urged him to resist, but madness yielded to cunning, and he released
her.

'Of course Basil has been here,' she was saying.

'Never.'

'Never? Oh, the joy of showing him this when he comes! Lord Marcian,
you do not think it will be long?'

Her eyes seemed as though they would read in the depth of his; again
the look of troubled wonder rose to her countenance.

'It will not be more than a few days?' she added, in a timid undertone,
scarce audible upon the water's deeper note.

'I fear it may be longer,' replied Marcian.

He heard his own accents as those of another man. He, his very self,
willed the utterance of certain words, kind, hopeful, honest; but
something else within him commanded his tongue, and, ere he knew it, he
had added:

'You have never thought that Basil might forget you?'

Veranilda quivered as though she had been struck.

'Why do you again ask me that question?' she said gently, but no longer
timidly. 'Why do you look at me so? Surely,' her voice sank, 'you could
not have let me feel so happy if Basil were dead?'

'He lives.'

'Then why do you look so strangely at me? Ah, he is a prisoner?'

'Not so. No man's liberty is less in danger.'

She clasped her hands before her. 'You make me suffer. I was so light
of heart, and now--your eyes, your silence. Oh, speak, lord Marcian!'

'I have hidden the truth so long because I knew not how to utter it.
Veranilda, Basil is false to you.'

Her hands fell; her eyes grew wider in wonder. She seemed not to
understand what she had heard, and to be troubled by incomprehension
rather than by a shock of pain.

'False to me?' she murmured. 'How false?'

'He loves another woman, and for her sake has turned to the Greeks.'

Still Veranilda gazed wonderingly.

'Things have come to pass of which you know nothing,' pursued Marcian,
forcing his voice to a subdued evenness, a sad gravity. 'Listen whilst
I tell you all. Had you remained but a few days longer at Cumae, you
would have been seized by the Greeks and sent to Constantinople; for
the Emperor Justinian himself had given this command. You came to
Surrentum; you plighted troth with Basil; he would have wedded you,
and--not only for safety's sake, but because he wished well to the
Goths--would have sought the friendship of Totila. But you were carried
away; vainly we searched for you; we feared you had been delivered to
the Greeks. In Rome, Basil was tempted by a woman, whom he had loved
before ev