Basil spoke of his hope that Rome might be restored to the same freedom it had enjoyed under the great king.  Then they would dwell together in the sacred city.  That, too, was Veranilda’s desire; for on her ear the name of Rome fell with a magic sound; all her life she had heard it spoken reverentially, with awe, yet the city itself she had never seen.  Rome, she knew, was vast; there, it seemed to her, she would live unobserved, unthought of save by him she loved.  Seclusion from all strangers, from all who, learning her origin, would regard her slightingly, was what her soul desired.

Day had broken; behind the mountains there was light of the sun.  Once more they held each other heart to heart, and Veranilda hastened through the garden to regain her chamber.  Basil stood for some minutes lost in a delicious dream; the rising day made his face beautiful, his eyes gleamed with an unutterable rapture.  At length he sighed and awoke and looked about him.  At no great distance, as though just issued from the ilex wood, moved a man’s figure.  It approached very slowly, and Basil watched until he saw that the man was bent as if with age, and had black garments such as were worn by wandering mendicant monks.  Carelessly he turned, and went his way back to the villa.

An hour later, Aurelia learnt that a ‘holy man,’ a pilgrim much travel worn, was begging to be admitted to her.  She refused to see him.  Still he urged his entreaty, declaring that he had a precious gift for her acceptance, and an important message for her ear.  At length he was allowed to enter the atrium, and Aurelia saw before her a man in black monkish habit, his body bent and tremulous, but evidently not with age, for his aspect otherwise was that of middle life.  What, she asked briefly and coldly, was his business with her?  Thereupon the monk drew from his bosom a small wrappage of tissues, which when unfolded disclosed a scrap of something hairy.

‘This, noble lady,’ said the monk, in a voice reverently subdued, ’is from the camel-hair garment of Holy John the Baptist.  I had it of a hermit in the Egyptian desert, who not many days after I quitted him was for his sanctity borne up to heaven by angels, and knew not death.’

Aurelia viewed the relic with emotion.

‘Why,’ she asked, ‘do you offer it to me?’

The monk drew a step nearer and whispered: 

’Because I know that you, like him from whom I received it, are of the true faith.’

Aurelia observed him closely.  His robe was ragged and filthy; his bare feet were thick with the dust of the road; his visage, much begrimed, wore an expression of habitual suffering, and sighs as of pain frequently broke from him.  The hand by which he supported himself on a staff trembled as with weakness.

‘You are not a presbyter?’ she said in an undertone, after a glance at his untonsured head.

’I am unworthy of the meanest order in the Church.  In pilgrimings and fastings I do penance for a sin of youth.  You see how wasted is my flesh.’