Thus the chance might yet be mine of returning to Rome and the honourable employment Cesare Borgia had promised me.

If only that were so to fall out, I might yet contrive to mend the wreckage of my life.

I was returned, it seems, to the ways of early youth, when we build our hopes of future greatness upon untenable foundations! Great hopes and great ambitions rose within my breast that January evening, fired by the gentle child that rode beside me.

Fate had sent me to her aid that day, and I seemed to have acquired, by virtue of that circumstance, a certain right in her.

Had Fate no other favours for me in her lap! I bethought me of the very House of Sforza, to which I had been so shamefully attached, and of its humble source in that peasant, Giacomuzzo Attendolo, surnamed Sforza for his abnormal strength of body, who rose to great and princely heights.
Assuredly I had the advantage of such an one, and were the chance but given me-- I went no further.