She guessed that in that event her mother would try to force her into a convent.  The Princess was not the sort of woman who would devote the rest of her life to consoling her disgraced daughter, no matter how spotlessly blameless the girl might be.  She would look upon her as a burden and a nuisance, would shut her up if she could, and would certainly go off to Russia or to Paris, to amuse herself as far as possible from the scene of Sabina’s unfortunate adventure.

“Poor child!” she would say to her intimate friends, “She was perfectly innocent, of course, but there was nothing else to be done.  No decent man would have married her, you know!”

And she would tell Malipieri’s story to everybody, too, to explain why he had not married Sabina.  She had no heart at all, for her children or for any one else.  She had always despised her son for his weaknesses and miserable life, and she had always laughed at her elder daughter; if she had been relatively kind to Sabina, it was because the girl had never given any trouble nor asked for anything extravagantly inconvenient.  She had never felt the least sympathy with the Roman life into which she had been brought by force, and after her husband had died she had plainly shown his quiet Roman relatives what she thought of them.

She would cast Sabina off without even a careless kind word, if Sabina became a drag on her and hindered her from doing what she pleased in the world.  And this would happen, if the story about the night in the Palazzo Conti were made public.  Just so long, and no longer, would the Princess acknowledge her daughter’s existence; and that meant so long as Volterra chose that the secret should be kept.

At least, Sabina thought so.  But matters turned out differently and were hurried to an issue in a terribly unexpected way.

Both Volterra and Malipieri had guessed that the anonymous letter had been written by Gigi, the carpenter, but Volterra had seen it several days before the Princess had shown it to Malipieri.  Not unnaturally, the Baron thought that it would be a good move to get the man into his power.  Italy is probably not the only country where men powerful in politics and finance can induce the law to act with something more than normal promptitude, and Volterra, as usual, was not going to do anything illegal.  The Minister of Justice, too, was one of those men who had been fighting against the Sicilian “mafia” and the Neapolitan “camorra” for many years, and he hated all blackmailers with a just and deadly hatred.  He was also glad to oblige the strong Senator, who was just now supporting the government with his influence and his millions.  Volterra was sure of the culprit’s identity and explained that the detective who had been sent to investigate the palace after Sassi’s accident had seen the carpenter and would recognize him.  Nothing would be easier than to send for Gigi to do a job at the palace, towards evening, to arrest him as soon as he came, and to take him away quietly.