from its effect upon the Praetor!" answered the other.

"And are you satisfied?"

"I am."

"You may be so, my Sergius, for, of a truth, until Chaerea swore as he did
touching Medon, I was myself deceived."

"You believe, then, that this will be sufficient to secure his
condemnation?"

"Beyond doubt. He will be interdicted fire and water, if these men stick
to their oaths only. It would be well, perhaps, to convict one of Arvina's
slaves of the actual death of Volero. That might be done easily enough,
but there must be care taken, that you select one who shall not be able to
prove any alibi. But wherefore are you so bent on destroying this youth,
and by the law, too, which is ever both perilous and uncertain?"

"He knows too much, to live without endangering others."

"What knows he?"

"Who slew Medon--Who slew Volero--What we propose to do, ere long, in the
Campus!" answered Catiline, steadily.

"By all the Gods?" cried Lentulus, turning very pale, and remaining silent
for some moments. After which he said, with a thoughtful manner, "it would
be better to get rid of him quietly."

"That has been tried too."

"Well?"

"It failed! He is now on his guard. He is brave, strong, wary. It cannot
be done, save thus."

"He will denounce us. He will declare the whole, ere we can spring the
mine beneath him."

"No! he will not; he dares not. He is bound by oaths which--"

"Oaths!" interrupted Lentulus, with a sneer, and in tones of contemptuous
ridicule. "What are oaths? Did they ever bind you?"

"I do not recollect," answered Catiline; "perhaps they did, when I was a
boy, and believed in Lemures and Lamia. But Paullus Arvina is not Lucius
Catiline, nor yet Cornelius Lentulus; and I say that his oaths shall bind
him, until--"

"And I say, they shall not!" A clear high voice interrupted him, coming,
apparently, through the wall of the chamber.

Lentulus started--his very lips were white, and his frame shook with
agitation, if it were not with fear.

Catiline grew pale likewise; but it was rage, not terror, that blanched
his swarthy brow. He dashed his hand upon the table--

"Furies of Hell!"

While the words were yet trembling on his lips, the door was thrown
violently open, the curtains which concealed it torn asunder, and, with
her dark eyes gleaming a strange fire, and two hard crimson spots gleaming
high up on her cheek bones--the hectic of fierce passion--her bosom
throbbing, and her whole frame di