“Don’t you know that?” responded Eustathius, with an air and manner that plainly said, “You don’t know much.”

Humbled and ashamed, Photinius nevertheless wisely stooped to avow his nescience, and flattering his rival on his superior penetration, led him to divulge the State secret that the handsome cupbearer Helladius was but the disguise of the lovely Helladia, the object of Basil’s tenderest affection, and whose romantic attachment to his person had already frustrated more conspiracies than the aged plotter could reckon up.

This intelligence made Photinius for a season exceedingly thoughtful.  He had not deemed Basil of an amorous complexion.  At length he sent for his daughter, the beautiful and virtuous Euprepia, who from time to time visited him in the monastery.

“Daughter,” he said, “it appears to me that the time has now arrived when thou mayest with propriety present a petition to the Emperor on behalf of thy unfortunate father.  Here is the document.  It is, I flatter myself, composed with no ordinary address; nevertheless I will not conceal from thee that I place my hopes rather on thy beauty of person than on my beauty of style.  Shake down thy hair and dishevel it, so!—­that is excellent.  Remember to tear thy robe some little in the poignancy of thy woe, and to lose a sandal.  Tears and sobs of course thou hast always at command, but let not the frenzy of thy grief render thee wholly inarticulate.  Here is a slight memorandum of what is most fitting for thee to say:  thy old nurse’s instructions will do the rest.  Light a candle for St. Sergius, and watch for a favourable opportunity.”

Euprepia was upright, candid, and loyal; but the best of women has something of the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was stimulated by her filial affection.  Basil was for a moment fairly carried away by the consummate fact of her performance and the genuine feeling to her appeal; but he was himself again by the time he had finished perusing his late minister’s long-winded and mendacious memorial.

“What manner of woman was thy mother?” he inquired kindly

Euprepia was eloquent in praise of her deceased parent’s perfections of mind and person.

“Then I can believe thee Photinius’s daughter, which I might otherwise have doubted,” returned Basil.  “As concerns him, I can only say, if he feels himself innocent, let him come out of sanctuary, and stand his trial.  But I will give thee a place at Court.”

This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully consented to his daughter’s entering the Imperial court, exulting at having got in the thin end of the wedge.  She was attached to the person of the Emperor’s sister-in-law, the “Slayer of the Bulgarians” himself being a most determined bachelor.

Time wore on.  Euprepia’s opportunities of visiting her father were less frequent than formerly.  At last she came, looking thoroughly miserable, distracted, and forlorn.