“Wait, Ginevra; hear me to the end. She was married and virtuous. I left her, ... but I had just learned she was free, and was about to go to see her when I was called to Sicily by the lawsuit on which my property depends. You know the rest.... The sight of you effaced the impressions of the past. I was still free—free from any promise that bound me to her, though perhaps she was expecting me to return to Milan....” “You forgot her, and offered me your hand?...” I exclaimed with mingled pity and almost reproach. He replied with some emotion: “Yes, Ginevra, and without any scruple; for after passing a month in your vicinity, I felt I loved her no longer, and _at that time_ ... I did not know she loved me.” His brow grew dark. He stopped an instant, and then rapidly continued: “At a later day I ascertained, ... I had reason to believe, ... beyond a doubt, that the feeling she had succeeded in hiding from me existed really, profoundly, ... and that she had suffered.... Ginevra! in the intoxication of my new happiness I could not feel any regret, but I acknowledge I had a moment of remorse. Yes; I never wished to hear her name again, never to see her or hear anything that would recall her.... I was almost irritated at Naples at finding her card among those left on your arrival there.... I was angry with her, poor Faustina, when I should have been grateful as well as you.” “What do you mean?” “It was at Naples, which she happened to be passing through, that the news of our marriage reached her. And when we arrived just after, she wished to show, by leaving her card, that she should henceforth only consider herself my friend and yours. But at that time I did not regard it in this way, and I was unjust as well as ungrateful.” “And now, Lorenzo?” I said with many commingled feelings I could not have defined. “Now, Ginevra, I think she was generous, and it would be well for you to be so in your turn. She wishes to know you, and I come to ask you to receive her to‐morrow.... You hesitate!... I do not suppose, however,” said he a little loftily, as he frowned, “that you think me capable of making such a proposition to my wife, if the Marquise de Villanera had not a spotless reputation, and I were not certain that there is no reason why you should not grant her the favor I beg.”