It is her dread lest you, learning who she is, should find your
love chilled.'
'Call her,' cried Basil, starting to his feet. 'Or let me go to her.
She shall not suffer that fear for another moment. Veranilda!
Veranilda!'
His companion retained and quieted him. He should see Veranilda ere
long. But there was yet something to be spoken of.
'Have you forgotten that she is not of your faith?'
'Do I love her, adore her, the less?' exclaimed Basil. 'Does she
shrink from me on that account?'
'I know,' pursued his cousin, 'what the Apostle of the Gentiles has
said: "For the husband who believes not is sanctified by the wife,
and the wife who believes not is sanctified by the husband." None
the less, Veranilda is under the menace of the Roman law; and you,
if it be known that you have wedded her, will be in peril from all
who serve the Emperor--at least in dark suspicion; and will be
slightly esteemed by all of our house.'
The lover paced about, and all at once, with a wild gesture, uttered
his inmost thought.
'What if I care naught for those of our house? And what if the
Emperor of the East is of as little account to me? My country is not
Byzantium, but Rome.
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