e!_ I know it--I
have heard, seen, partaken all! But if you can be convinced only by seeing
that the plans of men, whose every action is insanity and frenzy, are wise
and reasonable, perish yourself in your blindness, and let Rome perish
with you! I can no more. Farewell! I leave you to your madness!"

"Hold! hold!" he cried, moved greatly by her vehemence, "are you indeed so
sure of this? What, in the name of all the Gods, can be their motive?"

"Sure! sure!" she answered scornfully; "I thought I was speaking to a
capable and clever man of action; I see that it is a mere dreamer, to
whose waking senses I appeal vainly. If _you_ be not sure, also, you must
be weaker than I can conceive. Why, if there was no plot, would Catiline
have slaughtered Medon, lest it should be revealed? Why would he, else,
have striven to bind you by oaths; and to what, if not to schemes of
sacrilege and treason? Why would he else have murdered Volero? why planted
ambushes against your life? why would he now meditate my death, his own
child's death, that I am forced to fly his house? Oh! in the wide world
there is no such folly, as that of the over wise! Motive--motive enough
have they! While the Patrician senate, and the Patrician Consuls hold with
firm hands the government, full well they know, that in vain violence or
fraud may strive to wrest it from them. Let but the people hold the reins
of empire, and the first smooth-tongued, slippery demagogue, the first
bloody, conquering soldier, grasps them, and is the King, Dictator,
Emperor, of Rome! Never yet in the history of nations, has despotism
sprung out of oligarchic sway! Never yet has democracy but yielded to the
first despot's usurpation! _They_ have not read in vain the annals of past
ages, if you have done so, Paullus."

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "look they so far ahead? Ambition, then, it is but a
new form of ambition?"

"Will you denounce them, Paullus?"

"At least, I will warn the Consul!"

"You must denounce them, or he will credit nothing."

"I will save Rome."

"Enough! enough! I am avenged, and thou shalt be happy. Go to the Consul,
straightway! make your own terms, ask office, rank, wealth, power. He will
grant all! and now, farewell! Me you will see no more forever! Farewell,
Paullus Arvina, fare you well forever! And sometimes, when you are happy
in the chaste arms of Julia, sometimes think, Paullus, of poor, unhappy,
loving, lost, lost Lucia!"

"Whither, by all the Gods