If you should gain your suit you would retain this sum in full; otherwise you would lose it all.

He now offers you the following compromise.

The principal is not to be paid into your hands, but you are to receive the interest on it, at six per cent., during your lifetime.

And, more than that, one-half of the Palazzo Cagliari is placed at your disposal as a dwelling." The princess bowed, as if in assent, but expressed the hope that she should not be obliged to stay long in Rome.
"I think you will find it advisable to remain some time, at any rate," said the young man.
"But I wish to return home, to Hungary, where, as you know, I have an estate of my own." "That will be impossible, because the Serbs have burnt your castle to the ground." "Burnt it to the ground?
But my steward has not informed me of this." "And for a very good reason: the insurgents chopped off his head on his own threshold." Even this intelligence could not destroy Blanka's appetite.

She ate her sardines with unusual relish, and Vajdar could see that she gave little credence to his words.
"Stormy times are ahead of us," he went on, "and I assure you this is the only safe retreat for you,--the holy city, the home of peace." "As is proved by the iron shutters on the windows of the Cagliari palace," remarked Blanka.