On the same evening Pietro received a note. Prince Savelli and the Prince of Gerano presented their compliments to Signor Ghisleri, and begged to ask whether it would be convenient to him to receive them and their legal adviser on the following morning at half-past ten o'clock, to confer upon a question of grave importance. Ghisleri answered that he should be much honoured by the visit proposed, and he at once sent word to Ubaldini to come to him at eight o'clock, two hours and a half before he expected the others. He at once suspected mischief, though he had hardly been prepared to see it arrive in such a very solemn and dignified shape. He asked Ubaldini's opinion at once, when the latter came as requested.
"It is impossible to say what that good lady has done," said the young lawyer after some moments of thoughtful consideration. "You may take it for granted, however, that both Prince Savelli and the Prince of Gerano believe that you are in possession of the lost letter, and that they will make an attempt to force you to give it up. You would do well not to speak of me, but you can say that you foresaw that Donna Adele intended to make use of your letters when she wrote the first one, asking you to purchase the manuscript for her, and that you have kept copies of your answers, as well as the originals of her communications. If we are quick about it, we can bring an action against her for defamation before she can do anything definite."
"I will never consent to that," answered Ghisleri, smiling at Ubaldini's ideas of social honour.
"Why not?" asked the lawyer, in some surprise. "You would very probably win it and cast her for heavy damages."
"I would certainly never do such a thing," replied Pietro. "I should not think it honourable to bring any such action against a lady."
Ubaldini shrugged his shoulders, being quite unable to comprehend his client's point of view.
"I cannot do anything to help you, until we know what these gentlemen have to say," he observed. "If you wish it, I will be present at the interview, but it is as well that they should not find out who your lawyer is, until something definite is to be done."
Ghisleri agreed, and Ubaldini went away, promising to hold himself at his client's disposal at a moment's notice. Pietro sat down to think over the situation. Danger of some sort was evidently imminent, but he could only form a very vague idea of its nature, and Ubaldini had certainly not helped him much, sharp-witted and keen as he was. Ghisleri, who, of course, could not see the case as Adele had stated it to her father-in-law, and as it was now to be stated to himself, could not conceive it possible that he could be indicted for extortion on such slender evidence as he supposed she had been able to fabricate. He imagined that she desired his social ruin, and above all, to make him for ever contemptible in the eyes of Laura Arden; and this he well knew, or thought that he knew, she could never accomplish.
Laura had not yet returned, and he was glad, on the whole, that she was away. Matters were evidently coming to a crisis, and he believed that whatever was to happen would have long been over by the time she was in Rome again. If she had already arrived he would have found it hard not to tell her of what occurred from day to day, and, indeed, he would have felt almost obliged to do so for the sake of her opinion of him, seeing how frankly and loyally she had acted in the case of the letters she had received from the supposititious "Maria B." On the other hand, he longed to see her for her own sake. The summer months had been desperately long and lonely. He did not remember that he had ever found the time weigh so heavily on his hands as this year, both at Torre de' Ghisleri and in Rome. He forgot his present danger and the interview before him in thinking of Laura Arden, when Bonifazio threw open the door and announced Prince Savelli, the Prince of Gerano, and the Advocato Geronimo Grondona.