At their last
meeting she had sat with furrowed brows, brooding as if over some
wrong, and when he urged her for an explanation of her mood, she was
first petulant, then fiery, so that he took umbrage and left her.
Happily she knew none of his graver secrets, much though she had
tried to discover them. Were she traitorous, she could betray him
alone.
But he, in the wreck of his manhood, had uttered many names besides
hers--that of Basil, from whom he had recently heard news, that of
the politic Leander, those of several nobles engaged in the Gothic
cause. Scarcely could he believe that he had been guilty of such
baseness; he would fain have persuaded himself that it was but a
memory of delirium. He cursed the subtlety of Pelagius, which had
led him on till everything was uttered. Pelagius, the bosom friend
of Justinian, would know how to deal with plotters against the
Empire. Why had he not already struck? What cunning held his hand?
Unable at length to sit in idleness, he tried to ease his conscience
by sending a warning to Basil, using for this purpose the
trustworthy slave who, in many disguises, was wont to travel with
his secret messages.
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