hat, if either of us
tried to escape, we should be fettered, and only the fear of that
indignity kept Aurelia still. Her face, as I remember its last look,
was dreadful, so white and anguished. I have often feared that, if she
were long kept prisoner, she would lose her senses.'

Basil having heard the story to an end without speaking, made known the
thoughts it stirred in him. They talked of Petronilla and of the deacon
Leander, and sought explanations of Veranilda's release. And, as thus
they conversed, they forgot all that had come between them; their
constraint insensibly passed away; till at length Basil was sitting by
Veranilda's side, and holding her hand, and their eyes met in a long
gaze of love and trust and hope.

'Can you forgive?' murmured Basil, upon whom, in the fulness of his
joy, came the memory of what he deemed his least pardonable sin.

'How can I talk of forgiveness,' she returned, 'when not yours was the
blame, but mine? For I believed--or all but believed--that you had
forgotten me.'

'Beloved, I was guilty of worse than faithlessness. I dread to think,
and still more to speak, of it; yet if I am silent, I spare myself; and
seem, perhaps, to make light of baseness for which there are no words
of fitting scorn. That too, be assured, O Veranilda, I confessed to the
holy Benedict.'

Her bowed head and flushing cheek told him that she understood.

'Basil,' she whispered, 'it was not you, not you.'

'Gladly would I give myself that comfort. When I think, indeed, that
this hand was raised to take my friend's life, I shake with horror and
say, "Not _I_ did that!" Even so would I refuse to charge my very self
with those words that my lips uttered. But to you they were spoken; you
heard them; you fled before them--'

'Basil! Basil!'

She had hidden her face with her hands. Basil threw himself upon his
knees beside her.

'Though I spoke in madness, can you ever forget? God Himself, I know,
will sooner blot out my sin of murder than this wound I inflicted upon
your pure and gentle heart!'

Veranilda caught his hand and pressed her lips upon it, whilst her
tears fell softly.

'Listen, dearest Basil,' she said. 'To think that I guard this in my
memory against you would be to do me wrong. Remember how first I spoke
to you about it, when we first knew that we loved each other. Did I not
tell you that this was a thing which could never be quite forgotten?
Did I not know that, if ever I sinned, or