with
her, had in some measure heightened the effect Del Ferice desired, though
it had not actually produced it. Being a good judge of character, he had
sensibly reckoned his chances against Giovanni, and he had formed so just
an opinion of the man's bold and devoted character as to be absolutely
sure that if Saracinesca loved Corona he would not seriously think of
marrying Donna Tullia. He had done all he could to strengthen the passion
when he guessed it was already growing, and at the very moment when he
had received circumstantial evidence of it which placed it beyond all
doubt, he had allowed himself to be discovered, through his own
unpardonable carelessness.

Evidently the only satisfactory way out of the difficulty was to kill
Giovanni outright, if he could do it. In that way he would rid himself
of an enemy, and at the same time of the evidence against himself.
The question was, how this could be accomplished; for Giovanni was a
man of courage, strength, and experience, and he himself--Ugo del
Ferice--possessed none of those qualities in any great degree. The result
was, that he slept not at all, but passed the night in a state of nervous
anxiety by no means conducive to steadiness of hand or calmness of the
nerves. He was less pleased than ever when he heard that Giovanni's
seconds were his own father and the melancholy Spicca, who was the most
celebrated duellist in Italy, in spite of his cadaverous long body, his
sad voice, and his expression of mournful resignation to the course of
events.

In the event of his neither killing Don Giovanni nor being himself
killed, what he most dreaded was the certainty that for the rest of his
life he must be in his enemy's power. He knew that, for Corona's sake,
Giovanni would not mention the cause of the duel, and no one could have
induced him to speak of it himself; but it would be a terrible hindrance
in his life to feel at every turn that the man he hated had the power to
expose him to the world as a scoundrel of the first water. What he had
heard gave him but small influence over Saracinesca, though it was of
great value in determining his own action. To say aloud to the world that
Giovanni loved the Duchessa d'Astrardente would be of little use. Del
Ferice could not, for very shame, tell how he had found it out; and there
was no other proof but his evidence, for he guessed that from that time
forward the open relation between the two would be even more formal than