Thereupon the old gentleman flew into a towering rage, swearing and cursing in a most characteristic manner, but finally declaring that to arrest spies was the work of spies, and that Giovanni had behaved like a gentleman, as of course he could not help doing, seeing that he was his own son.
* * * * * And so the curtain falls upon the first act.

Giovanni and Corona are happily married.

Del Ferice is safe across the frontier among his friends in Naples, and Donna Tullia is waiting still for news of him, in the last days of Lent, in the year 1866.

To carry on the tale from this point would be to enter upon a new series of events more interesting, perhaps, than those herein detailed, and of like importance in the history of the Saracinesca family, but forming by their very nature a distinct narrative--a second act to the drama, if it may be so called.

I am content if in the foregoing pages I have so far acquainted the reader with those characters which hereafter will play more important parts, as to enable him to comprehend the story of their subsequent lives, and in some measure to judge of their future by their past, regarding them as acquaintances, if not sympathetic, yet worthy of some attention.
Especially I ask for indulgence in matters political.