presence at her
parties, as in consequence of some slighting conduct, on her part,
towards his "Dama," he discontinued his attendance at her evening
assemblies, and at the time of my visit to Venice had given up society
altogether.

I could soon collect, from the tone held respecting his conduct at
Madame B * * *'s, how subversive of all the morality of intrigue they
considered the late step of which he had been guilty in withdrawing his
acknowledged "Amica" from the protection of her husband, and placing
her, at once, under the same roof with himself. "You must really (said
the hostess herself to me) scold your friend;--till this unfortunate
affair, he conducted himself _so_ well!"--a eulogy on his previous moral
conduct which, when I reported it the following day to my noble host,
provoked at once a smile and sigh from his lips.

The chief subject of our conversation, when alone, was his marriage, and
the load of obloquy which it had brought upon him. He was most anxious
to know the worst that had been alleged of his conduct; and as this was
our first opportunity of speaking together on the subject, I did not
hesitate to put his candour most searchingly to the proof, not only by
enumerating the various charges I had heard brought against him by
others, but by specifying such portions of these charges as I had been
inclined to think not incredible myself. To all this he listened with
patience, and answered with the most unhesitating frankness, laughing to
scorn the tales of unmanly outrage related of him, but, at the same
time, acknowledging that there had been in his conduct but too much to
blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions, during his domestic
life, when he had been irritated into letting "the breath of bitter
words" escape him,--words, rather those of the unquiet spirit that
possessed him than his own, and which he now evidently remembered with
a degree of remorse and pain which might well have entitled them to be
forgotten by others.

It was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admissions he might
be inclined to make respecting his own delinquencies, the inordinate
measure of the punishment dealt out to him had sunk deeply into his
mind, and, with the usual effect of such injustice, drove him also to be
unjust himself;--so much so, indeed, as to impute to the quarter, to
which he now traced all his ill fate, a feeling of fixed hostility to
himself, which would not rest, he thought, even