And so it was done.  Having deposited their burden between two columns of the portico, the bearers withdrew.  The father’s voice uttered the name of Aurelia, and, putting aside the curtains that had concealed her, she stood before him.  A woman still young, and of bearing which became her birth; a woman who would have had much grace, much charm, but for the passion which, turned to vehement self-will, had made her blood acrid.  Her great dark eyes burned with quenchless resentment; her sunken and pallid face told of the sufferings of a tortured pride.

‘Lord Maximus,’ were her first words, as she stood holding by the litter, glancing distrustfully about her, ‘you have sworn!’

‘Hear me repeat my oath,’ answered the father, strengthened by his emotion to move forward from the couch.  ’By the blessed martyr Pancratius, I swear that no harm shall befall you, no constraint shall be put upon you, that you shall be free to come and to go as you will.’

It was the oath no perjurer durst make.  Aurelia gazed into her father’s face, which was wet with tears.  She stepped nearer to him, took his thin, hot hand, and, as in her childhood, bent to kiss the back of the wrist.  But Maximus folded her to his heart.

CHAPTER II

BASIL’S VISION

Basil and Decius paced together a garden alley, between a row of quince-trees and a hedge of Christ’s-thorn; at one end was a fountain in a great basin of porphyry, at the other a little temple, very old and built for the worship of Isis, now an oratory under the invocation of the Blessed Mary.  The two young men made a singular contrast, for Basil, who was in his twenty-third year, had all the traits of health and vigour:  a straight back, lithe limbs, a face looking level on the world, a lustrous eye often touched to ardour, a cheek of the purest carnation, a mouth that told of fine instincts, delicate sensibilities, love of laughter.  No less did his costume differ from the student’s huddled garb; his tunic was finely embroidered in many hues, his silken cloak had a great buckle of gold on the shoulder; he wore ornate shoes, and by his waist hung a silver-handled dagger in a sheath of chased bronze.  He stepped lightly, as one who asks but the occasion to run and leap.  In their intimate talk, he threw an arm over his companion’s neck, a movement graceful as it was affectionate; his voice had a note frank and cordial.

Yet Basil was not quite his familiar self to-day; he talked with less than his natural gaiety, wore a musing look, fell into silences.  Now that Aurelia had come, there was no motive for reserve on that subject with Decius, and indeed they conversed of their kinswoman with perfect openness, pitying rather than condemning her, and wondering what would result from her presence under one roof with the rigid Petronilla.  Not on Aurelia’s account did Basil droop his head now and then, look about him vacantly, bite his lip, answer a question at hazard, play nervously with his dagger’s hilt.  All at once, with an abruptness which moved his companion’s surprise, he made an inquiry, seemingly little relevant to their topic.