‘Had they spoken of making you a nun?’

A look of dread came upon her countenance, and she whispered, ’Once or twice.’

‘You would never have consented?’

‘Only if I had known that release was hopeless, or that Basil—­’

Her voice failed.

‘That Basil—?’ echoed Marcian’s lips, in an undertone.

‘That he was dead.’

‘You never feared that he might have forgotten you?’

Again his accents were so hard that Veranilda gazed at him in troubled wonder.

‘You never feared that?’ he added, with fugitive eyes.

‘Had I dreamt of it,’ she replied, ‘I think I should not live.’  Then in a voice of anxious humility, ‘Could Basil forget me?’

‘Indeed, I should not think it easy,’ murmured the other, his eyes cast down.  ‘And what,’ he continued abruptly, ’was said to you when you left the convent?  In what words did they take leave of you?’

’With none at all.  I was bidden prepare for a journey, and soon after they led me to the gates.  I knew nothing, nor did the woman with me.’

‘Was the lady Aurelia in the same convent?’ Marcian next inquired.

’I never saw her after we had landed from the ship which carried us from Surrentum?’

‘You do not know, of course, that Petronilla is dead?’

He told her of that, and of other events such as would interest her, but without uttering the name of Basil.  Above all, he spoke of Totila, lauding the victorious king who would soon complete his triumph by the conquest of Rome.

‘I had all but forgotten,’ were Veranilda’s words, when she had listened anxiously.  ‘I thought only of Basil.’

He turned abruptly from her, seemed to reflect for a moment, and said with formal politeness: 

’Permit me now to leave you, lady.  This house is yours.  I would it offered you worthier accommodation.  As soon as I have news, I will again come before you.’

Veranilda rose whilst he was speaking.  Her eyes were fixed upon him, wistfully, almost pleadingly, and before he had reached the exit she advanced a step, with lips parted as if to beseech his delay.  But he walked too hurriedly, and was gone ere she durst utter a word.

At the same hurried pace, gazing before him and seeing nothing, Marcian left the villa, and walked until he came to the river side.  Here was a jutting rock known as the Lover’s Leap; story told of a noble maiden, frenzied by unhappy love, who had cast herself into the roaring waterfall.  Long he stood on the brink, till his eyes dazzled from the sun-stricken foam.  His mind was blasted with shame; he could not hold his head erect.  In sorry effort to recover self-respect he reasoned inwardly thus: