do not know how I escaped.  God helped me.  He is so brave and noble that if he had held those accursed papers in his hands and known all the truth he would not have given me up.  He would have brought a stain on his great name, and shame upon his great house for my sake.  He is not like you.  I parted from him twice, I know all that I can suffer, and I hate you for each individual suffering, great and small.

“I have dismissed my mother from my service.  How that would sound in Rome!  I have given her as much money as she can expect and I have got rid of her.  She said that she would not go, that she would write to you, and many other things.  I told her that if she attempted to stay I would go to the authorities, prove that she was my mother, provide for her, if the law required it and have her forcibly turned out of my house by the aid of the same law.  I am of age, married, independent, and I cannot be obliged to entertain my mother either in the character of a servant, or as a visitor.  I suppose she has a right to a lodging under your roof.  I hope she will take advantage of it, as I advised her.  She took the money and went away, cursing me.  I think that if she had ever, in all my life, shown the smallest affection for me—­even at the last, when she declared herself my mother, if she had shown a spark of motherly feeling, of tenderness, of anything human, I could have accepted her and tolerated her, half peasant woman as she is, spy as she has been, and cheat and thief.  But she stood before me with the most perfect indifference, watching my surprise with those bad eyes of hers.  I wonder why I have borne her presence so long.  I suppose it had never struck me that I could get rid of her, in spite of you, if I chose.  By the bye, I sent for a notary when I paid her, and I got a legal receipt signed with her legal name, Lucrezia Spicca, ta Ferris.  The document formally releases me from all further claims.  I hope you will understand that you have no power whatsoever to impose her upon me again, though I confess that I am expecting your next move with interest.  I suppose that you have not done with me yet, and have some new means of torment in reserve.  Satan is rarely idle long.

“And now I have done.  If you were not the villain you are, I should expect you to go to the man whose happiness I have endangered, if not destroyed.  I should expect you to tell Don Orsino Saracinesca enough of the truth to make him understand my action.  But I know you far too well to imagine that you would willingly take from my life one thorn of the many you have planted in it.  I will write to Don Orsino myself.  I think you need not fear him—­I am sorry that you need not.  But I shall not tell him more than is necessary.  You will remember, I hope, that such discretion as I may show, is not shown out of consideration for you, but out of forethought for my own welfare.  I have unfortunately no means of preventing you from writing to me, but you may be sure that your letters will never be read, so that you will do as well to spare yourself the trouble of composing them.