There are many who have it in my country." "You shall call me nothing else, "said I then; but she shook her head, and hung it down as she whispered softly, "I like best Francesco," and then, so low as to be hardly audible, "Checho," the Sienese diminutive for my name of Francis. Old Nonna came in to hound me from the room. That night--it was my last but one--Aurelia came to the door with me, and let me kiss her two hands again. I have come to the hour of my destruction--the 16th of June, 1722. The smouldering fires which had laboured in my breast for nine months burst into a flame which overwhelmed both Aurelia and me. I committed an unpardonable sin, I endeavoured to repair it with an act of well-nigh incredible temerity. What occurred on that night is, in fact, the origin of these Memoirs and their sole justification. The dawn of that momentous day found her a loving and honoured wife; and its close left her, innocent as she was, under the worst suspicion which can fall upon a good woman. It found me a hopeful gentleman of means and prospects; and I went out of it into the dark, a houseless wanderer, to consort with profligates, thieves and murderers. CHAPTER IV FATAL AVOWAL I shall not deny that the overnight's tenderness may have wrought in me the dangerous ecstasy which was to prove so cruel a requital of it; for it is of the nature of love to be inflamed by the least hint of a neighbouring, answering fire. I believe that I could have been for ever Aurelia's mute, adoring, unasking slave, but for the fact that she had sighed, and whispered me "Checho," and twice suffered me to kiss her hands. Fatal benevolence that lifted suddenly the meek! Fatal wealth bestowed that made the pauper purse-proud! I had passed the night in a transport of triumphant joy; throughout the day succeeding it I felt my wings. "Nunc," I could exclaim with Propertius. "Nunc mihi summa licet sidera contingere plantis." And that exalted strain, which was my perdition, alas, was hers also! That which followed was a very hot still night, with thunder in the Euganean hills; and Aurelia may have been lax or languid, or in my miserable person some of the summer's fire may have throbbed. It was late, near nine o'clock; already old Nonna had given three warnings of the hour, and was only delaying the last while she stirred the ingredients of the doctor's minestrone over the fire. The knowledge that she must come in, and I go out, shortly, at any moment, fretted my quick senses to fever. I looked for ever at Aurelia with a wildly beating heart; she, on her side, was aware of my agitation, and breathed the shorter for the knowledge. She sat by the open window mending a pair of stays; at her side was her work table, upon that her three-wicked lamp. I leaned over a chair exactly in front of her, watching every slight tremor or movement, just as a dog watches a morsel which he longs for but is forbidden to touch. Thrice a dog that I was! I felt like a dog that night.