"I confess that I should have preferred, Signor Fortini, that my own a.s.sertion should have sufficed to produce that conviction," replied the young man, somewhat drily.

"My dear Signor Marchese, permit me to say that such preference would have been ill founded. Is not my conviction, based upon the probabilities of the known facts, of much greater value than any mere acquiescence with your a.s.sertions? These are matters, my dear sir, which must be looked at reasonably, and not merely sentimentally. If you had committed murder--if I had committed murder,--should we not either of us, have denied it as resolutely as you denied this? If the circ.u.mstances are such as to cause a man--any man--to be suspected at all, no words of his can be worth anything whatsoever on the subject; and you must admit that, the circ.u.mstances being as they were, it was impossible that the first suspicion should not have fallen on you. You may believe that no efforts or activity have been wanting on my part for the discovery of the means of removing this suspicion. Let us be thankful that they have, to a very great degree, been successful."

"And what has been found out? For G.o.d's sake tell me all about it! I declare, for my own part, I could almost believe that I had done it myself in my sleep, or in a fit of madness without knowing it, so utterly impossible does it seem to me to imagine what hand it could have been that did the deed."

"Signor Marchese, the hand that did that deed was no other than the hand of the Venetian girl, Paolina Foscarelli," said the lawyer, with deliberate and impressive slowness, emphasizing his words with extended forefinger as he uttered them.

"Pshaw! Is that all you have to tell me?" cried the Marchese, jumping up from his chair, and pacing the room with impatient strides. "It is an absurdity upon the face of it; I should have hoped that n.o.body in Ravenna would have believed it possible that I could have been guilty of such a deed; but, by Heaven, the whole city will see that it is more likely that I should have done it than Paolina! It is simply absurd."

"Signor Marchese, prepossessions, and previous notions of what might have been expected to be possible, are of no value in such a case as this against the logic of facts and circ.u.mstances. Other young women, who seemed as little likely to be capable of such a deed as this Signorina Foscarelli, have committed such--and have done it under the pressure of motives exactly similar to those which we know with certainty to have been vehemently operative in the heart of the Venetian."

"Motives! What conceivable motive could have existed to--"

"What motive? The most powerful of all the pa.s.sions that ever drove a woman to become guilty of crime--jealousy; jealousy, Signor Marchese, has been the motive of this murder. Look at the facts as they stand: we know that this Paolina Foscarelli was in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the deed was done, and as nearly as possible at the time when it was done; we know--excuse me, Signor Marchese, for speaking very plainly; it is absolutely necessary to be plain--we know that this girl had great reason to feel jealous of La Bianca. Remember that she saw you and the singer driving tete-a-tete together in that solitary place at that unusual hour. I leave it to your own feeling to estimate the degree of jealousy which such a sight, together with other previous circ.u.mstances, was calculated to produce in this girl's mind; but, if that be not enough, we know, as a matter of fact, that she had, even previously to seeing what was, so calculated to drive her jealousy to a pitch of fury, expressed jealousy, animosity and hatred against the woman whom she considered as her rival. We have this in evidence--the perfectly unimpeachable evidence of the Signora Orsola Steno. Add to that, again, that the method of the murder was just such as a woman was likely to adopt, and that a man was very little likely to think of, or to have the means of, in his possession. Put all these certain facts together, Signor Marchese; and I think it will be impossible for even your mind to resist the conviction that must force itself upon every one who considers the circ.u.mstances."

The Marchese stopped in his agitated walk to and fro across the floor of the chamber, and gazed into the lawyer's face with an expression of bewilderment and pain, which the old man met with a keen and steady glance, and a grave shake of the head. The Marchese, after encountering his eye for a few moments, struck his open hand on his forehead, and threw himself on the chair he had left without uttering a word.

"And to you, Signor Marchese, it a.s.suredly cannot appear strange that the circ.u.mstances I have enumerated should carry with them the conviction to other minds that Paolina Foscarelli is guilty of the murder of the singer," continued the lawyer, speaking very slowly and fixing the keen glance of his dark bright eyes on the working face of his companion; "to you, above all others, this cannot appear strange, since--to your own mind this suspicion first occurred."

"What do you mean? I! Signor Fortini. What strange notion is misleading you? I don't know what you mean!" cried the Marchese, while a look of horror gradually crept over his face.

"When the body of the murdered woman was brought into the city,--when we two stood in the gateway, and when your hand raised the sheet that covered the face of the dead, you exclaimed aloud 'Paolina!' What was then the thought that was in your mind? I imagined, at the time, that you recognized her in the dead woman before you. A very few minutes, however, sufficed to show that it was not Paolina, but Bianca who lay there murdered. And then, amid the horror of the first idea of your guilt, which the nature of the circ.u.mstances rendered inevitable, I thought no more of the exclamation you had uttered. But I have not forgotten the fact. You did, on seeing Bianca dead before you, exclaim, 'Good G.o.d! Paolina!' What was the thought in your mind, Signor Marchese, that prompted that exclamation? What but the sudden spontaneous rush of the conviction that it was she who had done the deed on which you were looking?"

