nd me!--alas! alas! that
holy, that dear, honored name!--Never! never for me the sweet sacred rites!
Never for me the pure chaste kiss, the seat by the happy hearth, the
loving children at the knee, the proud approving smile of--Oh! ye gods! ye
just gods!--a loved and loving husband!--Wife! wife!" she continued, lashing
herself, as she proceeded, into fresh anger; "there is not in the gaols of
Rome the slave so base as to call Lucia Orestilla wife! And wherefore,
wherefore not?--Man! man! if that thou be a man, and not a demon, but for
thee, and thy cursed teachings, I might have known all this--pure bliss,
and conscious rectitude, and the respect and love of men. I might have
been the happy bride of an honorable suitor, the cherished matron of a
respected lord, the proud glad mother of children, that should not have
blushed to be sprung from the wanton Lucia! Thou! it is thou, thou only
that hast done all this!--And why, I say, why should I not revenge? Beware!
tempt me no farther! Do my bidding! Thou slave, that thought'st but now to
be the master, obey my bidding to the letter!" And she stamped her foot on
the ground, with the imperious air of a despotic queen. And in truth,
crest-fallen and heavy in spirit, were the proud men whom she so superbly
threatened.

She gazed at them contemptuously for a moment, and then, shaking her fore
finger menacingly, "I leave ye," she said, "I leave ye, but imagine not,
that I read not your councils. Me, you cannot deceive. With yourselves
only it remains to succeed or to perish. For if ye dare to disobey me, the
gods themselves shall not preserve you from my vengeance!"

"I fear you not, my girl," cried Catiline, "for all that you are now mad
with disappointment, and with anger. So you may go, and listen if you
will," he added, pointing to the secret aperture concealed in the
mouldings of the wall. "We shall not speak the less freely for your
hearing us."

"There is no need to listen now," she answered, "for I know everything
already."

"Every thing that we _have_ said, Lucia."

"Everything that you _will_ do, Sergius Catiline!"

"Aye?"

"Aye! and everything that I shall do, likewise!" and with the word she
left the room.

"A perilous girl, by all the Gods!" said Lentulus, in Greek, as she
disappeared. "Will she do as she threatens?"

"Tush!" replied Catiline in Latin, "she speaks Greek like an Athenian. I
am not sure, however, that she could understand such jargon as th