false!' he echoed involuntarily.

'Who is it,' continued Petronilla with slow scorn, 'that you have
trusted blindly? To whom have you looked for guidance and protection?
Who has fostered your suspicion against _me_?'

An intolerable pang went through the listener's heart.

'That's but another lie!' he exclaimed furiously. 'O basest of women
born!'

A hand was upon his dagger. Petronilla rose and stepped back a little,
glancing towards one of the drawn curtains.

'You have threatened my life,' she said in an undertone. 'Remember that
it is you who are in my power. If I raise my voice on one word, the
next moment you will lie pierced by a score of weapons. Moderate your
insults: my temper is not meek.'

Basil thought for a moment with painful intentness.

'Speak plainly,' he said at length. 'You would have me suspect--? I am
ashamed to utter the name.'

'Keep it to yourself and muse upon it.'

'You dare bid me think that he, my dearest and most loyal friend, has
infamously betrayed me? Now I know indeed that you have lied to me in
every word, for this is the last audacity of baseness. You hope to
poison my soul against him, and so, whilst guarding yourself, bring
more evil upon those you hate. But you have overreached yourself. Only
cunning driven desperate could have devised this trick. Listen to me
again, before it is too late. Give me Veranilda. I take upon myself all
the peril. It shall be made to appear that I have all along kept her in
hiding, and that you knew nothing of her. Be advised before the worst
comes upon you. I will escape with her to a place of safety that I know
of; _you_ will be declared innocent, and no one will care to ask what
has become of Aurelia. Think well; you spoke of prisons, but the Greeks
have worse than imprisonment for those who incur their wrath. Will
Bessas forego revenge when, after much trouble, he has wrested the
captive from your hands? Think!'

Petronilla's countenance, fixed as a face in marble, still suggested no
thought save one of scorn; but there was a brief silence before she
replied.

'I would not have believed,' she said calmly, 'that a man could be so
besotted with foolish passions. Listen, you in turn. Where those women
are, I know as little as do you yourself. I think, and have good reason
for thinking, that the Goth is already on her way to Constantinople,
but I have no certainty of it. The one thing I do surely know, is that
you are hoodwinked and baffled