Marcian appeared to brood, and Heliodora did her best to read his face.

If, she asked herself; he had told her falsehoods, to what end had he contrived them?
Nothing that she could conjecture was for a moment satisfying.

If he told the truth, what an opportunity were here for revenge on Muscula, and for the frustration of Basil's desire.
How that revenge was to be wrought, or, putting it the other way, how Marcian was to be helped, she saw as yet only in glimpses of ruthless purpose.

Of Bessas she did not think as of a man easy to subdue or to cajole; his soldierly rudeness, the common gossip of his inconstancy in love, and his well-known avarice, were not things likely to touch her imagination, nor had she ever desired to number him in the circle of her admirers.

That it might be in her power to do what Marcian besought, she was very willing to persuade herself, but the undertaking had such colour of danger that she wished for more assurance of the truth of what she had heard.
'It seems to me,' she said at length, 'that the hour is of the latest.
What if Veranilda escape this very day ?' 'Some days must of necessity pass,' answered Marcian.