“You cannot silence me,” screamed Donna Tullia.  “I will be heard, and by all Rome.  I will cry it upon the housetops to all the world—­”

“Then you will precipitate your confinement in the asylum of Santo Spirito,” said Giovanni, in cold, calm tones.  “You are clearly mad.”

“So I said,” assented Corona, who was nevertheless pale, and trembling with excitement.

“Allow me to speak with her,” said Giovanni, who, like most dangerous men, seemed to grow cold as others grew hot.  Donna Tullia leaned upon the table, breathing hard between her closed teeth, her face scarlet.

“Madame,” said Giovanni, advancing a step and confronting her, “you say that I am married, and that I am contemplating a monstrous crime.  Upon what do you base your extraordinary assertions?”

“Upon attested copies of your marriage certificate, of the civil register where your handwriting has been seen and recognised.  What more would you have?”

“It is monstrous!” cried the Prince, advancing again.  “It is the most abominable lie ever concocted!  My son married without my knowledge, and to a peasant!  Absurd!”

But Giovanni waved his father back, and kept his place before Donna Tullia.

“I give you the alternative of producing instantly those proofs you refer to,” he said, “and which you certainly cannot produce, or of waiting in this house until a competent physician has decided whether you are sufficiently sane to be allowed to go home alone.”

Donna Tullia hesitated.  She was in a terrible position, for Del Ferice had left Rome suddenly, and though the papers were somewhere in his house, she knew not where, nor how to get at them.  It was impossible to imagine a situation more desperate, and she felt it as she looked round and saw the pale dark faces of the three resolute persons whose anger she had thus roused.  She believed that Giovanni was capable of anything, but she was astonished at his extraordinary calmness.  She hesitated for a moment.

“That is perfectly just,” said Corona.  “If you have proofs, you can produce them.  If you have none, you are insane.”

“I have them, and I will produce them before this hour to-morrow,” answered Donna Tullia, not knowing how she should get the papers, but knowing that she was lost if she failed to obtain them.

“Why not to-day—­at once?” asked Giovanni, with some scorn.

“It will take twenty-four hours to forge them,” growled his father.

“You have no right to insult me so grossly,” cried Donna Tullia.  “But beware—­I have you in my power.  By this time to-morrow you shall see with your own eyes that I speak the truth.  Let me go,” she cried, as the old Prince placed himself between her and the door.

“I will,” said he.  “But before you go, I beg you to observe that if between now and the time you show us these documents you breathe abroad one word of your accusations, I will have you arrested as a dangerous lunatic, and lodged in Santo Spirito; and if these papers are not authentic, you will be arrested to-morrow afternoon on a charge of forgery.  You quite understand me?” He stood aside to let her pass.  She laughed scornfully in his face, and went out.