My father, how can you believe it? Did you not hear her lament because
the man was dead? It is indeed the devil that beguiles you.'

Gaudiosus bent his head, and pondered anxiously.

'Tell me,' he said at length, 'all her story, that I may compare it
with what I have heard from her own lips.'

Slowly at first, and confusedly, with hesitations, repetitions, long
pauses, Basil recited the history of Veranilda, so far as he knew it.
The priest listened and nodded, and when silence came, continued the
narrative. If Veranilda spoke truth she had never seen Marcian until he
took her from the convent at Praeneste. Moreover, Marcian had never
uttered to her a word of love; in his house she had lived as chastely
as among the holy sisters.

'What did she here, then?' asked Basil bitterly. 'Why did he bring her
here? You know, O father, that it was not in fulfilment of his promise
to me, for you heard his shameless lie when I questioned him.'

'He told her,' replied the priest, 'that she sojourned here only until
he could put her under the protection of the Gothic King.'

'Of Totila?' cried Basil. 'Nay, for all I know, he may have thought of
that--his passion being appeased.'

Even as he spoke be remembered Sagaris and the letter written in
Gothic. Some motive of interest might, indeed, have prompted Marcian to
this step. None the less was he Veranilda's lover. Would he otherwise
have kept her here with him, alone, and not rather have continued the
journey, with all speed, till he reached Totila's camp?

'When I left her,' pursued Gaudiosus, whose confidence in his own
judgment was already shaken by the young man's vehemence, 'I spoke in
private with certain of the bondswomen, who declared to me that they
could avouch the maiden's innocence since her coming hither--until
to-day's sunrise.'

Basil laughed with scorn.

'Until to-day's sunrise? And pray, good father, what befell her at that
moment? What whisper the Argus-eyed bondswomen?'

'They tell me,' replied the priest, 'that she went forth and met
Marcian, and walked with him in a wood, her own woman having been sent
back to the villa. This troubled me; but her voice, her countenance--'

'Helped by the devil,' broke in Basil. 'Reverend man, do not seek to
deceive yourself, or to solace me with a vain hope. I pray you, did
Marcian, when you came to visit him, speak of a lady whose virtue he
was sworn to guard? Plainly, not a word fell from him. Yet assuredly he
wou