"Then avoid doing so, if you please. It is always better to keep the opposite party in ignorance of one's lawyer's name until the last minute."
"Very well."
As soon as Ghisleri was gone Ubaldini wrote a draft of a letter to Adele, as follows:
"Excellency:—At the decease of a client of humble station a number of papers have come under my notice and are now in my hands. One of them, of some length, has evidently gone astray, for it is written by your Excellency and apparently addressed to a member of the clergy, besides containing, as one glance told me, matter of a private nature. It is my wish to restore it immediately, and I therefore write to inquire whether I may entrust it to the post-office, or whether I shall hand it sealed to your Excellency's legal representative. I need not add the assurance that so far as I am concerned the matter is a strict secret, nor that I desire to restore the document as a duty of honour, and could not consider for a moment the question of any remuneration.
"Deign, Excellency, to receive graciously the expression of profoundest respect with which I write myself,
"Your Excellency's most humble, obedient servant,
"Rinaldo Ubaldini, Advocate."