the thin lips, firmly as he closed them, sometimes betrayed by a
slight, involuntary quiver that this rigid, corpse-like face was not a
death-mask.

Gelimer had started up the instant he saw the priest, and now, hurrying
toward him, clasped the motionless figure, which stood with arms
hanging loosely before him, ardently to his heart.

"Verus, my Verus!" he cried, "my guardian angel! And you!--_you_!--they
are trying to make me distrust. Really, brother, the stars would sooner
change from God's eternal order in the heavens than this man fail in
his fidelity to me." He kissed him on the cheek. Verus remained
perfectly unmoved. Zazo watched the pair wrathfully.

"He has more love, more feeling," he muttered, stroking his thick
beard, "for that Roman, that alien, than for--Speak, priest, can you
deny that last Sunday, after midnight, Pudentius--ah, your lips
quiver--Pudentius of Tripolis was secretly admitted by you through the
little door in the eastern gate and received in your house, beside your
basilica? Speak!"

Gelimer's eyes rested lovingly on his friend, and, smiling faintly, he
shook his head. Verus was silent.

"Speak," Zazo repeated. "Deny it if you dare. You did not suspect that
I was watching in the tower after I had relieved the guard. I had long
suspected the gate-keeper; he was once a slave of Pudentius. You bought
and freed him. Do you see, brother? He is silent! I will arrest him at
once. We will search for secret letters his house, his chest, the
altars, the sarcophagi of his church, nay, even his clothes."

Now Verus's black eyes suddenly blazed upon the bold soldier, then
after a swift side-glance at Gelimer were again bent calmly on the
floor.

"Or do you deny it?"

"No," fell almost inaudibly from the scarcely parted lips.

"Do you hear that, brother?"

Gelimer hastily advanced a step nearer to Verus.

"It was to tell you this that I requested an immediate interview," said
the latter, quietly, turning his back on Zazo.

"That's what I call presence of mind!" cried Zazo, laughing loudly.
"But how will you prove it?"

"I have brought the proof that Pudentius is a traitor," Verus went on,
turning to Gelimer, without paying the slightest attention to his
accuser. "Here it is."

He slowly threw back his cloak, passed his hand through the folds of
his under garment, and after a short search drew from his breast a
small, crumpled strip of papyrus, which he handed to Gelimer, who
hurriedly