ar more unhappy marriages than might be
imagined are severed on these grounds, though the world only gives
attention to those cases in which people of title or renown are
concerned, as it did, for instance, with the famous Martinez Campos suit.

In Benedetta's case, her counsel, Consistorial-Advocate Morano, one of
the leading authorities of the Roman bar, simply neglected to mention, in
his memoir, that if she was still merely a wife in name, this was
entirely due to herself. In addition to the evidence of friends and
servants, showing on what terms the husband and wife had lived since
their marriage, the advocate produced a certificate of a medical
character, showing that the non-consummation of the union was certain.
And the Cardinal Vicar, acting as Bishop of Rome, had thereupon remitted
the case to the Congregation of the Council. This was a first success for
Benedetta, and matters remained in this position. She was waiting for the
Congregation to deliver its final pronouncement, hoping that the
ecclesiastical dissolution of the marriage would prove an irresistible
argument in favour of the divorce which she meant to solicit of the civil
courts. And meantime, in the icy rooms where her mother Ernesta,
submissive and desolate, had lately died, the Contessina resumed her
girlish life, showing herself calm, yet very firm in her passion, having
vowed that she would belong to none but Dario, and that she would not
belong to him until the day when a priest should have joined them
together in God's holy name.

As it happened, some six months previously, Dario also had taken up his
abode at the Boccanera palace in consequence of the death of his father
and the catastrophe which had ruined him. Prince Onofrio, after adopting
Prada's advice and selling the Villa Montefiori to a financial company
for ten million _lire_,* had, instead of prudently keeping his money in
his pockets, succumbed to the fever of speculation which was consuming
Rome. He began to gamble, buying back his own land, and ending by losing
everything in the formidable _krach_ which was swallowing up the wealth
of the entire city. Totally ruined, somewhat deeply in debt even, the
Prince nevertheless continued to promenade the Corso, like the handsome,
smiling, popular man he was, when he accidentally met his death through
falling from his horse; and four months later his widow, the ever
beautiful Flavia--who had managed to save a modern villa and a personal