'None. None whatever.'
'You thought you would remain there for long to come?'
'I had not dared to think of that.'
Marcian took a few paces, glanced at the sweet face, the beautiful
head with its long golden hair, and came back to his place by the
candelabrum, on which he rested a trembling hand.
'Had they spoken of making you a nun?'
A look of dread came upon her countenance, and she whispered, 'Once
or twice.'
'You would never have consented?'
'Only if I had known that release was hopeless, or that Basil--'
Her voice failed.
'That Basil--?' echoed Marcian's lips, in an undertone.
'That he was dead.'
'You never feared that he might have forgotten you?'
Again his accents were so hard that Veranilda gazed at him in
troubled wonder.
'You never feared that?' he added, with fugitive eyes.
'Had I dreamt of it,' she replied, 'I think I should not live.' Then
in a voice of anxious humility, 'Could Basil forget me?'
'Indeed, I should not think it easy,' murmured the other, his eyes
cast down. 'And what,' he continued abruptly, 'was said to you when
you left the convent? In what words did they take leave of you?'
'With none at all.
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