ng a sick
friend at Magdeburg. This will be a tedious undertaking, for she will
not agree willingly to a separation without great persuasion. I have
much influence over her, and a woman in love cannot refuse a request to
the object of her tenderness. I will obtain, through Madame du Trouffle,
a near and influential relative of the commandant of Berlin, permission
to visit Magdeburg, and through Marietta Taliazuchi I will post my two
important letters." He laughed aloud as he thought of these two women,
so tenderly devoted to him, both so willing to be deceived by him.

"They love me in very different ways," said he, as he finished his
toilet preparatory to going out. "Marietta Taliazuchi with the humility
of a slave, Louise du Trouffle with the grateful passion of an elderly
coquette. It would be a problem for a good arithmetician to solve, which
of these two loves would weigh most. Marietta's love is certainly the
more pleasant and comfortable, because the more humble. Like a faithful
dog she lies at my feet; if I push her from me, she comes back, lies
humbly down, and licks the foot that kicked her. Away, then, to her, to
my tender Marietta."

Hiding his letters in his breast, he took his hat and hastened in
the direction of Marietta's dwelling. She received him in her usual
impassioned manner; she told him how she had suffered in their long
separation; how the thought that he might be untrue to her, that he
loved another had filled her with anguish.

Ranuzi laughed. "Still the same old song, Marietta; always full of doubt
and distrust? Does the lioness still thirst after my blood? would she
lacerate my faithless heart?"

Kneeling, as she often did, at his feet, she rested her arms on his
knees; then dropping her head on her folded hands, she looked up at him.

"Can you swear that you are true to me?" said she, in a strange, sharp
tone. "Can you swear that you love no other woman but me?"

"Yes, I can swear it!" said he, laughing.

"Then do so," cried she, earnestly.

"Tell me an oath and I will repeat it after you."

She looked at him firmly for several moments, and strange shadows
crossed her emotional countenance.

Ranuzi did not perceive them; he was too inattentive, too confident of
success, to entertain doubt or distrust.

"Hear the oath!" said she, after a pause. "'I, Count Carlo Ranuzi, swear
that I love no other woman but Marietta Taliazuchi; I swear that, since
I have loved her, I have not nor e