Providential was the coming of the holy Sisinnius.  Beyond doubt he had the gift of prophecy.  From him she would not only receive the consolations of religion, but might learn what awaited her.  Very slowly passed the hours until the reappearance of the black monk.  He came when day was declining, and joyfully she learnt that Sisinnius permitted her to visit him; it must be on the morrow at the second hour, the place a spot in the ilex wood, not far away, whither the monk would guide her.  But she must come alone; were she accompanied, even at a distance, by any attendant, Sisinnius would refuse to see her.  To all the conditions Aurelia readily consented, and bade the monk meet her at the appointed hour by the breach in her garden wall.

On the morrow there was no glory of sunrise; clouds hung heavy, and a sobbing wind shook the dry leaves of the vine.  But at the second hour, after pretence of idling about the garden, Aurelia saw approach the black, bowed figure, with a gesture bade him go before, and followed.  She was absent not long enough to excite the remark of her household.  In going forth she had been pale with agitation; at her return she had a fire in her cheeks, a lustre in her eyes, which told of hopes abundantly fulfilled.  At once she sought Veranilda, to whom she had not yet spoken of the monk’s visit.  At this juncture the coming even of an ordinary priest of the Arian faith would have been more than welcome to them, living as they perforce did without office or sacrament; but Sisinnius, declared Aurelia, was a veritable man of God, one who had visions and saw into the future, one whom merely to behold was a sacred privilege.  She had begged his permission to visit him again, with Veranilda, and he had consented; but a few days must pass before that, as the holy man was called away she knew not whither.  When he summoned them they must go forth in early morning, to a certain cave near at hand, where Sisinnius would say mass and administer to them the communion.  Hearing such news, Veranilda gladdened.

‘Will the holy man reveal our fate to us?’ she asked, with a child’s simplicity.

‘To me he has already uttered a prophetic word,’ answered Aurelia, ’but I may not repeat it, no, not even to you.  Enough that it has filled my soul with wonder and joy.’

‘May that joy also be mine!’ said Veranilda, pressing her hands together.

This afternoon, when Basil sat with her and Aurelia, she took her cithern, and in a low voice sang songs she had heard her mother sing, in the days before shame and sorrow fell upon Theodenantha.  There were old ballads of the Goths, oftener stern than tender, but to the listeners, ignorant of her tongue, Veranilda’s singing made them sweet as lover’s praise.  One little song was Greek; it was all she knew of that language, and the sole inheritance that had come to her from her Greek-loving grandparent, the King Theodahad.

Auster was blowing; great lurid clouds rolled above the dark green waters, and at evening rain began to fall.  Through the next day, and the day after that, the sky still lowered; there was thunder of waves upon the shore; at times a mist swept down from the mountains, which enveloped all in gloom.  To Basil and Veranilda it mattered nothing.  Where they sat together there was sunshine, and before them gleamed an eternity of cloudless azure.