'How do you know which is the true church?
Have not emperors, have not bishops and numberless holy men lived and died in the faith I confess-- ?' She checked herself; grew silent, brooded.

Meanwhile, the old nurse talked on, and presently began to relate how a handmaid of Petronilla, in going with her this morning, professed to know on the surest evidence that Aurelia, by her father's deathbed, had renounced Arianism.

The sullen countenance of her mistress flashed again into wrath.
'Did I not forbid you,' cried Aurelia, 'to converse with those women?
And you dare repeat to me their loose-lipped chatter.

I am too familiar with you; go and talk with your kind; go!' Mutteringly the woman went apart.

The mistress, alone, fell into a long weeping.