'In your anger,' she said, 'as when perchance you were already
distraught with fever, you spoke I know not what. Therein you were not
false to me.'

'False to myself; I should have said. To you, never, never! False to my
faith in you, false to my own heart which knew you faithful; but false
as men are called who--'

Again his voice sank. A memory flashed across him, troubling his brow.

'What else were you told?' he asked abruptly. 'Can it be a woman's name
was spoken? You are silent. Will you not say that this thought, also,
you abhorred and rejected?'

The simple honesty of Veranilda's nature would not allow her to
disguise what she thought. Urging question after question, with ardour
irresistible, Basil learnt all she had been told by Marcian concerning
Heliodora, and, having learnt it, confessed the whole truth in utter
frankness, in the plain, blunt words dictated by his loathing of the
Greek woman with whom he had once played at love. And, as she listened,
Veranilda's heart grew light; for the time before her meeting with
Basil seemed very far away, and the tremulous passion in his voice
assured her of all she cared to know, that his troth pledged to her had
never suffered wrong. Basil spoke on and on, told of his misery in Rome
whilst vainly seeking her; how he was baffled and misled; how at
length, in despair, he left the city and went to his estate by Asculum.
Then of the message received from Marcian, and how eagerly he set forth
to cross the Apennines, resolved that, if he could not find Veranilda,
at least he would join himself with her people and fight for their
king; of his encounter with the marauding troop, his arrival, worn and
fevered, at Aesernia, his meeting with Sagaris, their interview, and
what followed upon it.

'To this hour I know not whether the man told me what he believed, or
coldly lied to me. He has the face of a villain and may well have
behaved as one--who knows with what end in view? Could I but lay hands
upon him, I would have the truth out of his tongue by torture. He is in
Rome. I saw him come forth from Marcian's house, when I was there on
the king's service; but, of course, I could not speak with him.'

Veranilda had seated herself within the portico. Basil stood before
her, ever and again meeting her eyes as she looked up.

'Just as little,' he resumed after a pause of troubled thought, 'can I
know whether Marcian believed me a traitor, or himself had a traitorous
mind.