"Your mother was a
Gradenigo?"
"Yes. My father is alive. You may have met him, though he rarely
leaves Venice."
"I think I have, years ago, but I am not sure. Does he never come to
Rome?"
"He is an invalid now," Malipieri explained gravely. He cannot leave
the house."
"Indeed? I am very sorry. It must be dreadful to be an invalid. I was
never ill in my life. But now that we have made acquaintance, do tell
me all about last night I Were you really in danger, as Sabina thinks,
or is she exaggerating?"
"There was certainly no exaggeration in saying that we were in great
danger, as matters have turned out," Malipieri answered. "Of the two
men who knew that we were in the vault, one is lying insensible, with
a fractured skull, in the hospital of the Consolazione, and the other
has been arrested by a mistake and is in prison. Besides, both of them
would have had every reason to suppose that we had got out."
"Sabina did not tell me that. How awful! I must know all the details,
please!"
Malipieri told the whole story, from the time when Volterra had first
invited him to come and make a search. The Princess nodded her
energetic approval of his view that Sabina had a right to a large
share in anything that was found. The poor girl's dowry, she said,
had been eaten up by her father's absurd charities and by the bad
administration of the estates which had ruined the whole family.
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