"I! Oh, never fear; he has had enough of me. And now, my dear friend,
--now that Violante is safe once more under your own roof; now that my
honoured mother must long ere this have been satisfied by Leonard, who
left us to go to her, that our success has been achieved without danger,
and, what she will value almost as much, without scandal; now that your
foe is powerless as a reed floating on the water towards its own rot,
and the Prince Von -------is perhaps about to enter his carriage on the
road to Dover, charged with the mission of restoring to Italy her
worthiest son,--let me dismiss you to your own happy slumbers, and allow
me to wrap myself in my cloak, and snatch a short sleep on the sofa, till
yonder gray dawn has mellowed into riper day. My eyes are heavy, and if
you stay here three minutes longer, I shall be out of reach of hearing,
in the land of dreams. /Buona notte!/"

"But there is a bed prepared for you."

Harley shook his head in dissent, and composed himself at length on the
sofa.

Riccabocca, bending, wrapped the cloak round his guest, kissed him on the
forehead, and crept out of the room to rejoin Jemima, who still sat up
for him, nervously anxious to learn from him those explanations which her
considerate affection would not allow her to ask from the agitated and
exhausted Violante. "Not in bed!" cried the sage, on seeing her. "Have
you no feelings of compassion for my son that is to be? Just, too, when
there is a reasonable probability that we can afford a son?"

Riccabocca here laughed merrily, and his wife threw herself on his
shoulder, and cried for joy.