nce.

"I will be quite plain. I will tell you all my troubles, because
there is not another person in the world to whom I could tell
them--and because I know that they will not trouble you. You will
feel a little friendly sympathy, and that will be enough. But you
will feel no pain. After all, I daresay that I exaggerate, and that
there is nothing so very painful in the matter, as it will strike
you. But the case is serious, as you will see. It involves my life,
perhaps for many years to come.

"I am completely in Del Ferice's power. A year ago I had the
possibility of freeing myself. What do you think that chance was? I
could have gone to my grandfather and asked him to lay down a sum
of money sufficient to liberate me, or I could have refused Del
Ferice's new offer and allowed myself to be declared bankrupt. My
abominable vanity stood in the way of my following either of those
plans. In less than two months I shall be placed in the same
position again. But the circumstances are changed. The sum of money
is so considerable that I would not like to ask all my family, with
their three fortunes, to contribute it. The business is enormous. I
have an establishment like a bank and Contini--you remember
Contini?--has several assistant architects. Moreover we stand
alone. There is no other firm of the kind left, and our failure
would be a very disagreeable affair. But so long as I remain Del
Ferice's slave, we shall not fail. Do you know that this great and
successful firm is carried on systematically without a centime of
profit to the partners, and with the constant threat of a
disgraceful failure, used to force me on? Do you think that if I
chose the alternative, any one would believe, or that my tyrant
would let any one believe, that Orsino Saracinesca had served Ugo
Del Ferice for years--two years and a half before long--as a sort
of bondsman? I am in a very unenviable position. I am sure that Del
Ferice made use of me at first for his own ends--that is, to make
money for him. The magnitude of the sums which pass through my
hands makes me sure that he is now backed by a powerful syndicate,
probably of foreign bankers who lost money in the Roman crash, and
who see a chance of getting it back through Del Ferice's
management. It is a question of mi