'Gracious lord, that I accused him falsely, I no longer doubt, having had time to reflect upon many things, and to repent of my evil haste. But I am still ignorant of the cause which led him to think ill of me, and so to speak and act in a way which could not but make my heart burn against him.'
'Something of this too I have heard,' said the king, his blue eyes resting upon Basil's countenance with a thoughtful interest. 'You believe, then, that your friend was wholly blameless towards you, in intention and in act?'
'Save inasmuch as credited that strange slander, borne I know not upon what lips.'
'May I hear,' asked Totila, 'what this slander charged upon you?'
Basil raised his head, and put all his courage into a brief reply.
'That I sought to betray the lady Veranilda into the hands of the Greeks.'
'And you think,' said the king slowly, meditatively, his eyes still searching Basil's face, 'that your friend could believe you capable of that?'
'How he could, I know not,' came the sad reply. 'Yet I must needs think it was so.'
'Why?' sounded from the king's lips abruptly, and with a change to unexpected sternness. 'What forbids you the more natural thought that this man, this Marcian, was himself your slanderer?'
'Thinking so, O king, I slew him. Thinking so, I defiled my tongue with base suspicion of Veranilda. Being now again in my right mind, I know that my accusation of her was frenzy, and therefore I choose rather to believe that I wronged Marcian than that he could conceive so base a treachery.'