“Say you so? Then that explains your constant refusal to come to me again. But Fabiola is a philosopher, and understands nothing of such matters. I wish, indeed, she would give up her books, and think of settling herself in life, instead of preventing others. But I can give you better news than that; Agnes is as much attached to you as you can be to her.” “Is it possible? How can you happen to know it?” “Why, then, to tell you what I should have told you long since, if you had not fought so shy of me, she confided it to me that very day.” “To you?” “Yes, to me; those jewels of yours quite won her heart. She told me as much. I knew she could only mean you. Indeed, I am sure she meant you.” Fulvius understood these words of the rich gems which he displayed; while the knight spoke of the jewels which he imagined Agnes had received. She had proved, Fulvius was thinking, an easy prize, in spite of her demureness; and here lay fortune and rank open before him, if he could only manage his game; when Fabius thus broke in upon his dream: “Come now, you have only to press your suit boldly; and I tell you, you will win it, whatever Fabiola may think. But you have nothing to fear from her now. She and all her servants are absent; her part of the house is closed, and we enter by the back-door to the more enjoyable part of the establishment.” “I will wait on you without fail,” replied Fulvius. “And Corvinus with you,” added Fabius, as he turned away. We will not describe the banquet further than to say, that wines of rare excellence flowed so plentifully, that almost all the guests got, more or less, heated and excited. Fulvius, however, for one, kept himself cool. The news from the East came into discussion. The destruction of the church at Nicomedia had been followed by incendiary fires in the imperial palace. Little doubt could exist that the Emperor Galerius was their author; but he charged them on the Christians; and thus goaded on the reluctant mind of Dioclesian to become their fiercest persecutor. Every one began to see that, before many months were over, the imperial edict to commence the work of destruction would reach Rome, and find in Maximian a ready executor. The guests were generally inclined to gore the stricken deer; for generosity, in favor of those whom popular clamor hunts down, requires an amount of courage too heroic to be common. Even the most liberal found reasons for Christians being excepted from all kind consideration. One could not bear their mysteriousness, another was vexed at their supposed progress; this man thought them opposed to the real glory of the empire, that considered them a foreign element, that ought to be eliminated from it. One thought their doctrine detestable, another their practice infamous. During all this debate, if it could be so called, where both sides came to the same conclusion, Fulvius, after having glanced from one to the other of the guests, had fixed his evil eye upon Torquatus.