the abbot, smiling. 'You cannot
doubt--and yet? Utter your mind to me, dear son.'

'My father, I obey you, desiring indeed with all my soul to seek your
guidance. My heart has been too much in this world, and for one thought
given to things eternal, I have bestowed a hundred upon my own sorrows,
and on those of Italy.'

His voice faltered, his head drooped.

'I say not,' murmured the listener, 'that you do wrong to love your
country.'

'Holy father, I were a hypocrite if I spoke of my country first of all.
For all but a year gone by, another love has possessed me. Forgive me
that I dare to speak such a word before you.'

The abbot turned his eyes to the window. Upon the sill had settled two
doves, which seemed to regard him curiously. He made a soft gesture
with his hand, and the birds flew away.

'Speak on,' he said after brief reflection, and with the same
indulgence. 'He who tells all speaks not to man but to God.'

And Basil told all; told it with humble simplicity, with entire
truthfulness, recounting his history from the day when he first beheld
Veranilda to the dreadful hour when Marcian's blood stained his hands.
He began in calm, but the revival of emotions which had slept during
his sickness and his convalescence soon troubled him profoundly. Not
only did the dormant feelings wake up again, but things which he had
forgotten rushed into his memory. So, when he came to the last
interview with Veranilda, he remembered, for the first time since that
day, what he had said to her, and the recollection dismayed him. He
burst into tears, overwhelmed at once with misery and shame.

'It may be,' he sobbed, 'that she was innocent. Suffering had driven me
mad, and I uttered words such as never should have passed my lips. If
she is guiltless, there lives no baser man than I. For I reproached
her--my father, how you will scorn me!--I cast at her in reproach her
father's treachery.'

The abbot's brow rested upon his hand. It was thus he had listened,
unmoving, throughout the story; nor did he now stir, until Basil,
having ceased alike from speaking and from tears, had sat for a little
while in stillness and reflection. Then at length he turned his eyes
upon the young man, and spoke with sad gravity.

'Even so, even so. You gave your heart to a woman, and worshipped at
her feet, and behold there has come upon you the guilt of blood. Not,
you would protest, through your own fault; your friend was false to
you, an