‘How come you to know all this?’ Heliodora asked bluntly at the first pause.

‘That also I will tell you,’ answered Marcian.  ’It is through some one whom Muscula holds of more account than Bessas, and with whom she schemes against him.’

‘By the Holy’ Mother!’ exclaimed Heliodora, ‘that is yourself.’

Marcian shook his head.

‘Not so, gracious lady.’

’Nay, why should you scruple to confess it?  You love Veranilda, and do you think I could not pardon an intrigue which lay on your way to her?’

‘Nevertheless it is not I,’ persisted the other gravely.

‘Be it so,’ said Heliodora.  ’And in all this, my good Marcian, what part have I?  How does it regard me?  What do you seek of me?’

Once more the man seemed overcome with confusion.

‘Indeed I scarce know,’ he murmured.  ’I hardly dare to think what was in my mind when I sought you.  I came to you, O Heliodora, as to one before whom men bow, one whose beauty is resistless, whose wish is a command.  What gave me courage was a word that fell from Bessas himself when I sat at table with him yesterday.  “Wore I the purple,” he said, “Heliodora should be my Empress."’

‘Bessas said that?’

’He did—­and in the presence of Muscula, who heard it, I am bound to say, with a sour visage.’

Heliodora threw back her head and laughed.  ’I think he has scarce seen me thrice,’ fell from her musingly.  ‘Tell him from me,’ she added, ’that it is indiscreet to talk of wearing the purple before those who may report his words.’

There was a silence.  Marcian appeared to brood, and Heliodora did her best to read his face.  If, she asked herself; he had told her falsehoods, to what end had he contrived them?  Nothing that she could conjecture was for a moment satisfying.  If he told the truth, what an opportunity were here for revenge on Muscula, and for the frustration of Basil’s desire.

How that revenge was to be wrought, or, putting it the other way, how Marcian was to be helped, she saw as yet only in glimpses of ruthless purpose.  Of Bessas she did not think as of a man easy to subdue or to cajole; his soldierly rudeness, the common gossip of his inconstancy in love, and his well-known avarice, were not things likely to touch her imagination, nor had she ever desired to number him in the circle of her admirers.  That it might be in her power to do what Marcian besought, she was very willing to persuade herself, but the undertaking had such colour of danger that she wished for more assurance of the truth of what she had heard.

‘It seems to me,’ she said at length, ’that the hour is of the latest.  What if Veranilda escape this very day?’

‘Some days must of necessity pass,’ answered Marcian.  ’The plot is not so far advanced.’

He rose hurriedly as if distracted by painful thoughts.

’Noble lady, forgive me for thus urging you with my foolish sorrows.  You see how nearly I am distraught.  If by any means you could aid me, were it only so far as to withhold her I love from the arms of Basil—­’