"It is of no use for you to think of going away," he said; "it is beyond my strength. I have sent away your horses and had your trunk unpacked. I have been out walking alone in the country, and I have done my utmost to force myself to give you up. I resolved not to bid you adieu. I went to the princess's and tried to persuade myself that I loved her; I hate her and I love you. You must stay." These constant agitations weakened my mind as well as my body. I began to lose the faculty of reasoning; evil and good, esteem and contempt became vague sounds, words which I no longer cared to understand, and which frightened me as much as if they were interminable columns of figures which I was told to add. Leoni had thenceforth more than a moral influence over me; he had a magnetic power which I could not escape. His glance, his voice, his tears acted on my nerves no less than on my heart. I was simply a machine turned any way at his pleasure. I forgave him. I abandoned myself to his caresses; I promised him whatever he chose. He told me that the Princess Zagarolo, being a widow, had thought of marrying him; that the brief and trivial fancy he had had for her had made her believe in his love; that she had foolishly compromised herself for him; and that he must either spare her pride and cut loose from her gradually, or have trouble with the whole family. "If it were simply a matter of fighting with all her brothers, cousins and uncles," he said, "I should worry very little about it; but they will act as great noblemen, denounce me as a _carbonaro_, and have me thrown into prison, where I may have to wait ten years before the authorities will deign to look into my case." I listened to all these absurd fables with the credulity of a child. Leoni had never taken any part in politics, but I was still fond of persuading myself that all that was problematical in his life was connected with some great enterprise of that kind. I consented to pass for his sister in the hotel, to go out seldom, and never with him--in short, to leave him absolutely at liberty to leave me at any moment at a nod from the princess. XV