"Excellent well!" cried the other in rapturous triumph, "but how gain an opportunity?"
"Look you, here is his signature, some trivial note or[pg 59] other, I kept it, judging that one day it might serve a purpose. You can write, I know, very cleverly—I have not forgotten Old Alimentus' will—write to her in his name, requesting her to visit him, with Hortensia, otherwise she will doubt the letter. Then you can meet her, and do as I have told you. Will not that pass, my Fulvius?"
"It shall pass," answered the young man confidently. "My life on it! Rely on me!"
"I hold it done already," returned Catiline, "But you comprehend all—unstained, in all honor, until she reach me; else were the vengeance incomplete."
"It shall be so. But when?"
"When best you can accomplish it. This night, I leave the city."
"You leave the city!"
"This night! at the sixth hour!"
"But to return, Catiline?"
"To return with a victorious, an avenging army! To return as destroyer! with a sword sharper than that of mighty Sylla, a torch hotter than that of the mad Ephesian! To return, Aulus, in such guise, that ashes and blood only show where Rome—was!"