His first impulse had of course
been to fight the case, and had the attack upon his position come
from San Giacinto, he would probably have done so. But his own son
had discovered the truth and had put the matter clearly before
him, in such a light as to make an appeal to his honour. He had no
choice but to submit. He could not allow himself to be outdone in
common honesty by the boy he loved, nor could he have been guilty
of deliberate injustice, for his own advantage, after he had been
convinced that he had no right to his possessions. He belonged to
a race of men who had frequently committed great crimes and done
atrocious deeds, notorious in history, from motives of personal
ambition, for the love of women or out of hatred for men, but who
had never had the reputation of loving money or of stooping to
dishonour for its sake. As soon as he was persuaded that
everything belonged to San Giacinto, he felt that he must resign
all in favour of the latter.
One doubt alone remained to be solved. It was not absolutely
certain that San Giacinto was the man he represented himself to
be. It was quite possible that he should have gained possession of
the papers he held, by some means known only to himself; such
things are often sold as curiosities, and as the last of the older
branch of whom there was any record preserved in Rome had died in
obscurity, it was conceivable that the ex-innkeeper might have
found or bought the documents he had left, in order to call
himself Marchese di San Giacinto.
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