ell matched pair--the
offspring of the corruption and cruelty of the Empire--parted, each
intent on his purposes of evil.

The young scapegrace, Calphurnius--young in years, but old in
vice--followed only too successfully this Satanic advice. He attached
himself closely to Isidorus and became his very shadow--his other self.
He lured him on to ostentatious extravagance of expenditure, often
allowing him to win large sums at dice to replenish his depleted purse,
and again winning from him every sesterce, and binding the Greek's
fortunes more firmly to his own by lending him large sums, yet demanding
usurious interest. The easy, pleasure-loving nature of Isidorus, intent
on enjoying the passing hour and shrinking from suffering of body or
anxiety of mind, made this _descensus Averni_ all the more facile. He
was thus led to forget all his good resolutions and noble purposes, and
to plunge into the fashionable follies of the most corrupt society in
the world. From the maundering remarks which fell from his lips in his
fits of drunkenness, for he rapidly lapsed into this baneful vice,
Calphurnius constructed a monstrous story of treachery which he used to
create an utter rupture between the Greek and the Christians, alleging
that he had too irreparably betrayed them to be ever forgiven, and that
the only way of escaping the doom which menaced them was to throw
himself into the arms of the party in power. It was with feelings of
horror that in his rare moments of sober reflection Isidorus realized
how fast and how far he had drifted from the thoughts, and feelings, and
purposes of the hour when he knelt, in the Catacomb of Callixtus, at the
feet of the good presbyter Primitius; or since he returned from Milan
the restorer to the fair Callirho[e:] of her sire; or even since, a few
days before, he had conversed with Adauctus and beheld with admiration
his serenity of spirit under the shadow of persecution and death.

Calphurnius exhausted every art to wring from his lips a legal
accusation of the Christians, for even the ruthless persecutors wished
to observe some forms of law in the destruction of their destined
victims.

"You have already betrayed them beyond reparation," he said, "and you
may as well obtain the reward. You have told all about your employment
by Adauctus in a treasonable mission to the Christian sectaries at
Ravenna and Milan. You have been present at their assemblies at the
Villa Marcella and in the Catac