"Very good," I said, laughingly, "but please to leave me now as I have to
do my packing."

As I expected, he wanted me to lend him some money, but on my giving him
a direct refusal he went away.

After dinner I took leave of M. Medici and Madame Dennis, the latter of
whom had heard the story already. She cursed the grand duke, saying she
could not imagine how he could confound the innocent with the guilty. She
informed me that Madame Lamberti had received orders to quit, as also a
hunchbacked Venetian priest, who used to go and see the dancer but had
never supped with her. In fact, there was a clean sweep of all the
Venetians in Florence.

As I was returning home I met Lord Lincoln's governor; whom I had known
at Lausanne eleven years before. I told him of what had happened to me
through his hopeful pupil getting himself fleeced. He laughed, and told
me that the grand duke had advised Lord Lincoln not to pay the money he
had lost, to which the young man replied that if he were not to pay he
should be dishonoured since the money he had lost had been lent to him.

In leaving Florence I was cured of an unhappy love which would doubtless
have had fatal consequences if I had stayed on. I have spared my readers
the painful story because I cannot recall it to my mind even now without
being cut to the heart. The widow whom I loved, and to whom I was so weak
as to disclose my feelings, only attached me to her triumphal car to
humiliate me, for she disdained my love and myself. I persisted in my
courtship, and nothing but my enforced absence would have cured me.