“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!”
A Monogram of Christ, found in the Catacombs.