the occasion to beseech Aurelia--as she had
often done since the death of her Gothic lord--to be reconciled with
the true church.

'True church!' exclaimed Aurelia, with sudden passion. 'How do you know
which is the true church? Have not emperors, have not bishops and
numberless holy men lived and died in the faith I confess--?'

She checked herself; grew silent, brooded. Meanwhile, the old nurse
talked on, and presently began to relate how a handmaid of Petronilla,
in going with her this morning, professed to know on the surest
evidence that Aurelia, by her father's deathbed, had renounced
Arianism. The sullen countenance of her mistress flashed again into
wrath.

'Did I not forbid you,' cried Aurelia, 'to converse with those women?
And you dare repeat to me their loose-lipped chatter. I am too familiar
with you; go and talk with your kind; go!'

Mutteringly the woman went apart. The mistress, alone, fell into a long
weeping. When she had sobbed herself into quiet once more, she sought a
volume of the Gospels, inserted her forefinger between the pages at
random, and anxiously regarded the passage thus chosen.

'While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the
children of light.'

She brooded, but in the end seemed to find solace.

Basil was absent all day. On his return, just before sunset, Aurelia
met him in the atrium, heard the report of what he had done, and at
length asked whether, on the day after to-morrow, he could go to Cumae.

'To Cumae?' exclaimed Basil. 'Ay, that I can! You are returning
thither?'

'For a day only. I go to seek that which no one but myself can find.'

The listener had no difficulty in understanding this; it meant, of
course, treasure concealed in the house Aurelia had long inhabited.

'We must both go and return by sea,' said Aurelia, 'even though it
cause us delay. I have no mind to pass through Neapolis.'

'Be it so. The sky will be calm when this storm has passed Shall you
return,' said Basil, 'alone?'

'Alone? Do you purpose to forsake me?'

'Think better of my manners, cousin--and more shrewdly of my meaning.'

'You mean fairly, I trust?' she returned, looking him steadily in the
face.

'Nay,' cried the young man vehemently, 'if I have any thought other
than honest, may I perish before I ever again behold her!'

Aurelia's gaze softened.

'It is well,' she said; 'we will speak again to-morrow.'

That night Petronilla kept vigil in the church of S