ght that register under your hand!"

"Heaven sends opportunities," said Del Ferice, devoutly; "it is for man
to make good use of them. Who knows but what you may make a brilliant use
of this?"

"I cannot, since I am bound by my promise," said Donna Tullia.

"No; I am sure you will not think of doing it. But then, we might perhaps
agree that circumstances made it advisable to act. Many months must pass
before he can think of offering himself to her. It will be time enough
to consider the matter then--to consider whether we should be justified
in raising such a terrible scandal, in causing so much unhappiness to an
innocent woman like the Duchessa, and to a worthless man like Don
Giovanni. Think what a disgrace it would be to the Saracinesca to have it
made public that Giovanni was openly engaged to marry a great heiress
while already secretly married to a peasant woman!"

"It would indeed be horrible," said Donna Tullia, with a disagreeable
look in her blue eyes. "Perhaps we should not even think of it," she
added, turning over the leaves of the music upon the piano. Then suddenly
she added, "Do you know that you have put me in a dreadful position
by exacting that promise from me?"

"No," said Del Ferice, quietly. "You wanted to hear the secret. You have
heard it. You have nothing to do but to keep it to yourself."

"That is precisely--" She checked herself, and struck a loud chord upon
the instrument. She had turned from Del Ferice, and could not see the
smile upon his face, which flickered across the pale features and
vanished instantly.

"Think no more about it," he said pleasantly. "It is so easy to forget
such stories when one resolutely puts them out of one's mind."

Donna Tullia smiled bitterly, and was silent. She began playing from the
sheet before her, with indifferent accuracy, but with more than
sufficient energy. Del Ferice sat patiently by her side, turning over the
leaves, and glancing from time to time at her face, which he really
admired exceedingly. He belonged to the type of pale and somewhat
phlegmatic men who frequently fall in love with women of sanguine
complexion and robust appearance. Donna Tullia was a fine type of this
class, and was called handsome, though she did not compare well with
women of less pretension to beauty, but more delicacy and refinement. Del
Ferice admired her greatly, however; and, as has been said, he admired
her fortune even more. He saw himself gradually approachin