The speaker paused, as if to collect courage.

‘He spoke ill of me?’ asked Basil.

’He spoke much ill.  He accused you of disloyalty in friendship, saying that he had but newly learnt how you had deceived him.  More than this he had not time to tell.’

Basil looked into the old man’s rheumy eyes.

’You do well to utter this, good father.  Tell me one thing more.  Yonder maiden, does she breathe the same charge against me?’

‘Not so,’ replied Gaudiosus.  ‘Of you she said no evil.’

’Yet I scarce think’—­he smiled coldly—­’that she made profession of love for me?’

’My son, her speech was maidenly.  She spoke of herself as erstwhile your betrothed; no more than that.’

As he uttered these words, the priest rose.  He had an uneasy look, as if he feared that infirmity of will and fondness for gossip had betrayed him into some neglect of spiritual obligation.

‘It is better,’ he said, ’that we should converse no more.  I know not what your purposes may be, nor do they concern me I remain here to pray by the dead, and I shall despatch a messenger to my brother presbyter, that we may prepare for the burial.  Remember,’ he raised his head, and his voice struck a deeper note, ’that the guilt of blood is upon you, and that no plea of earthly passion will avail before the Almighty Judge.  Behold your hand—­even so, but far more deeply have you stained your soul.’

Basil scarce heard.  Numbness had crept over him again; he stared at the doorway by which the priest re-entered the house, and only after some minutes recalled enough of the old man’s last words to look upon his defiled hand.  Then he called aloud, summoning any slave who might hear him, and when the doorkeeper came timidly from a recess where he had been skulking, bade him bring water.  Having cleansed himself, he walked by an outer way to the rear of the villa; for he durst not pass through the atrium.

Here his men were busy over their meal, sitting or sprawling in a shadowed place, the slaves waiting upon them.  With a reminder that they must hold themselves ready to ride at any moment, he passed on through a large, wild garden, and at length, where a grove of box-trees surrounded the ruins of a little summer-house, cast himself to the ground.

His breast heaved, his eyes swelled and smarted, but he could not shed tears.  Face downwards, like a man who bites the earth in his last agony, he lay quivering.  So did an hour or more pass by.

He was roused by the voices of his men, who were searching and calling for him.  With an effort, he rose to his feet, and stepped out into the sunshine, when he learnt that a troop of soldiers had just ridden up to the villa, and that their captain, who had already entered, was asking for him by name.  Careless what might await him, Basil followed the men as far as the inner court, and there stood Venantius.