, but with victory came the feeling that it was his turn
to punish his adversary. And now there was a new and powerful motive
added to Giovanni's just resentment, in the anger his future wife felt
and had a good right to feel, at the treachery which had been practised
upon both. It had taken two years to rouse Giovanni to energetic action
against one whom he had in turn regarded with indifference, then
despised, then honestly disliked, and finally hated. But his hatred had
been doubled each time by a greater injury, and was not likely to be
easily satisfied. Nothing short of Del Fence's destruction would be
enough, and his destruction must be brought about by legal means.

Giovanni had not far to seek for his weapons. He had long suspected Del
Ferice of treasonable practices; he did not doubt that with small
exertion he could find evidence to convict him. He would, then, allow him
to marry Donna Tullia; and on the day after the wedding, Del Ferice
should be arrested and lodged in the prison of the Holy Office as a
political delinquent of the meanest and most dangerous kind--as a
political spy. The determination was soon reached. It did not seem cruel
to Giovanni, for he was in a relentless mood; it would not have seemed
cruel to Corona,--Del Ferice had deserved all that, and more also.

So Giovanni went home and slept the sleep of a man who has made up his
mind upon an important matter. And in the morning he rose early and
communicated his ideas to his father. The result was that they determined
for the present to avoid an interview with Donna Tullia, and to
communicate to her by letter the result of old Saracinesca's rapid
journey to Aquila.

CHAPTER XXXI.

When Donna Tullia received Saracinesca's note, explaining the existence
of a second Giovanni, his pedigree and present circumstances, she almost
fainted with disappointment. It seemed to her that she had compromised
herself before the world, that all Rome knew the ridiculous part she had
played in Del Ferice's comedy, and that her shame would never be
forgotten. Suddenly she saw how she had been led away by her hatred of
Giovanni into believing blindly in a foolish tale which ought not to have
deceived a child. So soon as she learned the existence of a second
Giovanni Saracinesca, it seemed to her that she must have been mad not to
foresee such an explanation from the first. She had been duped, she had
been made a cat's-paw, she had been abominably deceiv