A memory flashed across him, troubling his
brow.
'What else were you told?' he asked abruptly. 'Can it be a woman's
name was spoken? You are silent. Will you not say that this thought,
also, you abhorred and rejected?'
The simple honesty of Veranilda's nature would not allow her to
disguise what she thought. Urging question after question, with
ardour irresistible, Basil learnt all she had been told by Marcian
concerning Heliodora, and, having learnt it, confessed the whole
truth in utter frankness, in the plain, blunt words dictated by his
loathing of the Greek woman with whom he had once played at love.
And, as she listened, Veranilda's heart grew light; for the time
before her meeting with Basil seemed very far away, and the
tremulous passion in his voice assured her of all she cared to know,
that his troth pledged to her had never suffered wrong. Basil spoke
on and on, told of his misery in Rome whilst vainly seeking her; how
he was baffled and misled; how at length, in despair, he left the
city and went to his estate by Asculum. Then of the message received
from Marcian, and how eagerly he set forth to cross the Apennines,
resolved that, if he could not find Veranilda, at least he would
join himself with her people and fight for their king; of his
encounter with the marauding troop, his arrival, worn and fevered,
at Aesernia, his meeting with Sagaris, their interview, and what
followed upon it.
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