I passed the rest of the day in the salon with Nasi and Checca. Alezia was in bed, wildly hysterical and delirious. Her mother alone was with her. We were all very melancholy at supper. At last, about ten o'clock, Bianca came and told us that her daughter was calmer, and that she would soon return and talk with me. About midnight she returned, and we passed two hours together, while Nasi and Checca sat with Alezia, who was much better and had asked to see them. Bianca was as lovely as an angel with me. Under any other circumstances she might, perhaps, have been embarrassed by her title of princess and her new social position; but motherly affection stifled all other feelings. She thought of nothing but expressing her gratitude to me; she did so in the most flattering terms and with the most affectionate manner imaginable. She did not seem to have dreamed for a single instant that I could hesitate to give her daughter back to her and put aside all thought of marrying her. I was grateful to her for it. It was the only way in which she gave me to understand that the past was still living in her memory. I had the delicacy to refrain from alluding to it; however, I should have been very happy if she had not feared to talk of it with perfect freedom; it would have been a greater token of esteem than all the rest. Doubtless Alezia had told her everything; doubtless she had made a general confession of all the thoughts of her whole life, from the night on which she had surprised her love-affair with the gondolier down to that on which she had confided that secret to Lelio, the actor. Doubtless the mutual suffering caused by such an outpouring of the heart had been purified by the flame of maternal and filial love. Bianca told me that her daughter was calm and resigned, and that she hoped to see me some day and express her unchangeable affection, her great esteem, her cordial gratitude ---- In a word, the sacrifice was consummated. I did not leave the princess until I had told her of my earnest hope that Alezia would some day accept Nasi's love, and I urged her to cultivate the present inclinations of that honorable and excellent young man. I returned to my inn at four o'clock in the morning. I found Nasi there; he had, in accordance with my instructions, made all necessary preparations for my departure. When I appeared with Francesca, he thought that she had come to see me off and bid me good-bye. Imagine his surprise when she embraced him and said, in a truly imperial tone: "Be free, Nasi! win Alezia's love; I give you back your promise and remain your friend." "Lelio," he cried, "so you are robbing me of her too?" "Do you not trust my honor?" I said. "Haven't I given you proofs enough of it since yesterday? And do you doubt Francesca's grandeur of soul?"