'
A groan of rage and anguish broke from Basil. He wrung his bands
together.
'You lie! A thousand times you lie! Either Veranilda or Aurelia is
in this house. Who was it you brought back with you yesterday when
you returned from beyond the walls?'
The listener uttered a short, fierce laugh.
'So that is what brought you here? O fool! Think you I should have
no more wisdom than that? Since you must needs pry into my doings
yesterday, you shall hear them. I went to the church of the holy
Petronilla, to pray there against all the dangers that environ me--
against the wiles of the wicked, the cruelty of violent men, the
sickness which is rife about us. And when I rose from before the
altar, the servant of God who passes his life there, who is pleased
to regard me with kindness, led me apart into the sacristy, where
sat a woman who had lost her sight. She had travelled, he told me,
from Mediolanum, because of a vision in which she had been bidden to
seek the tomb of the daughter of the chief Apostle; and, whilst
praying in the church, her darkness had been illumined by a vision
of the saint herself, who bade her go into the city, and abide in
the house of the first who offered her welcome, and there at length
she would surely receive her sight.
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