“I will sell it as quick as possible, pay my debts, and retire to some country where my name has never been heard.” “Suppose your claims are rejected?” “Impossible, impossible!” exclaimed Fulvius, racked by the very idea; “it is my right, hardly earned. It cannot be denied me.” “Quietly, my young friend; let us discuss the matter coolly. Remember our proverb: ‘From the stirrup to the saddle there has been many a fall.’ _Suppose_ only that your rights are refused you.” “Then I am a ruined man. I have no other prospect before me, of retrieving my fortunes here. Still I must fly hence.” “Good: and what do you owe at Janus’s arch?”[196] “A good couple of hundred sestertia,[197] between principal and compound interest at fifty per cent, to that unconscionable Jew Ephraim.” “On what security?” “On my sure expectation of this lady’s estates.” “And if you are disappointed, do you think he will let you fly?” “Not if he knows it, most assuredly. But we must be prepared from this moment for any emergency; and that with the utmost secrecy.” “Leave that to me, Fulvius; you see how eventful the issue of to-morrow may be to you, or rather of to-day; for morning is approaching. Life or death to you hang upon it; it is the great day of your existence. Courage then, or rather an inflexible determination, steel you to work out its destiny!” [Illustration: A Monogram of Christ, found in the Catacombs.] CHAPTER XXIX. THE SAME DAY: ITS SECOND PART. The day is not yet dawning, and nevertheless we speak of having reached its second part. How may this be? Gentle reader, have we not led you to its first vespers, divided as they are between Sebastian of yesterday, and Agnes of to-day? Have not the two sung them together, without jealousy, and with fraternal impartiality, the one from the heaven which he ascended in the morning, the other from the dungeon into which she descended in the evening? Glorious Church of Christ! great in the unclashing combination of thy unity, stretching from heaven to beneath the earth, wherever exists a prison-house of the just.