Calpurnius spoke the funeral oration; in which, according to the fashionable ideas of the day, he contrasted the virtues of the hospitable and industrious citizen with the false morality of those men called Christians, who fasted and prayed all day, and were stealthily insinuating their dangerous principles into every noble family, and spreading disloyalty and immorality in every class. Fabius, he could have no doubt, if there was any future existence, whereon philosophers differed, was now basking on a green bank in Elysium, and quaffing nectar. “And oh!” concluded the old whining hypocrite, who would have been sorry to exchange one goblet of Falernian for an amphora[115] of that beverage, “oh! that the gods would hasten the day when I, his humble client, may join him in his shady repose and sober banquets!” This noble sentiment gained immense applause. To this care succeeded another. Fabiola had to apply her vigorous mind to examine, and close her father’s complicated affairs. How often was she pained at the discovery of what to her seemed injustice, fraud, over-reaching and oppression, in the transactions of one whom the world had applauded as the most honest and liberal of public contractors! [Illustration: The Peacock, as an Emblem of the Resurrection, found in the Catacombs.] In a few weeks more, in the dark attire of a mourner, Fabiola went forth to visit her friends. The first of these was her cousin Agnes. CHAPTER IX. THE FALSE BROTHER. We must take our reader back a few steps in the history of Torquatus. On the morning after his fall, he found, on awaking, Fulvius at his bed-side. It was the falconer, who, having got hold of a good hawk, was come to tame him, and train him to strike down the dove for him, in return for a well-fed slavery. With all the coolness of a practised hand, he brought back to his memory every circumstance of the preceding night’s debauch, his utter ruin, and only means of escape. With unfeeling precision he strengthened every thread of the last evening’s web, and added many more meshes to it. The position of Torquatus was this: if he made one step towards Christianity, which Fulvius assured him would be fruitless, he would be at once delivered to the judge, and cruelly punished with death. If he remained faithful to his compact of treason, he should want for nothing. “You are hot and feverish,” at last concluded Fulvius; “an early walk, and fresh air, will do you good.” The poor wretch consented; and they had hardly reached the Forum, when Corvinus, as if by accident, met them. After mutual salutations, he said: “I am glad to have fallen in with you; I should like to take you, and show you my father’s workshop.” “Workshop?” asked Torquatus with surprise. “Yes, where he keeps his tools; it has just been beautifully fitted up. Here it is, and that grim old foreman, Catulus, is opening the doors.”