by the man you trust.'

A groan of rage and anguish broke from Basil. He wrung his bands
together.

'You lie! A thousand times you lie! Either Veranilda or Aurelia is in
this house. Who was it you brought back with you yesterday when you
returned from beyond the walls?'

The listener uttered a short, fierce laugh.

'So that is what brought you here? O fool! Think you I should have no
more wisdom than that? Since you must needs pry into my doings
yesterday, you shall hear them. I went to the church of the holy
Petronilla, to pray there against all the dangers that environ
me--against the wiles of the wicked, the cruelty of violent men, the
sickness which is rife about us. And when I rose from before the altar,
the servant of God who passes his life there, who is pleased to regard
me with kindness, led me apart into the sacristy, where sat a woman who
had lost her sight. She had travelled, he told me, from Mediolanum,
because of a vision in which she had been bidden to seek the tomb of
the daughter of the chief Apostle; and, whilst praying in the church,
her darkness had been illumined by a vision of the saint herself, who
bade her go into the city, and abide in the house of the first who
offered her welcome, and there at length she would surely receive her
sight. So I spoke with the woman, who, though in poverty, is of noble
blood, and when I had offered to make her welcome, she gladly came with
me, and straightway we returned to Rome. And I brought with me oil from
the lamp of the saint, wherewith, at the hours of prayer, I cross my
forehead, that no evil may befall me. So, you have heard. Believe or
not, as you list, O Basil.'

Whether true or not, Basil had no choice but to accept the story. He
looked helplessly about him. If by killing this woman he could have
obtained liberty to search through every chamber of the great house,
his dagger would have leapt at her breast; and that Petronilla well
knew; whence the defiant look in her eyes as they watched his slightest
movement.

'What is your next question?' she said. 'I am at leisure for a little
longer.'

'If Veranilda is in the hands of the Greeks, where is Aurelia?'

'I should be glad to think,' replied the lady, 'that she has withdrawn
from the world to expiate her sins.'

'Would you have me believe that Marcian knows that secret also?'

'I respect your innocence,' answered Petronilla, with a smile, 'and
will say no more.'

Again Basil stood for a m