to enter the atrium, and Aurelia saw before her a man in black
monkish habit, his body bent and tremulous, but evidently not with age,
for his aspect otherwise was that of middle life. What, she asked
briefly and coldly, was his business with her? Thereupon the monk