in the mind of our cardinal."

As there was no performance at the Opera that night, I went to the
cardinal's reception; I found no difference towards me either in the
cardinal's manners, or in those of any other person, and the marchioness
was even more gracious than usual.

After dinner, on the following day, Gama informed me that the cardinal
had sent the young girl to a convent in which she would be well treated
at his eminence's expense, and that he was certain that she would leave
it only to become the wife of the young doctor.

"I should be very happy if it should turn out so," I replied; "for they
are both most estimable people."

Two days afterwards, I called upon Father Georgi, and he told me, with an
air of sorrow, that the great news of the day in Rome was the failure of
the attempt to carry off Dalacqua's daughter, and that all the honour of
the intrigue was given to me, which displeased him much. I told him what
I had already told Gama, and he appeared to believe me, but he added that
in Rome people did not want to know things as they truly were, but only
as they wished them to be.

"It is known, that you have been in the habit of going every morning to
Dalacqua's house; it is known that the young man often called on you;
that is quite enough. People do not care, to know the circumstances which
might counteract the slander, but only those, likely to give it new force
for slander is vastly relished in the Holy City. Your innocence will not
prevent the whole adventure being booked to your account, if, in forty
years time you were proposed as pope in the conclave."

During the following days the fatal adventure began to cause me more
annoyance than I could express, for everyone mentioned it to me, and I
could see clearly that people pretended to believe what I said only
because they did not dare to do otherwise. The marchioness told me
jeeringly that the Signora Dalacqua had contracted peculiar obligations
towards me, but my sorrow was very great when, during the last days of
the carnival, I remarked that Cardinal Acquaviva's manner had become
constrained, although I was the only person who observed the change.

The noise made by the affair was, however, beginning to subside, when, in
the first days of Lent, the cardinal desired me to come to his private
room, and spoke as follows:

"The affair of the girl Dalacqua is now over; it is no longer spoken of,
but the verdict of the public is that you and I