n the house, having come yesterday to reside
here from the Anician palace beyond the Tiber.

'Tell him at once that I am here. Stay; I dare say he is in the
library. I will go to him.'

He passed through the atrium, adorned with ancestral busts and with the
consular fasces which for centuries had signified nothing, through a
room hung with tapestry and floored with fine mosaic, through the
central court, where the fountain was dry, and by a colonnade reached
the secluded room which was called library, though few books remained
out of the large collection once guarded here. In a sunny embrasure, a
codex open on his knees, sat the pale student; seeing Basil, he started
up in great surprise, and, when they had embraced, regarded him
anxiously.

'How is this? What has happened? Some calamity, I see.'

'Seek some word, O Decius, to utter more than that. I have suffered
worse than many deaths.'

'My best, my dearest Basil!' murmured the other tenderly. 'You have
lost her?'

'Lost her? yes; but not as you mean it. Is Petronilla in Rome?'

'She arrived the day before yesterday, two hours after sunset.'

'And you have seen her, talked with her?'

'I was at the house yonder when she came.'

'And she behaved ill to you?' asked Basil.

'Far from that, Petronilla overwhelmed me with affection and courtesy.
I knew not,' proceeded Decius smiling, 'how I had all at once merited
such attention. I came away merely because this situation better suits
my health. Down by the river I have never been at ease. But let me hear
what has befallen you.'

Basil told his story, beginning with the explanation of Veranilda's
importance in the eyes of the Greek commander. After learning from the
Hun that nothing was known of the lost ladies at Cumae, he had
impatiently lingered for three days in the castle of Venantius, on the
chance that Marcian might be able to test the truth of Chorsoman's
report; but his friend made no discovery, and in despair he set out for
Rome. To all this Decius listened with wonder and with sympathy. He had
no difficulty in crediting Petronilla with such a plot, but thought she
could scarce have executed it without the help of some one in
authority. Such a person, he added cautiously, as a deacon of the Roman
Church. Hereupon Basil exclaimed that he and Marcian had had the same
suspicion.

'I will find her,' he cried, 'if it cost me my life! And I will be
revenged upon those who have robbed me of her. She may