n
fleshly impulse. Yet so strong had this second motive now become, that
he all but regretted his message to the king: to hold Veranilda in his
power, to gratify his passion sooner or later, by this means or by
that, he would perhaps have risked all the danger to which such
audacity exposed him. But Marcian was not lust-bitten quite to madness.
For the present, enough to ruin the hopes of Basil. This done, the
field for his own attempt lay open. By skilful use of his advantages,
he might bring it to pass that Totila would grant him a supreme
reward--the hand of Veranilda.

Unless, indeed, the young king, young and warm-blooded however noble of
mind, should himself look upon Veranilda with a lover's eyes. It was
not the first time that Marcian had thought of this. It made him wince.
But he reminded himself that herein lay another safeguard against the
happiness of Basil, and so was able to disregard the fear.

He would let his victim repose during the heat of the day, and then,
towards evening, would summon her to another interview. Not much longer
could he hope to be with her in privacy; to-morrow, or the next day at
latest, emissaries of the Gothic king would come in response to his
letter. But this evening he should speak with her, gaze upon her, for a
long, long hour. She was gentle, meek, pious; in everything the
exquisite antithesis of such a woman as Heliodora. Out of very humility
she allowed herself to believe that Basil had ceased to love her. How
persuade her, against the pure loyalty of her heart, that he had even
plotted her surrender to an unknown fate? What proof of that could he
devise? Did he succeed in overcoming her doubts, would he not have gone
far towards winning her gratitude?

She would shed tears again; it gave him a nameless pleasure to see
Veranilda weep.

Thinking thus, he strayed aimlessly and unconsciously in courts and
corridors. Night would come again, and could he trust himself through
the long, still night after long speech with Veranilda? A blacker
thought than any he had yet nurtured began to stir in his mind, raising
its head like the viper of an hour ago. Were she but his--his
irredeemably? He tried to see beyond that, but his vision blurred.

Her nature was gentle, timid; the kind of nature, he thought, which
subdues itself to the irreparable. So soft, so sweet, so utterly woman,
might she not, thinking herself abandoned by Basil, yield heart and
soul to a man whom she saw hel