"A crime!"
"Yes, certainly, madame. Would you give a young girl, for whose spiritual welfare you are responsible, to the son of Professor Rossano—a man whose blasphemous writings and discourses have perverted the minds and ruined the faith of half the youth of Italy? Why, Bruno was burned for hazarding opinions which were orthodox in comparison with the assertions made by Rossano on the authority of his miserable science!"
The princess shuddered. "Of course!" she replied. "I forgot for the moment whom we were discussing. No matter what might happen, I would never give my consent to Bianca's marriage with a free-thinker. I would rather see her dead, and a thousand times rather see her in a convent."
The Abbé Roux smiled. "Fortunately," he said, "there are other solutions. Donna Bianca has shown very clearly that she has no vocation for conventual life, and of the other we need not speak."
"I do not see the solutions you speak of," returned the princess, with a sigh.
"There is only one which presents itself to my mind as being not only simple, but absolutely necessary for the moment," said the abbé. "Donna Bianca," he continued, looking at the princess gravely, "must be removed where there can be no danger of her again seeing this young Rossano. She is young, and evidently impressionable, and in time she will forget him. It is to be hoped that he, too, will forget her. Do you recollect, madame, my telling you that for a young lady in Donna Bianca Acorari's position, anything that protected her against marrying before she attained years of discretion was an advantage?"
The princess nodded. "I do, indeed," she replied. "I see now how right you were. A young girl with the prospects Bianca has is always in danger of falling a prey to some fortune-hunter, such as, no doubt, this Rossano is."
"I hope," continued the abbé, "that my present advice to you will prove as sound as the advice I gave you then, and as advantageous to Donna Bianca's true interests. I, personally, am convinced that it will prove so—and I offer it as the only solution I can see to the problem with which we have to deal—I mean, madame, the problem of how to extricate Donna Bianca from the position in which she has been placed, without further difficulties arising. May I make my suggestion?" he added.
"Why, of course, Monsieur l'Abbé!" replied Princess Montefiano. "It is what I asked you here to do—to give me your assistance in this very painful matter.
"You must take Donna Bianca away from here, madame."