any way. I am yours and I
love you, and I am ready to prove my love."

She could not have spoken more plainly, and as she spoke the last words
she fell on me with her face close to mine, which she bedewed with her
tears. I was ashamed of such an easy conquest, and I gently withdrew from
her embrace, telling her to return after the bruise on my face had
disappeared. She left me deeply mortified.

The Italian, who had taken half the suite of rooms, had arrived in the
course of the night. I asked his name, and was given a card bearing the
name of The Marquis Don Antonio della Croce.

Was it the Croce I knew?

It was very possible.

I asked what kind of an establishment he had, and was informed that the
marchioness had a lady's maid, and the marquis a secretary and two
servants. I longed to see the nobleman in question.

I had not long to wait, for as soon as he heard that I was his neighbour,
he came to see me, and we spent two hours in telling each other our
adventures since we had parted in Milan. He had heard that I had made the
fortune of the girl he had abandoned, and in the six years that had
elapsed he had been travelling all over Europe, engaged in a constant
strife with fortune. At Paris and Brussels he had made a good deal of
money, and in the latter town he had fallen in love with a young lady of
rank, whom her father had shut up in a convent. He had taken her away,
and she it was whom he called the Marchioness della Croce, now six months
with child.

He made her pass for his wife, because, as he said, he meant to marry her
eventually.

"I have fifty thousand francs in gold," said he, "and as much again in
jewellery and various possessions. It is my intention to give suppers
here and hold a bank, but if I play without correcting the freaks of
fortune I am sure to lose." He intended going to Warsaw, thinking I would
give him introductions to all my friends there; but he made a mistake,
and I did not even introduce him to my Polish friends at Spa. I told him
he could easily make their acquaintance by himself, and that I would
neither make nor mar with him.

I accepted his invitation to dinner for the same day. His secretary, as
he called him, was merely his confederate. He was a clever Veronese named
Conti, and his wife was an essential accomplice in Croce's designs.

At noon my friend the hatter came again with the ring, followed by the
owner, who looked like a bravo. They were accompanied by the jew