post-horses for nightfall, and I then wrote the following letter to the
grand duke:

"My Lord; The thunder which Jove has placed in your hands is only for the
guilty; in launching it at me you have done wrong. Seven months ago you
promised that I should remain unmolested so long as I obeyed the laws. I
have done so scrupulously, and your lordship has therefore broken your
word. I am merely writing to you to let you know that I forgive you, and
that I shall never give utterance to a word of complaint. Indeed I would
willingly forget the injury you have done me, if it were not necessary
that I should remember never to set foot in your realms again. The
magistrate tells me that I can go and see you at Pisa, but I fear such a
step would seem a hardy one to a prince, who should hear what a man has
to say before he condemns him, and not afterwards.

"I am, etc."

When I had finished the letter I sent it to the magistrate, and then I
began my packing.

I was sitting down to dinner when Medini came in cursing Zen and
Zanovitch, whom he accused of being the authors of his misfortune, and of
refusing to give him a hundred sequins, without which he could not
possibly go.

"We are all going to Pisa," said he, "and cannot imagine why you do not
come, too."

"Very good," I said, laughingly, "but please to leave me now as I have to
do my packing."

As I expected, he wanted me to lend him some money, but on my giving him
a direct refusal he went away.

After dinner I took leave of M. Medici and Madame Dennis, the latter of
whom had heard the story already. She cursed the grand duke, saying she
could not imagine how he could confound the innocent with the guilty. She
informed me that Madame Lamberti had received orders to quit, as also a
hunchbacked Venetian priest, who used to go and see the dancer but had
never supped with her. In fact, there was a clean sweep of all the
Venetians in Florence.

As I was returning home I met Lord Lincoln's governor; whom I had known
at Lausanne eleven years before. I told him of what had happened to me
through his hopeful pupil getting himself fleeced. He laughed, and told
me that the grand duke had advised Lord Lincoln not to pay the money he
had lost, to which the young man replied that if he were not to pay he
should be dishonoured since the money he had lost had been lent to him.

In leaving Florence I was cured of an unhappy love which would doubtless
have had fatal consequences if I