Since, she had uttered no word touching worldly matters; the woman believed that she was now unconscious.
'And you swear to me,' said Basil, who quivered as he listened, 'that this is the truth and all you know ?' Leo's wife swore by everything sacred on earth, and by all the powers of heaven, that she had falsified nothing, concealed nothing.

Thereupon Basil turned to go away.

In the vestibule, the slaves knelt weeping before him, some with entreaties to be permitted to leave this stricken house, some imploring advice against the plague; men and women alike, all were beside themselves with terror.

In this moment there came a knocking at the entrance; the porter ran to open, and admitted Gordian.
Basil and he, who had not met since the day of the family gathering, spoke together in the portico.

He had come, said Gordian, in the fear that Petronilla had been forsaken by all her household, as sometimes happened to those infected.