'That may wait,' said Basil, glancing indifferently at the folded
and sealed paper before he hid it away. 'Having said so much, you
must tell me more. Put off that sardonic mask--I know very well
what hides beneath it--and look me in the eye. You have surprised
some danger?'

'I heard you spoken of--by one who seldom opens his lips but to
ill purpose. It was not difficult for me to wade through the
shallows of the man's mind, and for my friend's sake to win his base
confidence. Needing a spy, and being himself a born traitor, he
readily believed me at his beck; in truth he had long marked me, so
I found, for a cankered soul who waited but the occasion to advance
by infamy. I held the creature in my hand; I turned him over and
over, and he, the while, thinking me his greedy slave. And so,
usurping the place of some other who would have ambushed you in real
enmity, I came hither on his errand.'

'Marcian,' said the listener, 'I could make a guess at that man's
name.'

'Nay, I doubt if you could, and indeed it matters nothing. Enough
that I may do you some little service.'

'For which,' replied Basil, 'I cannot pay you, since all my love is
already yours. And she--Heliodora,' he added, with a careless
gesture, 'knows of your mission?'

'Of my mission, no; but of my proposed journey. Though indeed she
may know more than I suppose. Who shall say what reaches the ear of