crezia, and I cannot imagine how the duke . . ."

"The duke is completely impotent. Do you see now how I was able to trust
my daughter to his care?"

"Impotent? I always thought so myself, but he has a son."

"His wife might possibly be able to explain that mystery to you, but you
may take it for granted that the poor duke will die a virgin in spite of
himself; and he knows that as well as anybody."

"Do not let us say any more about it, but allow me to treat you as at
Tivoli."

"Not just now, as I hear carriage wheels."

A moment after the door opened, and Leonilda laughed heartily to see her
mother in my arms, and threw herself upon us, covering us with kisses.
The duke came in a little later, and we supped together very merrily. He
thought me the happiest of men when I told him I was going to pass the
night honourably with my wife and daughter; and he was right, for I was
so at that moment.

As soon as the worthy man left us we went to bed, but here I must draw a
veil over the most voluptuous night I have ever spent. If I told all I
should wound chaste ears, and, besides, all the colours of the painter
and all the phrases of the poet could not do justice to the delirium of
pleasure, the ecstasy, and the license which passed during that night,
while two wax lights burnt dimly on the table like candles before the
shrine of a saint.

We did not leave the stage, which I watered with my blood, till long
after the sun had risen. We were scarcely dressed when the duke arrived.

Leonilda gave him a vivid description of our nocturnal labours, but in
his unhappy state of impotence he must have been thankful for his
absence.

I was determined to start the next day so as to be at Rome for the last
week of the carnival and I begged the duke to let me give Leonilda the
five thousand ducats which would have been her dower if she had become my
bride.

"As she is your daughter," said he, "she can and ought to take this
present from her father, if only as a dowry for her future husband."

"Will you accept it, then, my dear Leonilda?"

"Yes, papa dear," she said, embracing me, "on the condition that you will
promise to come and see me again as soon as you hear of my marriage."

I promised to do so, and I kept my word.

"As you are going to-morrow," said the duke, "I shall ask all the
nobility of Naples to meet you at supper. In the meanwhile I leave you
with your daughter; we shall see each other again at suppertime."