'I told you before, good Basil, that I was here to spy upon you; and be sure that I did not undertake that office without exacting a proof of the confidence of our lords at Rome. Something I carry with me which has power over such dogs as Chorsoman.'
'I saw that, best Marcian. But it did not avail to save my cousin Aurelia from robbery.'
'Nothing would, where Chorsoman was sure of a week's—nay, of an hour's—impunity. But did he steal aught belonging to the Gothic maiden?'
'To Veranilda? She has but a bracelet and a ring, and those she was wearing. They came from her mother, a woman of noblest heart, who, when her husband Ebrimut played the traitor, and she was left behind in Italy, would keep nothing but these two trinkets, which once were worn by Amalafrida.'
'You know all that now,' observed Marcian quietly.
'The story of the trinkets only since an hour or two ago. That of Veranilda's parentage I learned from Aurelia, Veranilda refusing to converse with me until I knew.'
'Since when you have conversed, I take it, freely enough.'
'Good my lord,' replied Basil, with a look of some earnestness, 'let us not jest on this matter.'
'I am little disposed to do so, O fiery lover!' said Marcian, with a return of his wonted melancholy. 'For I have that to tell you which makes the matter grave enough. We were right, you see, in our guess of Veranilda's origin; I could wish she had been any one else. Patience, patience! You know that I left you here to go to Neapolis. There I received letters from Rome, one of them from Bessas himself, and, by strange hazard, the subject of it was the daughter of Ebrimut.'
Basil made a gesture of repugnance. 'Nay, call her the daughter of Theodenantha.'