More than once he checked himself in his walk, seeming to be about to step on Marcian's body.
At length, seeing a shadow draw near, he raised his eyes and beheld Gaudiosus.

He tried to speak, but found that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.

Automatically he crossed himself, then caught the priest's hand, and knelt and kissed it.
'Rise, my son,' said Gaudiosus, 'for I would talk with you.' On one side of the courtyard was a portico with seats, and thither the old man led.
'Unless,' he began gravely, 'unless the author of all falsehood--who is so powerful over women--has entered into this maiden to baffle and mislead me utterly, I feel assured that she is chaste; not merely unsullied in the flesh, but as pure of heart as her fallen nature may permit a woman to be.' Basil gazed at him darkly.
'My father, how can you believe it?
Did you not hear her lament because the man was dead?
It is indeed the devil that beguiles you.' Gaudiosus bent his head, and pondered anxiously.
'Tell me,' he said at length, 'all her story, that I may compare it with what I have heard from her own lips.' Slowly at first, and confusedly, with hesitations, repetitions, long pauses, Basil recited the history of Veranilda, so far as he knew it.
The priest listened and nodded, and when silence came, continued the narrative.

If Veranilda spoke truth she had never seen Marcian until he took her from the convent at Praeneste.

Moreover, Marcian had never uttered to her a word of love; in his house she had lived as chastely as among the holy sisters.
'What did she here, then ?' asked Basil bitterly.