"I am also chancellor of this kingdom. The former King would be far too dangerous if he were set at liberty. Romans, Catholics,--he is said secretly to have joined this church,--might gather round him, and 'the rightful King of the Vandals' would be a much-desired weapon against the 'Tyrant' Gelimer. The prisoners will be better off where they are. Their lives are safe--" "They have repeatedly requested an audience; they wish to justify themselves. These petitions--" "Were always granted. I have heard them myself." "What resulted from them?" "Nothing that I did not already know. Did you not feel the armor under Hilderic's robe, wrest the dagger from his hand yourself?" "Alas, yes! Yet I so easily distrust myself. Ambition, desire for this crown (one of my heaviest sins), made me only too ready to believe in Hilderic's guilt. And now the captive King, protesting his innocence, appealing to a warning letter received by him on that day, which would explain and prove everything, requests another trial. Yet you have fulfilled the prisoner's wish and searched for it in the place he named?" "Certainly," said Verus, quietly, his lifeless features growing even more rigid, more sternly controlled. "That letter is an invention. As Hilderic repeatedly asserted that he had concealed it in a secret drawer of 'Genseric's Golden Chest,'--you know the coffer, Gibamund?--I searched the whole chest with my own hands and alone. I even found the secret drawer and opened it; nothing of the kind was there. Nay, at the prisoner's earnest entreaties, I had the coffer carried to his dungeon and examined by himself in the presence of witnesses. He, too, found nothing." "And no one could have previously removed the letter?" asked Gelimer. "You and I alone have the keys to the chest which contains the most important documents. But I must leave you now," said the priest. "I have many letters to write to-night. Farewell!" "I thank you, my Verus. May the angel of the Lord watch over me in Heaven as faithfully as you watch and care for me on earth." The priest closed his eyes a moment, then smiling faintly, nodded, saying: "That is my prayer also." He glided noiselessly across the threshold. CHAPTER XXI Hilda followed Verus's retreating figure with a long, long look; at last, with a slight shake of her beautiful head, she went up to Gelimer and said: "Do not be angry, my King, if I ask a question which nothing gives me the right to utter, except my anxiety for your welfare, and that of all our people." "And my love for you, brave sister-in-law," replied Gelimer, gently stroking her flowing golden hair, and seating himself on the couch again. "For," he added, smiling, "though you are a wicked pagan and often cherish--as I well know--secret resentment, nay, animosity, against me, I love you, foolish, impetuous young heart."