That same day, he despatched the Syrian with a letter to Heliodora, and on the man’s return spoke with him as if carelessly of his commission.  He remarked that the face of Sagaris shone as though exultantly, but no indiscreet word dropped from the vaunter’s lips.  A useful fellow, murmured Marcian within himself, and smiled contempt.

Another day or two of indecision, then in obedience to an impulse he could no longer resist, he sought speech with the deacon Pelagius.  Not without trouble was this obtained, for Pelagius was at all times busy, always beset by suitors of every degree, the Romans holding him in high reverence, and making their appeals to him rather than to the Pope, for whom few had a good word.  When at last Marcian was admitted to the deacon’s presence, he found himself disconcerted by the long, silent scrutiny of eyes deep read in the souls of men.  No word would reach his lips.

‘I have been expecting you,’ said the deacon at length, gravely, but without severity.  ‘You have made no haste to come.’

‘Most reverend,’ replied Marcian, in a tone of the deepest reproach, ’I knew not certainly whether I had indeed made confession to you, or if it was but a dream of fever.’

Pelagius smiled.  He was standing by a table, and his hand lay upon an open volume.

‘You are of noble blood, lord Marcian,’ he continued, ’and the greatness of your ancestors is not unknown to you.  Tell me by what motive you have been induced to play the traitor against Rome.  I cannot think it was for the gain that perishes.  Rather would I suppose you misled by the opinion of Cassiodorus, whose politics were as unsound as his theology.  I read here, in his treatise De Anima, that there is neither bliss nor torment for the soul before the great Day of Judgment—­a flagrant heresy, in utter contradiction of the Scriptures, and long ago refuted by the holy Augustine.  Can you trust in worldly matters one who is so blinded to the clearest truths of eternity?’

‘I confess,’ murmured the listener, ’that I thought him justified in his support of the Gothic kingdom.’

’You are content, then, you whose ancestors have sat in the Senate, to be ruled by barbarians?  You, a Catholic, revolt not against the dominions of Arians?  And so little is your foresight, your speculation, that you dream of permanent conquest of Italy by this leader of a barbaric horde?  I tell you, lord Marcian, that ere another twelvemonth has passed, the Goths will be defeated, scattered, lost.  The Emperor is preparing a great army, and before the end of summer Belisarius will again land on our shores.  Think you Totila can stand against him?  Be warned; consider with yourself.  Because your confession had indeed something of sickness in it, I have forborne to use it against you as another might have done.  But not with impunity can you resume your traitorous practices; of that be assured.’

He paused, looking sternly into Marcian’s face.