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!'