It was not the first time Del Ferice had done such things, but it was the first time he had been caught.  He cursed his awkwardness in oversetting the vase just at the moment when his game was successfully played to the end—­just when he thought that he began to see land, in having discovered beyond all doubt that Giovanni was devoted body and soul to Corona d’Astrardente.  The information had been necessary to him, for he was beginning seriously to press his suit with Donna Tullia, and he needed to be sure that Giovanni was not a rival to be feared.  He had long suspected Saracinesca’s devotion to the dark Duchessa, and by constantly putting himself in his way, he had done his best to excite his jealousy and to stimulate his passion.  Giovanni never could have considered Del Ferice as a rival; the idea would have been ridiculous.  But the constant annoyance of finding the man by Corona’s side, when he desired to be alone with her, had in some measure heightened the effect Del Ferice desired, though it had not actually produced it.  Being a good judge of character, he had sensibly reckoned his chances against Giovanni, and he had formed so just an opinion of the man’s bold and devoted character as to be absolutely sure that if Saracinesca loved Corona he would not seriously think of marrying Donna Tullia.  He had done all he could to strengthen the passion when he guessed it was already growing, and at the very moment when he had received circumstantial evidence of it which placed it beyond all doubt, he had allowed himself to be discovered, through his own unpardonable carelessness.

Evidently the only satisfactory way out of the difficulty was to kill Giovanni outright, if he could do it.  In that way he would rid himself of an enemy, and at the same time of the evidence against himself.  The question was, how this could be accomplished; for Giovanni was a man of courage, strength, and experience, and he himself—­Ugo del Ferice—­possessed none of those qualities in any great degree.  The result was, that he slept not at all, but passed the night in a state of nervous anxiety by no means conducive to steadiness of hand or calmness of the nerves.  He was less pleased than ever when he heard that Giovanni’s seconds were his own father and the melancholy Spicca, who was the most celebrated duellist in Italy, in spite of his cadaverous long body, his sad voice, and his expression of mournful resignation to the course of events.

In the event of his neither killing Don Giovanni nor being himself killed, what he most dreaded was the certainty that for the rest of his life he must be in his enemy’s power.  He knew that, for Corona’s sake, Giovanni would not mention the cause of the duel, and no one could have induced him to speak of it himself; but it would be a terrible hindrance in his life to feel at every turn that the man he hated had the power to expose him to the world as a scoundrel of the first water.  What he had heard gave him but small influence over Saracinesca,