"Well, well; but you know he might have travelled the same road as his father, and all would be settled."
"No more lives, as I told you; but we can easily secure him some other way, and we shall be equally as free from him and them."
"That is enough—there are dungeons, I know, in this castle, and he can be kept there safe enough."
"He can; but that is not what I propose. We can put him into the mines and confine him as a lunatic."
"Excellent!"
"You see, we must make those mines more productive somehow or other; they would be so, but the count would not hear of it; he said it was so inhuman, they were so destructive of life."
"Paha! what were the mines intended for if not for use?"
"Exactly—I often said so, but he always put a negative to it."
"We'll make use of an affirmative, my dear countess, and see what will be the result in a change of policy. By the way, when will our marriage be celebrated?"
"Not for some months."