‘This Totila,’ pursued Marcian, ’seems to be not only a brave and capable commander, but a shrewd politician.  Everywhere he spares the people; he takes nothing by force; his soldiers buy at market; he protects the farmer against the taxing Greek.  As a result, his army grows; where he passes, he leaves a good report, and before him goes a welcome.  At this rate he will soon make all Italy his own.  And unless the Patricius returns—­’

By this title men were wont to speak of Belisarius.  Hearing it, Basil threw up an arm, his eyes flashing.

‘The Patricius!’ he exclaimed fervently.  ’There is the man who might have saved us!’

‘By the holy Laurentius!’ murmured Maximus, looking sadly at his nephew, ‘I have all but come to think as you do.’

‘Who that knew him,’ cried Basil, ’but must have seen him, in thought—­not King, for only the barbarians have kings—­but Emperor—­Emperor of the West, ruling at Rome as in the days gone by!  There lives no man more royal.  I have seen him day by day commanding and taking counsel; I have talked with him in his privacy.  In the camp before Ravenna there was but one voice, one hope, as to what should follow when the city opened its gates, and the Goths themselves only surrendered because they thought to be ruled by him.  But for the scruple of his conscience—­and should not that have yielded to the general good?’

‘Is breach of faith so light a thing?’ fell from Marcian, under his breath.

‘Nay,’ answered the other, with drooping head, ’but he did break faith with us.  We had his promise; we saw him Emperor—­’

‘You should have won Antonina,’ said Marcian, with a return to his sarcastic humour.  ’She must have mused long and anxiously, weighing the purple against Theodora’s fury.  The Patrician’s fidelity stood by his wife’s prudence.’

‘The one blot upon his noble nature,’ uttered Basil, with a sigh.  ‘His one weakness.  How,’ he cried scornfully, ’can the conqueror of half the world bend before such a woman?’

Fatigued already by the conversation, Maximus had lain back and closed his eyes.  Very soon the two young men received his permission to withdraw, and, as they left the room, the physician entered.  Obedient to this counsellor the invalid gave several hours to repose, but midway in the afternoon he again summoned his daughter, with whom he had a long and agitating conversation.  He besought Aurelia to cast off her heretical religion, putting before her all the perils to which she exposed herself, by abandonment of the true faith, in this world and the next.  His life was hurrying to its end; hour by hour he felt the fever wasting what little strength remained to him; and when he was gone who would protect her against the enmities to which religion and avarice would expose her?  Aurelia’s resistance was sullen rather than resolute; her countenance, her words, suggested that she was thinking more of what