“Pshaw! don’t we have priests?  Why, Giulietta, we are all very pious, and never think of going out without saying our prayers.  The Madonna is a kind Mother, and will wink very hard on the sins of such good sons as we are.  There isn’t a place in all Italy where she is kept better in candles, and in rings and bracelets, and everything a woman could want.  We never come home without bringing her something; and then we have lots left to dress all our women like princesses; and they have nothing to do from morning till night but play the lady.  Come now?”

At the moment this conversation was going on in the balmy, seductive evening air at the bridge, another was transpiring in the Albergo della Torre, one of those dark, musty dens of which we have been speaking.  In a damp, dirty chamber, whose brick floor seemed to have been unsuspicious of even the existence of brooms for centuries, was sitting the cavalier whom we have so often named in connection with Agnes.  His easy, high-bred air, his graceful, flexible form and handsome face formed a singular contrast to the dark and mouldy apartment, at whose single unglazed window he was sitting.  The sight of this splendid man gave an impression of strangeness, in the general bareness, much as if some marvellous jewel had been unaccountably found lying on that dusty brick floor.

He sat deep in thought, with his elbow resting on a rickety table, his large, piercing, dark eyes seeming intently to study the pavement.

The door opened, and a gray-headed old man entered, who approached him respectfully.

“Well, Paolo?” said the cavalier, suddenly starting.

“My Lord, the men are all going back to-night.”

“Let them go, then,” said the cavalier, with an impatient movement.  “I can follow in a day or two.”

“Ah, my Lord, if I might make so bold, why should you expose your person by staying longer?  You may be recognized and”——­

“No danger,” said the other, hastily.

“My Lord, you must forgive me, but I promised my dear lady, your mother, on her death-bed”——­

“To be a constant plague to me,” said the cavalier, with a vexed smile and an impatient movement; “but speak on, Paolo,—­for when you once get anything on your mind, one may as well hear it first as last.”

“Well, then, my Lord, this girl,—­I have made inquiries, and every one reports her most modest and pious,—­the only grandchild of a poor old woman.  Is it worthy of a great lord of an ancient house to bring her to shame?”

“Who thinks of bringing her to shame?  ’Lord of an ancient house’!” added the cavalier, laughing bitterly,—­“a landless beggar, cast out of everything,—­titles, estates, all!  Am I, then, fallen so low that my wooing would disgrace a peasant-girl?”

“My Lord, you cannot mean to woo a peasant-girl in any other way than one that would disgrace her,—­one of the House of Sarelli, that goes back to the days of the old Roman Empire!”