“Then would you make me rather believe, that in this city there is any one so disinterested as, undesired, to have petitioned for you? No, no, Lady Fabiola, all this is too incredible. But what is that?” And he pounced with eagerness on the imperial rescript, which had remained unlooked at, since Corvinus had left it. The sensation to him was like that of Æneas when he saw Pallas’s belt upon the body of Turnus. The fury, which seemed to have been subdued by his subtlety, as he had been reasoning to prove Fabiola guilty, flashed up anew at the sight of this fatal document. He eyed it for a minute, then broke out, gnashing his teeth with rage:
“Now, madam, I convict you of baseness, rapacity, and unnatural cruelty, far beyond any thing you have dared to charge on me! Look at this rescript, beautifully engrossed, with its golden letters and emblazoned margins; and presume to say that it was prepared in the one hour that elapsed between your cousin’s death and the emperor’s telling me that he had signed it? Nor do you pretend to know the generous friend who procured you the gift. Bah! while Agnes was in prison at latest; while you were whining and moaning over her; while you were reproaching me for cruelty and treachery towards her,—me, a stranger and alien to her! you, the gentle lady, the virtuous philosopher, the loving, fondling kinswoman, you, my stern reprover, were coolly plotting to take advantage of my crime, for securing her property, and seeking out the elegant scribe, who should gild your covetousness with his pencil, and paint over your treason to your own flesh and blood, with his blushing minium.”[212]
“Cease, madman, cease!” exclaimed Fabiola, endeavoring in vain to master his glaring eye. But he went on in still wilder tone:
“And then, forsooth, when you have thus basely robbed me, you offer me money. You have out-plotted me, and you pity me! You have made me a beggar, and then you offer me alms,—alms out of my own wages, the wages which even hell allows its fated victims while on earth!”
Fabiola rose again, but he seized her with a maniac’s gripe, and this time did not let her go. He went on:
“Now listen to the last words that I will speak, or they may be the last that you will hear. Give back to me that unjustly obtained property; it is not fair that I should have the guilt, and you its reward. Transfer it by your sign manual to me as a free and loving gift, and I will depart. If not, you have signed your own doom.” A stern and menacing glance accompanied these words.
Fabiola’s haughty self rose again erect within her; her Roman heart, unsubdued, stood firm. Danger only made her fearless. She gathered her robe with matronly dignity around her, and replied:
“Fulvius, listen to my words, though they should be the last that I may speak; as certainly they shall be the last that you shall hear from me.
“Surrender this property to you? I would give it willingly to the first leper that I might meet in the street, but to you never. Never shall you touch thing that belonged to that holy maiden, be it a gem or be it a straw! That touch would be pollution. Take gold of mine, if it please you; but any thing that ever belonged to her, from me no treasures can ransom. And one legacy I prize more than all her inheritance. You have now offered me two alternatives, as last night you did her, to yield to your demands, or die. Agnes taught me which to choose. Once again, I say, depart.”
“And leave you to possess what is mine? leave you to triumph over me, as one whom you have outwitted—you honored, and I disgraced—you rich, and I penniless—you happy, and I wretched? No, never! I cannot save myself from what you have made me; but I can prevent your being what you have no right to be. For this I have come here; this is my day of Nemesis.[213] Now die!” While he was speaking these reproaches, he was slowly pushing her backwards with his left hand towards the couch from which she had risen; while his right was tremblingly feeling for something in the folds of his bosom.