Think what a disgrace it would be to the Saracinesca to have it made public that Giovanni was openly engaged to marry a great heiress while already secretly married to a peasant woman!" "It would indeed be horrible," said Donna Tullia, with a disagreeable look in her blue eyes.

"Perhaps we should not even think of it," she added, turning over the leaves of the music upon the piano.

Then suddenly she added, "Do you know that you have put me in a dreadful position by exacting that promise from me ?" "No," said Del Ferice, quietly.

"You wanted to hear the secret.

You have heard it.