lated with anger and excitement, young
Lucia stood before them.

"And I say," she repeated, "that they shall not bind him! By all the Gods!
I swear it! By my own love! my own dishonor! I swear that they shall not!
Fool! fool! did you think to outwit me? To blind a woman, whose every fear
and passion is an undying eye? Go to! go to! you shall not do it."

Audacious, as he was, the traitor was surprised, almost daunted; and while
Lentulus, a little reassured, when he saw who was the interlocutor, gazed
on him in unmitigated wonder, he faltered out, in tones strangely
dissimilar to his accustomed accents of indomitable pride and decision--

"You mistake, girl; you have not heard aright, if you have heard at all; I
would say, you are deceived, Lucia!"

"Then would you lie!" she answered, "for I am not deceived, though you
would fain deceive me! Not heard? not heard?" she continued. "Think you
the walls in the house of Catiline have no eyes nor ears?" using the very
words which he had addressed to her lover; "Lucius Catiline! I know all!"

"You know all?" exclaimed Lentulus, aghast.

"And will prevent all!" replied the girl, firmly, "if you dare cross my
purposes!"

"Dare! dare!" replied Catiline, who now, recovering from his momentary
surprise, had regained all his natural haughtiness and vigor. "Who are
you, wanton, that dare talk to us of daring?"

"Wanton!" replied the girl, turning fiery red. "Ay! But who made me the
wanton that I am? Who fed my youthful passions? Who sapped my youthful
principles? Who reared me in an atmosphere, whose very breath was luxury,
voluptuousness, pollution, till every drop of my wholesome blood was
turned to liquid flame? till every passion in my heart became a fettered
earthquake? Fool! fool! you thought, in your impotence of crime, to make
Lucia Orestilla your instrument, your slave! You have made her your
mistress! You dreamed, in your insolence of fancied wisdom, that, like the
hunter-cat of the Persian despots, so long as you fed the wanton's
appetite, and basely pandered to her passions, she would leap hood-winked
on the prey you pointed her. Thou fool! that hast not half read thy
villain lesson! Thou shouldst have known that the very cat, thou
thoughtest me, will turn and rend the huntsman if he dare rob her of her
portion! I tell you, Lucius Catiline, you thought me a mere wanton! a mere
sensual thing! a soulless animal voluptuary! Fool! I say, double fool!
Look into thine ow