From her lounging attitude Heliodora changed suddenly to one in which, whilst seated, she bent forward as though about to spring at him.

’How comes it that Bessas knows every word that has passed between us?’ broke fiercely from her lips.

In an instant Marcian commanded himself, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.

‘That is a question,’ he said, ’to put to your astrologer, your oneirocritic, your genethliac.  I profess not to read mysteries.’

‘Liar!’ she shot out.  ’How could he have had it but from your own lips?’

Marcian betook himself to his utmost dissimulation, and the talk of the next few minutes—­on his part, deliberately provocative; on hers, recklessly vehement—­instructed him in much that he had desired to learn.  It was made clear to him that a long combat of wills and desires had been in progress between the crafty courtesan and the half wily and the half brutal soldier, with a baffling of Heliodora’s devices which would never have come to his knowledge but for this outbreak of rage.  How far the woman had gone in her lures, whether she had played her last stake, he could not even now determine; but he suspected that only such supreme defeat could account for the fury in which he beheld her.  Bessas, having (as was evident) heard the secret from Pelagius, might perchance have played the part of a lover vanquished by his passions, and then, after winning his end by pretence of treachery to the Emperor, had broken into scoffing revelation.  That were a triumph after the Thracian’s heart.  Having read thus far in the past, Marcian had to turn anxious thought upon the future, for his position of seeming security could not long continue.  He bent himself to allay the wrath he had excited.  Falling of a sudden into a show of profound distress, he kept silence for a little, then murmured bitterly: 

’I see what has happened.  When the fever was upon me, my mind wandered, and I talked.’

So convincing was the face, the tone, so plausible the explanation, that Heliodora drew slowly back, her fury all but quenched.  She questioned him as to the likely betrayer, and the name of Sagaris having been mentioned, used the opportunity to learn what she could concerning the man.

‘I cannot promise to give him up to you to be tortured,’ said Marcian, with his characteristic smile of irony.

‘That I do not ask.  But,’ she added significantly, ’will you send him here, and let me use gentler ways of discovering what I can?’

‘That, willingly.’

And when Marcian went away, he reflected that all was not yet lost.  For Heliodora still had faith in the prophecy of her astrologer; she was more resolute than ever in her resolve to triumph over Bessas; she could gain nothing to this end by helping her confederate’s ruin.  Before parting, they had agreed that Marcian would do well to affect ignorance of the discovery Bessas had made; time and events must instruct them as to the projects of their enemies, and guide their own course.