reply to the
assignations which were sent to him. He acted indeed as if he had never
been married, though deep in his heart the wound dealt to his passion and
his pride still lingered, bleeding afresh whenever one or another of the
scandalous rumours in circulation reached his ears. However, as their
adversary desisted from all action, one can understand that the hopes of
Benedetta and Dario increased, the more so as hardly an evening passed
without Donna Serafina telling them that she believed she had gained the
support of another cardinal.

But the man who terrified them all was Monsignor Palma, whom the
Congregation had appointed to defend the sacred ties of matrimony. His
rights and privileges were almost unlimited, he could appeal yet again,
and in any case would make the affair drag on as long as it pleased him.
His first report, in reply to Morano's memoir, had been a terrible blow,
and it was now said that a second one which he was preparing would prove
yet more pitiless, establishing as a fundamental principle of the Church
that it could not annul a marriage whose nonconsummation was purely and
simply due to the action of the wife in refusing obedience to her
husband. In presence of such energy and logic, it was unlikely that the
cardinals, even if sympathetic, would dare to advise the Holy Father to
dissolve the marriage. And so discouragement was once more overcoming
Benedetta when Donna Serafina, on returning from a visit to Monsignor
Nani, calmed her somewhat by telling her that a mutual friend had
undertaken to deal with Monsignor Palma. However, said she, even if they
succeeded, it would doubtless cost them a large sum.

Monsignor Palma, a theologist expert in all canonical affairs, and a
perfectly honest man in pecuniary matters, had met with a great
misfortune in his life. He had a niece, a poor and lovely girl, for whom,
unhappily, in his declining years he conceived an insensate passion, with
the result that to avoid a scandal he was compelled to marry her to a
rascal who now preyed upon her and even beat her. And the prelate was now
passing through a fearful crisis, weary of reducing himself to beggary,
and indeed no longer having the money necessary to extricate his nephew
by marriage from a very nasty predicament, the result of cheating at
cards. So the idea was to save the young man by a considerable pecuniary
payment, and then to procure him employment without asking aught of his
uncle, who, as