“Oh, that is good indeed!” said Lucilia delighted. “For my part I have always hoped for the best; for I cannot believe that Quintus ever really joined those meek imposters--or even mixed with slaves and vagabonds. The whole thing must soon be cleared up; I wish it were equally so hopeful for some other folks.--Poor old Fabulla! only think, mother, her son’s name is really on the list of the proscribed, and it seems he is more hated at the Palatium than all the rest. His house has been broken into by the city-prefect and every corner of it searched; they say they mean to raze it to the ground. The poor woman is half-crazed, and I had to promise her that, as soon as matters were settled for Quintus and Cornelia, I would go and spend a few days with her at Ostia. She is afraid she shall go out of her mind in her utter solitude. But I must go now; Claudia is waiting for me in the litter. Ye gods! what a time of bustle and scurry; I never have a minute to myself--well--good-bye for the present!” Titus Claudius looked sadly after her. “And she does not see either, what is hanging over our heads!” he said half to himself. Then he went through the atrium and out of the house, followed by a few of his clients. Domitian meanwhile had made arrangements for fulfilling his pledge as soon as possible, for the turn affairs had taken was precisely what he could have wished. Without arousing any kind of suspicion, he could thus have the girl in his power. Neither craft nor mystery was needed; in a simple, honorable and perfectly legal manner, he was attaining the end which, since the tragicomic scene in the temple of Isis, had become a fixed idea with him. Barbillus, indeed, seemed to have set about the task assigned to him in a very questionable manner, and now his wily agency could be altogether set aside. Almost at the very moment when Lucilia got into her litter, after her short interview with her parents, another litter, closely curtained and escorted by a small party of the imperial body-guard, was being carried by a circuitous route, past the Circus Maximus[101] to the Palatine Hill. Arrived at the Palatium, out stepped Cornelia, confused and agitated, a pathetic image of anguish and despair. The events now befalling her, and a well-founded suspicion of what awaited her, filled her soul with apprehension; she had lost all her self-command, and trembled like a reed. Parthenius received her with marked politeness, and begged her pardon in flowery language for his inability, under the law, to set her at liberty at once. That, he admitted, was unhappily out of the question; but her durance should be made so easy and agreeable, that the fair Cornelia could not but forgive him. Titus Claudius, who--as she no doubt knew--had the greatest influence over Caesar, had made interest with their imperial sovereign to spare her the horrors of the Mamertine prison; she was therefore to spend the interval till the decision of her case in the Palace itself.