Fulvius, who had dropped on his knee as he concluded his last sentence, and had thus drawn forth that severe rebuke, rose, filled with spite and fury, at having been so completely deluded. “Is it not enough to be rejected,” he said, “after having been encouraged, but must insult be heaped on me too? and must I be told to my face that another has been before me to-day?--Sebastian, I suppose, again----” “Who are you?” exclaimed an indignant voice behind him, “that dare to utter with disdain, the name of one whose honor is untarnished, and whose virtue is as unchallenged as his courage?” He turned round, and stood confronted with Fabiola, who, having walked for some time about the garden, thought she would now probably find her cousin disengaged, and by herself. She had come upon him suddenly, and had caught his last words. Fulvius was abashed, and remained silent. Fabiola, with a noble indignation, continued. “And who, too, are you, who, not content with having once thrust yourself into my kinswoman’s house, to insult her, presume now to intrude upon the privacy of her rural retreat?” [Illustration: “Haughty Roman dame! thou shalt bitterly rue this day and hour.”] “And who are you,” retorted Fulvius, “who take upon yourself to be imperious mistress in another’s house?” “One,” replied the lady, “who, by allowing my cousin to meet you first at her table, and there discovering your designs upon an innocent child, feels herself bound in honor and duty to thwart them, and to shield her from them.” She took Agnes by the hand, and was leading her away; and Molossus required what he never remembered to have received before, but what he took delightedly, a gentle little tap, to keep him from more than growling; when Fulvius, gnashing his teeth, muttered audibly: “Haughty Roman dame! thou shalt bitterly rue this day and hour. Thou shalt know and feel how Asia can revenge.” [Illustration: A Lamb between Wolves, emblematic of the Church, from a picture in the Cemetery of St. Prætextatus.] CHAPTER XIII. THE EDICT.