“I dare say your are.  I have come here in this carnival season, when one can wear a mask, to compel my relations to give me what they owe me; but they put me off from one day to another, as they are sure I shall be obliged to go when Lent begins.”

“And will you do so?”

“I shall be obliged to, but as you will not come and see me, give me twenty sequins, which will enable me to leave Milan.  My cousin owes me ten thousand livres, and will not pay me a tenth even.  I will kill him before I go.”

“I haven’t a farthing, and that mask of yours has made me lose a thousand sequins, which I do not know how to pay.

“I know.  I am an unlucky man, and bring bad luck to all my friends.  It was I who told her to give you a card, in the hope that it would change the run against you.”

“Is she a Milanese girl?”

“No, she comes from Marseilles, and is the daughter of a rich agent.  I fell in love with her, seduced her, and carried her off to her unhappiness.  I had plenty of money then, but, wretch that I am, I lost it all at Genoa, where I had to sell all my possessions to enable me to come here.  I have been a week in Milan.  Pray give me the wherewithal to escape.”

I was touched with compassion, and I borrowed twenty sequins from Canano, and gave them to the poor wretch, telling him to write to me.

This alms-giving did me good; it made me forget my losses, and I spent a delightful evening with the marchioness.

The next day we supped together at my rooms, and spent the rest of the night in amorous pleasures.  It was the Saturday, the last day of the carnival at Milan, and I spent the whole of the Sunday in bed, for the marchioness had exhausted me, and I knew that a long sleep would restore my strength.

Early on Monday morning Clairmont brought me a letter which had been left by a servant.  It had no signature, and ran as follows: 

“Have compassion, sir, on the most wretched creature breathing.  M. de la Croix has gone away in despair.  He has left me here in the inn, where he has paid for nothing.  Good God! what will become of me?  I conjure you to come and see me, be it only to give me your advice.”

I did not hesitate for a moment, and it was not from any impulses of love or profligacy that I went, but from pure compassion.  I put on my great coat, and in the same room in which I had seen Irene I saw a young and pretty girl, about whose face there was something peculiarly noble and attractive.  I saw in her innocence and modesty oppressed and persecuted.  As soon as I came in she humbly apologized for having dared to trouble me, and she asked me to tell a woman who was in the room to leave it, as she did not speak Italian.

“She has been tiring me for more than an hour.  I cannot understand what she says, but I can make out that she wants to do me a service.  However, I do not feel inclined to accept her assistance.”