derness, and gratitude.

After our delightful amorous sport, I told her the news, but love had so
completely taken possession of her pure and sensitive soul, that what had
been important was now only an accessory. But the news of her seducer
having turned a Capuchin friar filled her with amazement, and, passing
very sensible remarks on the extraordinary event, she pitied Steffani.
When we can feel pity, we love no longer, but a feeling of pity
succeeding love is the characteristic only of a great and generous mind.
She was much pleased with me for having informed my three friends of her
being under my protection, and she left to my care all the necessary
arrangements for obtaining a reconciliation with her father.

Now and then we recollected that the time of our separation was near at
hand, our grief was bitter, but we contrived to forget it in the ecstacy
of our amorous enjoyment.

"Ah! why can we not belong for ever to each other?" the charming girl
would exclaim. "It is not my acquaintance with Steffani, it is your loss
which will seal my eternal misery."

But it was necessary to bring our delightful interview to a close, for
the hours were flying with fearful rapidity. I left her happy, her eyes
wet with tears of intense felicity.

At the dinner-table M. Barbaro told me that he had paid a visit to his
relative, Steffani's mother, and that she had not appeared sorry at the
decision taken by her son, although he was her only child.

"He had the choice," she said, "between killing himself and turning
friar, and he took the wiser course."

The woman spoke like a good Christian, and she professed to be one; but
she spoke like an unfeeling mother, and she was truly one, for she was
wealthy, and if she had not been cruelly avaricious her son would not
have been reduced to the fearful alternative of committing suicide or of
becoming a Capuchin friar.

The last and most serious motive which caused the despair of Steffani,
who is still alive, remained a mystery for everybody. My Memoirs will
raise the veil when no one will care anything about it.

The count and his son were, of course, greatly surprised, and the event
made them still more desirous of discovering the young lady. In order to
obtain a clue to her place of refuge, the count had resolved on summoning
before the Council of Ten all the parties, accused and accusing, whose
names he had on his list, with the exception of myself. His determination
made it ne