So it was agreed that Quintus Claudius, the son of the Flamen, Titus Claudius Mucianus, should, next day, be baptized in a quarry not far from the river Almo. It was the thought of this privilege, and of the contradictory aspects of his position, which all through the night had pursued him in a thousand different forms, and now, in his father’s hall, filled him with unutterable confusion. He felt that he must for a moment forget the abyss that lay between them, and once more hear his father’s voice in loving tones, before their parting was an accomplished fact--forever. The sense of an imperative duty was added to this sentiment. He felt that, hoping against hope, he must, even at the eleventh hour, try to weaken his father’s position.--The final details of the edict, he knew, were virtually in the Flamen’s hands. The Senate had long been accustomed to vote for whatever the Emperor wished, without any alterations, and Titus Claudius spoke in Caesar’s name. Domitian, amply satisfied of his representative’s inexorable temper, had not even taken the trouble to look through the sketch of the edict; the whole tenor of the law, in fact, lay in the high-priest’s hands. How gladly would Quintus have poured out his heart to his father, and have told him without reserve all that he held to be true, fair, and good! How willingly would he have gone up to him, and have said: “Caesar’s government is groping in darkness; these Christians, whom you are condemning to destruction, are not criminals, but noble, virtuous, high-souled men--as noble, and virtuous, and high-souled as you yourself, father, who persecute them with such vindictive fury.” But such boldness, alas! was out of the question; Quintus knew his father too well. He knew, that the rigid convictions of a mind like his were impervious to all that was new or strange, that even the logic of facts could only reach him by a long and circuitous route. His convictions had been the slow growth of years of unresting activity, and now they were immovable--a part of his very self. Thus Quintus had not the smallest doubt, that Titus Claudius, like a second Brutus, would not spare his own son, if duty and paternal feeling should come into conflict. So it was not his own peril only, which dictated moderation and silence, but regard for his father’s situation; and he never had felt a more tender reverence for him, than in this terrible hour. He could not speak as an adherent, nor even as a defender of the persecuted creed; only as a looker-on from the point of view of abstract justice. In speech and in silence alike he must betray no impatience, and seem only to have acquired his more exact knowledge of the Christian creed by accident. He could do no more than represent the Nazarenes as harmless folks, who neither deserved persecution nor were worth the trouble.