As they were desperately in love with each other, the next thing was to arrange the marriage secretly. His father had a great title, and would never have consented to his marrying her, because she had none. But she had money enough for both; so they contrived a secret marriage. And then they bought a villa some way off, and lived there.
For thirteen years they lived devoted to each other, and full of happiness; and two children were born to them, a boy and a girl. It was only after thirteen years that the father discovered where the son was, and when he did, he sent for an assassin,[3] and giving him plenty of money, told him to go and by some device or other to bring him to him and get through the affair. The assassin took a carriage and dressed like a man of some importance, and said that some chief man or other in the Government had sent for him to speak to him. The husband suspected nothing, and went with him. As it was night he could not see which way they drove, and thus he delivered his son to his father, who kept him shut up in his palace.
The assassin went back to the villa, and by giving each of the servants fifty scudi apiece, got access to the wife, and murdered her, and then took the children to the grandfather’s palace.
‘Papa, that man killed mama,’ said the little boy, as soon as he saw his father.
The husband seized the man, and made him confess it.
‘Then now you must kill him who hired you to do it,’ he exclaimed. ‘As you have done the one, you must do the other. He who ordered my wife to be killed is no father to me.’
So the assassin went in and killed the father, but when he came out the husband was ready for him, and he said:
‘Now your turn has come,’ and he shot him dead.
[I have not had the opportunity of sifting this story, but it manifestly contains the usual popular exaggerations.]