e very person, whom he had bound himself by
oaths, so strong that he shuddered at the very thought of them, to support
and defend to the utmost.

What was he then to do? how to proceed, since to recede appeared
impossible?

How was he to account to the conspirator for his inability to produce the
poniard at their appointed meeting? how should he escape the pursuit of
his determined vengeance, if he should shun the meeting?

And then, Lucia! The recollection, guilty and degraded as he knew her to
be, of her soft blandishments, of her rare beauty, of her wild and
inexplicable manner, adding new charms to that forbidden bliss, yet
thrilled in every sense. And must he give her up? No! madness was in the
very thought! so strangely had she spread her fascinations round him. And
yet did he love her? no! perish the thought! Love is a high, a holy, a
pure feeling--the purest our poor fallen nature is capable of experiencing;
no! this fierce, desperate, guilty passion was no more like true love,
than the whirlwind that upheaves the tortured billows, and hurls the fated
vessel on the treacherous quicksands, is like to the beneficent and gentle
breeze that speeds it to the haven of its hopes, in peace and honor.

After a little while consumed in anxious and uneasy thoughts, he
determined--as cowards of the mind determine ever--to temporise, to await
events, to depend upon the tide of circumstance. He would, he thought,
keep the appointment with his master--for such he felt that Catiline now
was indeed--however he might strive to conceal the fact; endeavor to learn
what were his real objects; and then determine what should be his own
course of action. Doubtful, and weak of principle, and most infirm of
purpose, he shrunk alike from breaking the oath he had been entrapped into
taking, and from committing any crime against his country.

His country!--To the Roman, patriotism stood for religion!--Pride, habit,
education, honor, interest, all were combined in that word, country; and
could he be untrue to Rome? His better spirit cried out, no! from every
nerve and artery of his body. And then his evil genius whispered Lucia,
and he wavered.

Meantime, had no thought crossed him of his own pure and noble Julia,
deserted thus and overlooked for a mere wanton? Many times! many times,
that day, had his mind reverted to her. When first he went to Cataline's
house, he went with the resolution of leaving it at an early hour, so soon
as th