He would have plenty of time to go to the vineyard now, for in a little while he should have nothing to do, as the palace was going to be sold.  When he got home, he wrote a formal letter to Donna Sabina, informing her that he had fulfilled the commands she had deigned to give him, and ventured to subscribe himself her Excellency’s most devoted, humble and grateful servant, as indeed he was, from the bottom of his heart.  In twenty-four hours he received a note from her, written in a delicate tall hand, not without character, on paper bearing the address of Baron Volterra’s house in Via Ludovisi.  She thanked him in few words, warmly and simply.  He read the note several times and then put it away in an old-fashioned brass-bound secretary, of which he always kept the key in his pocket.  It was the only word of thanks he had received from any living member of the Conti family.

A month had passed since then, but as he sat at his desk it was all as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.

He was in his office to-day because he had received notice that some one was coming to look at the palace with a view to buying it, and he considered it his duty to show it to possible purchasers.  Baron Volterra had sent him word in the morning, and he had come early.  Then, as he sat in his old place, the ruin of the great house had enacted itself again before his eyes, so vividly that the pain had been almost physical.  And then, he had fallen to thinking of Sabina, and wondering what was to become of her.  That was the history of one half-hour in his life, on a May afternoon; but the whole man was in it, what he had been thirty years earlier, and a month ago, what he was to-day and what he would be to the end of his life.

CHAPTER III

If Sabina had known what was before her when she got into the Baroness Volterra’s carriage and was driven up to the Via Ludovisi, followed by a cab with her luggage, she would probably have begged leave to go with her elder sister to the convent.  Her mother would most likely have refused the permission, and she would have been obliged to accept the Volterras’ hospitality after all, but she would have had the satisfaction of having made an effort to keep her freedom before entering into what she soon looked upon as slavery.

Her mother would have considered this another evidence of the folly inherent in all the Conti family.  Sabina lived in a luxurious house, she was treated with consideration, she saw her friends, and desirable young men saw her.  What more could she wish?

All this was true.  The Baroness was at great pains to make much of her, and the Baron’s manner to her was at once flattering, respectful and paternal.  During the first few days she had discovered that if she accidentally expressed the smallest wish it was instantly fulfilled, and this was so embarrassing that she had since taken endless pains never to express any wish at all.  Moreover not the slightest allusion to the misfortunes of her family was ever made before her, and if she was in total ignorance of the state of affairs, she was at least spared the humiliation of hearing that the palace was for sale, and might be sold any day, to any one who would pay the price asked.