“Caro amico!  Delighted to hear of your good fortune, and still more enchanted to know you will soon enliven us all with your presence!  I admire your little plan of surprising the countess, and will respect your wishes in the matter.  But you, on your part, must do me a trifling favor:  we have been very dull since you left, and I purpose to start the gayeties afresh by giving a dinner on the 24th (Christmas Eve), in honor of your return—­an epicurean repast for gentlemen only.  Therefore, I ask you to oblige me by fixing your return for that day, and on arrival at Naples, come straight to me at this hotel, that I may have the satisfaction of being the first to welcome you as you deserve.  Telegraph your answer and the hour of your train; and my carriage shall meet you at the station.  The dinner-hour can be fixed to suit your convenience of course; what say you to eight o’clock?  After dinner you can betake yourself to the Villa Romani when you please—­your enjoyment of the lady’s surprise and rapture will be the more keen for having been slightly delayed.  Trusting you will not refuse to gratify an old man’s whim, I am,

“Yours for the time being,

“Cesare Oliva.”

This epistle finished and written in the crabbed disguised penmanship it was part of my business to effect, I folded, sealed and addressed it, and summoning Vincenzo, bade him post it immediately.  As soon as he had gone on this errand, I sat down to my as yet untasted breakfast and made some effort to eat as usual.  But my thoughts were too active for appetite—­I counted on my fingers the days—­there were four, only four, between me and—­what?  One thing was certain—­I must see my wife, or rather I should say my betrothed—­I must see her that very day.  I then began to consider how my courtship had progressed since that evening when she had declared she loved me.  I had seen her frequently, though not daily—­ her behavior had been by turns affectionate, adoring, timid, gracious and once or twice passionately loving, though the latter impulse in her I had always coldly checked.  For though I could bear a great deal, any outburst of sham sentiment on her part sickened and filled me with such utter loathing that often when she was more than usually tender I dreaded lest my pent-up wrath should break loose and impel me to kill her swiftly and suddenly as one crushes the head of a poisonous adder—­an all-too-merciful death for such as she.  I preferred to woo her by gifts alone—­and her hands were always ready to take whatever I or others chose to offer her.  From a rare jewel to a common flower she never refused anything—­her strongest passions were vanity and avarice.  Sparkling gems from the pilfered store of Carmelo Neri-trinkets which I had especially designed for her—­lace, rich embroideries, bouquets of hot-house blossoms, gilded boxes of costly sweets—­nothing came amiss to her—­ she accepted all with a certain covetous glee which she was at no pains to hide from me—­nay, she made it rather evident that she expected such things as her right.