"I fear you not, my girl," cried Catiline, "for all that you are now mad with disappointment, and with anger. So you may go, and listen if you will," he added, pointing to the secret aperture concealed in the mouldings of the wall. "We shall not speak the less freely for your hearing us." "There is no need to listen now," she answered, "for I know everything already." "Every thing that we _have_ said, Lucia." "Everything that you _will_ do, Sergius Catiline!" "Aye?" "Aye! and everything that I shall do, likewise!" and with the word she left the room. "A perilous girl, by all the Gods!" said Lentulus, in Greek, as she disappeared. "Will she do as she threatens?" "Tush!" replied Catiline in Latin, "she speaks Greek like an Athenian. I am not sure, however, that she could understand such jargon as that is. No! she will do none of that. She is the cleverest and best girl living, only a little passionate, for which I love her all the more dearly. No! she will do none of that. Because she will not be alive, to do it, this time to-morrow," he added, putting his mouth within half an inch of the ear of Lentulus, and speaking in the lowest whisper. Lentulus, bold as he was and unscrupulous, started in horror at his words, and his lips were white as he faltered—"Your own daughter, Lucius!" "Ha! ha!" laughed the fierce conspirator, aloud; "ha! ha! yes, she is my own daughter, in everything but beauty. She is the loveliest creature in all Rome! But we must yield, I suppose, to her wishes; the women rule us, after all is said, and I suppose I was alarmed needlessly. Doubtless Arvina will be silent. Come, I will walk with you so far on your way to the Forum. What ho! Chærea, see that Rufinus and Stolo lack nothing. I will speak with them, when I return home; and hark you in your ear. Suffer not Lucia Orestilla to leave the house a moment; use force if it be needed; but it will not. Tell her it is my orders, and watch her very closely. Come, Lentulus, it is drawing toward noon." They left the house without more words, and walked side by side in silence for some distance, when Catiline said in a low voice, "This is unpleasant, and may be dangerous. We must, however, trust to fortune till to-morrow, when my house shall be void of this pest. Then will we proceed, as we had proposed." Lentulus looked at him doubtfully, and asked, with a quick shudder running through his limbs, as he spoke: "And will you really?—" and there he paused, unable to complete the question. "Remove her?" added Catiline, completing the sentence which he had left unfinished, "Ay! will I. Just as I would a serpent from my path!" "And that done, what is to follow?" Lentulus inquired, with an assumption of coolness, which in truth he did not feel. "We will get rid of Arvina. And then, as it wants but four days of the elections, we may keep all things quiet till the time." "Be it so!" answered the other. "When do we meet again to settle these things finally?"