Donna Diana (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXVIII When Edmund Vane reached the Palazzo San Rocco between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, he found the old porter Antonio in a state of mingled excitement and distress. The newspaper vendors had already hastened to communicate the adventure that had befallen Don Michelangelo Savelli the night before, and a sensational account of it published in the columns of the Messaggero had been read several times over by Antonio, s youngest son, the scholar of the family, in the recesses of the porter's lodge, where a group of friends and acquaintances had listened open-mouthed to the fattaccio. As soon as the old man saw Vane descending from his cab he had become very pale, and asked him in a whisper if the signorino were dead. Edmund hastened to reassure him by telling him that Don Michelangelo was very much alive, and had not the slightest intention of dying. Then, knowing the power of circulating gossip possessed by lloman house-porters, he added that the whole affair had been absurdly exaggerated. Nevertheless, his appearance at the Palazzo San Rocco at that hour of the morning, and his request that the Prince should be informed that he wished to see him as soon as it was possible for the latter to receive him, could not but fill the minds of the household with every sort of sinister foreboding. After a short delay, he had been ushered into Prince San Rocco, s private room, and at once gathered that nobody had as yet ventured to inform him of the startling announcement made by the morning journals. For a few minutes his relief at hearing that his favourite nephew, s state gave no cause for alarm or anxiety predominated over every other feeling in Prince San Rocco, s mind. It was only after this feeling had partially subsided that he began to realiz...