'Where it seems good to my dear lord to dwell, there shall I be at rest.' 'We must be safe against our enemies,' said Basil, with graver countenance.
'Our enemies ?' 'Has not Aurelia talked to you of the war?
You know that the Gothic king is conquering all before him, coming from the north ?' Veranilda looked into her lover's face with a tender anxiety.
'And you fear him, O Basil?
It is he that is our enemy ?' 'Not so, sweetest.

No foe of mine is he who wears the crown of Theodoric.

They whom I fear and abhor are the slaves of Justinian, the robber captains who rule at Ravenna and in Rome.' As she heard him, Veranilda trembled with joy.

She caught his hand, and bent over it, and kissed it.
'Had I been the enemy of Totila,' said Basil, 'could you still have loved me as a wife should love ?' 'I had not asked myself,' she answered, 'for it was needless.

When I look on you, I think neither of Roman nor of Goth.' Basil spoke of his hope that Rome might be restored to the same freedom it had enjoyed under the great king.