my head had conquered my
heart. I fancied that I had hit upon an excellent expedient, which at all
events made me gain time, and I resolved to act upon it. I wrote to
Therese, advising her to accept the engagement for Naples, where she
might expect me to join her in the month of July, or after my return from
Constantinople. I cautioned her to engage an honest-looking
waiting-woman, so as to appear respectably in the world, and, to lead
such a life as would permit me to make her my wife, on my return, without
being ashamed of myself. I foresaw that her success would be insured by
her beauty even more than by her talent, and, with my nature, I knew that
I could never assume the character of an easy-going lover or of a
compliant husband.

Had I received Therese's letter one week sooner, it is certain that she
would not have gone to Naples, for my love would then have proved
stronger than my reason; but in matters of love, as well as in all
others, Time is a great teacher.

I told Therese to direct her answer to Bologna, and, three days after, I
received from her a letter loving, and at the same time sad, in which she
informed me that she had signed the engagement. She had secured the
services of a woman whom she could present as her mother; she would reach
Naples towards the middle of May, and she would wait for me there till
she heard from me that I no longer wanted her.

Four days after the receipt of that letter, the last but one that Therese
wrote me, I left Bologna for Venice. Before my departure I had received
an answer form the French officer, advising me that my passport had
reached Pesaro, and that he was ready to forward it to me with my trunk,
if I would pay M. Marcello Birna, the proveditore of the Spanish army,
whose address he enclosed, the sum of fifty doubloons for the horse which
I had run away with, or which had run away with me. I repaired at once to
the house of the proveditore, well pleased to settle that affair, and I
received my trunk and my passport a few hours before leaving Bologna. But
as my paying for the horse was known all over the town, Monsignor Cornaro
was confirmed in his belief that I had killed my captain in a duel.

To go to Venice, it was necessary to submit to a quarantine, which had
been adhered to only because the two governments had fallen out. The
Venetians wanted the Pope to be the first in giving free passage through
his frontiers, and the Pope insisted that the Venetians sh