For a few moments the Marchese seemed too much stunned by the inference, and the appeal of the lawyer, and by the vision of the consequences, which he purposed drawing from it, to utter any reply to the demand which had been made on him.

"You mistake, Signor Fortini," he gasped out at last; "you are in error.

I cannot have made any such exclamation. I have no consciousness of anything of the kind. In any case no such monstrous idea, as you would infer from it, ever entered into my mind. You know how anxious I was about Paolina's prolonged absence. I was thinking of her; at least, I suppose so, if, indeed, I uttered her name. I have no recollection. I don't know why I should have done so. All I know is that no such horrible and impossible suggestion ever presented itself to my mind for an instant. If it were otherwise," continued the young man, after a few moments of painfully concentrated thought,--"if it were otherwise, why did I not suggest such a solution of the mystery when I found myself accused of the crime?"

"That, Signor Marchese, those who know you best will be least at a loss to understand," replied the lawyer. "The motive that ruled your conduct then, is the same that rules it now. You were then unwilling, as you are now unwilling, to exculpate yourself at the cost of inculpating one who is dear to you. Your objection, I am bound to tell you, carries no weight with it. I cannot abandon that part of my case that rests upon the striking fact that your own first impression was that Paolina was guilty."

"I utterly deny, and will continue to deny, that any such impression was ever present to my mind. I wholly refuse to avail myself of any defence based on any such supposition; on any idea at all, that Paolina Foscarelli is guilty. I know that she is as innocent of this deed as the angels in heaven. I will proclaim her innocence with my last breath. I will not accept any acquittal on the hypothesis of her guilt. I will rather avow that I did the deed myself. In one sense I did so. In one sense I am guilty of her death. For it was I who took her to the place, and into the circ.u.mstance that led to her death."

"Signor Marchese, in this matter the truth of the facts is what is wanted. It is that, and that alone that the magistrates will endeavour to discover. A great many facts, as I have pointed out to you, will be before them. Mere statements, one way or the other, will have little avail. Quietly and seriously now, supposing we reject the theory of Paolina's guilt, are you able yourself to conceive any other possible explanations of the facts? Can you yourself suggest any other theory whatsoever?" said the lawyer, throwing his head on one side, and interlacing the fingers of his clasped hands in front of his person, in calm expectation of the Marchese's answer.

"There was another theory. I heard that the Conte Leandro had been arrested on suspicion of being the a.s.sa.s.sin. It would be very dreadful.

G.o.d forbid that I should say that I suspected the Conte Lombardoni of having done this foul deed. But I cannot avoid seeing that it is a great deal more likely that he should have done it than Paolina," returned the Marchese.

"The accusation against the Conte Lombardoni has been abandoned, and he has been set at liberty," replied the lawyer; "there was, in fact, nothing against him, except the singular circ.u.mstance of his having gone out of the city towards the Pineta, at a very unusual hour on the morning of that same unlucky Ash Wednesday; and that he has at last thought fit to explain."

"At last?" said Ludovico.

"Yes; for a long time he utterly refused to give any explanation of the fact whatsoever; and his manner was altogether such as to strengthen the notion that it was possible that he might have been the criminal. He has told the truth at last. And it is no wonder that he was loth to tell it, for it is not much calculated to increase his popularity in the city."

"Why, what is it? I never used to think anything worse of him than that he was a fool," rejoined the Marchese.

"A fool, and a very mischievous and malicious one, as fools mostly are.

What do you think took him out of the city that morning of the first day in Lent? Simply the desire to play the spy on you and the poor woman who has been killed."

"No, you don't mean it? the noxious animal!" exclaimed Ludovico, with intense disgust.

"It seems that he overheard you and the singer make your appointment for the excursion, and that, moved by curiosity and the hope of making mischief, he determined to be beforehand with you on the road, and picking up, if he could, the means of paying off both the lady and yourself for some of the mortification your ridicule had caused him,"

said the lawyer.

"I could not have believed it possible; the mean-spirited spiteful wretch! I did not think he had it in him!" said Ludovico.

"A man is apt to be spiteful towards those who cause him to suffer greatly. And there is no suffering greater to a man as vain as the Conte Leandro than the mortification of his vanity. But his spitefulness has been punished: first, by a couple of days' imprisonment, and a fright which half killed him; and secondly, by the sort of reception which you may suppose awaited him when he was released as the result of his explanation. I think he has had his due," added the lawyer, grimly.

"But how does his explanation exclude the possibility that he may have been the a.s.sa.s.sin after all? Why may not the same mortified vanity that incited him to play the spy, have moved him to take deadly vengeance on the woman he hated so bitterly? The man who was capable of the one is likely enough to be capable of the other. He is the man who may fairly be suspected of being capable of stabbing a woman as she slept!" argued the Marchese, with intense indignation.

