After three or four months, during which no one knew where he was, Francesco returned.  The very first night, he wished to resume his intercourse with Beatrice; but she was no longer the same person, the timid and submissive child had become a girl of decided will; strong in her love for the abbe, she resisted alike prayers, threats, and blows.

The wrath of Francesco fell upon his wife, whom he accused of betraying him; he gave her a violent thrashing.  Lucrezia Petroni was a veritable Roman she-wolf, passionate alike in love and vengeance; she endured all, but pardoned nothing.

Some days after this, the Abbe Guerra arrived at the Cenci palace to carry out what had been arranged.  Rich, young, noble, and handsome, everything would seem to promise him success; yet he was rudely dismissed by Francesco.  The first refusal did not daunt him; he returned to the charge a second time and yet a third, insisting upon the suitableness of such a union.  At length Francesco, losing patience, told this obstinate lover that a reason existed why Beatrice could be neither his wife nor any other man’s.  Guerra demanded what this reason was.  Francesco replied: 

“Because she is my mistress.”

Monsignor Guerra turned pale at this answer, although at first he did not believe a word of it; but when he saw the smile with which Francesco Cenci accompanied his words, he was compelled to believe that, terrible though it was, the truth had been spoken.

For three days he sought an interview with Beatrice in vain; at length he succeeded in finding her.  His last hope was her denial of this horrible story:  Beatrice confessed all.  Henceforth there was no human hope for the two lovers; an impassable gulf separated them.  They parted bathed in tears, promising to love one another always.

Up to that time the two women had not formed any criminal resolution, and possibly the tragical incident might never have happened, had not Frances one night returned into his daughter’s room and violently forced her into the commission of fresh crime.

Henceforth the doom of Francesco was irrevocably pronounced.

As we have said, the mind of Beatrice was susceptible to the best and the worst influences:  it could attain excellence, and descend to guilt.  She went and told her mother of the fresh outrage she had undergone; this roused in the heart of the other woman the sting of her own wrongs; and, stimulating each other’s desire for revenge, they, decided upon the murder of Francesco.

Guerra was called in to this council of death.  His heart was a prey to hatred and revenge.  He undertook to communicate with Giacomo Cenci, without whose concurrence the women would not act, as he was the head of the family, when his father was left out of account.

Giacomo entered readily into the conspiracy.  It will be remembered what he had formerly suffered from his father; since that time he had married, and the close-fisted old man had left him, with his wife and children, to languish in poverty.  Guerra’s house was selected to meet in and concert matters.