A knock at the door awoke him. It was Felix, who brought the news that Marcian was at Cumae. 'You have seen him?' cried Basil, astonished and eager. 'His servant Sagaris,' Felix replied. 'I met him but now in the forum, and learnt that his lord lodges at the house of the curial Venustus; hard by the Temple of Diana.' 'Go thither at once, and beg him, if his leisure serve, to come to me. I would go myself; but, if he have seen Sagaris, he may be already on the way here.' And so it proved, for in a very few minutes Marcian himself entered the room. 'Your uncle is dead,' were his first words. 'I heard it in Neapolis yesterday. What brings you here?' 'Nay, best Marcian,' returned the other, with hands on his friend's shoulders, and peering him in the face, 'let me once again put that question to _you_.' 'I cannot answer it, yet,' said Marcian gravely. 'Your business is more easily guessed.' 'But must not be talked of here,' interrupted Basil, glancing at the door. 'Let us find some more suitable place.' They descended the dark, foul stairs, and went out together. Before the house stood the two serving-men, who, as their masters walked away, followed at a respectful distance. When safe from being overheard, Basil recounted to his friend the course of events at the Surrentine villa since Marcian's departure, made known his suspicion that Aurelia had secretly returned to the Catholic faith. He then told of to day's journey and its purpose, his hearer wearing a look of grave attention. 'Can it be,' asked Marcian, 'that you think of wedding this Gothic beauty?' 'Assuredly,' answered Basil, with a laugh, 'I have thought of it.' 'And it looks as though Aurelia favoured your desire.' 'It has indeed something of that appearance.' 'Pray you now, dear lord,' said Marcian, 'be sober awhile. Have you reflected that, with such a wife, you would not dare return to Rome?' Basil had not regarded that aspect of the matter, but his friend's reasoning soon brought him to perceive the danger he would lightly have incurred. Dangers, not merely those that resulted from the war; could he suppose, asked Marcian, that Heliodora would meekly endure his disdain, and that the life of Veranilda would be safe in such a rival's proximity? Hereat, Basil gnashed his teeth and handled his dagger. Why return to Rome at all? he cried impatiently. He had no mind to go through the torments of a long siege such as again threatened. Why should he not live on in Campania-- 'And tend your sheep or your goats?' interrupted Marcian, with his familiar note of sad irony. 'And pipe _sub tegmine fagi_ to your blue-eyed Amaryllis? Why not, indeed? But what if; on learning the death of Maximus, the Thracian who rules yonder see fit to command your instant return, and to exact from you an account of what you have inherited? Bessas loses no time--suspecting--perhaps--that his tenure of a fruitful office may not be long.'