"No," said the lawyer, shaking his head; "depend upon it we did not let him go till it was made clear that he could have had no hand in the crime. He was able to prove beyond the possibility of a doubt, that he had returned to the city, entering it by the Porta Sisi, before the earliest time when the murder could have been committed. No; that notion has to be abandoned."

"And no other idea has been started?--no suspicion? Have the investigations of the police led to nothing?" asked Ludovico, with profound discouragement.

The lawyer shook his head. "I have told you," he said, "how the case stands, Signor Marchese. An idea was started at one moment that the old friar at St. Apollinare might have been the man. Strangely enough he also was in or near the Pineta much about the same time. But the total absence of all a.s.signable motive--an infirm octogenarian; no, that is not it. But the truth is, Signor Marchese, that our inquiries with reference to this Padre Fabiano have brought to light facts which tend to make the case stronger against the girl Paolina Foscarelli."

"I tell you, Signor Fortini, that the notion of her guilt is more entirely preposterous than any other possible imagination. I have told you that I would, rather than accept it, avow myself the murderer;--ay, and think that I had done it too, and forgotten it," said the Marchese, with extreme vehemence.

"But, Signor Marchese," returned the lawyer, with imperturbable calmness, "it matters nothing to the result, whether you will accept the idea of the Venetian girl's guilt or not, seeing that you will not be called upon to p.r.o.nounce judgment in the case. The fact is, that every reasonable consideration points to that conclusion. I wish with all my heart, that the criminal was one in whom you were less interested." The meaning of which phrase in Signor Fortini's mouth, probably was, that he wished the Marchese felt less interest in her who was the criminal. "But I was about to tell you that the police have become acquainted with the fact, that this Padre Fabiano, who is a Venetian, was formerly very closely connected in some way with the family of Paolina Foscarelli. It seems very probable that he was, in fact, her father. Now he followed her to the forest, and returned thence in a state of great and painful agitation, which all mention of the subject renews and increases; and.

further, the old man obstinately refuses to give any account or explanation of his walk to the forest. The conclusion which has suggested itself to the police authorities--not at all an unnatural or unreasonable one--is that the old man has been cognizant of the deed done by the girl."

The Marchese seemed struck by this statement, and remained in silent thought for a few minutes. "Paolina," he said, at length, "had motives of hatred against the woman who has been killed, the friar had motives for feeling strong interest in Paolina. Why may it not be conceivable that he may have adopted her cause to the extent of committing a crime with the view of righting what may have seemed to him to be her wrongs?

The explanation may seem a not very probable one; but no possible or conceivable explanation of the terrible fact is a probable one, and, certainly, it is more likely that the old friar should have done the deed than the young girl."

"Humph!" said the lawyer, after spending some minutes of deep thought on the idea the Marchese had put forward; "I am not quite so sure that it is more likely. However, the theory is a plausible one, and deserves attention. Depend upon it, we shall not lose sight of the old gentleman, let him shiver and shake as much as he may; and now, Signor Marchese, I must go to your uncle," said the lawyer, rising.

"How does he bear up under all this misery?"

"Not well, not well. I cannot say that it has fared well with him during these days; but I have some comfort in store for him. I think I may venture to a.s.sure him that there is no need to imagine that his name has been disgraced by the commission of a crime, or that there is any danger that such should continue to be believed to be the case, either by the magistrates or by anybody else. You will come out of this dreadful business scatheless, Signor Marchese, I thank G.o.d for it?"

"I will not come out scatheless at the cost of Paolina's condemnation,"

said the Marchese, doggedly.

"But the Marchese Lamberto, you see," continued the lawyer, without taking any notice of his companion's interruption,--"the Marchese Lamberto has been hit from more sides than one. The most unfortunate and lamentable fascination that this woman seems to have exercised over him--the deplorable fact that he should have proposed marriage to her, and that this fact should be universally known,--it is impossible that he should not have suffered, and still suffer terribly. Honestly, I cannot say that I think he will ever altogether get over it--he will never be the same man again. Would to G.o.d that fatal woman had never come near Ravenna!"

"Many thanks for your visit, Signor Fortini, and for all the kindness you have shown me since this sad misfortune befell. Tell my uncle how much I have felt and feel for him. Addio, Signor Fortini. If anything new should turn up you will not fail to let me know it? Think of what I said about the friar; and mind, once more, and once for all, I will not come scatheless, as you say, out of this business and leave Paolina to be held guilty."

"Addio, Signor Marchese."

CHAPTER IV

What Ravenna thought of it

Signor Fortini had rather mitigated than exaggerated the truth in speaking to the Marchese Ludovico of his uncle's state of mind. During all these days his condition was truly deplorable. He had never, in all this time, left the Palazzo, and had scarcely left his own chamber. He absolutely refused to see anybody save Signor Fortini. He could not sleep by night, or remain at rest in the same place for half-an-hour together during the day.