"And what would be the result if it should turn out that he was guilty--if be were condemned?" asked one of the younger men, looking afraid of his words, as he spoke them.

"God knows,--the galleys, I suppose. But one must not imagine such a thing. It is too frightful," said Manutoli.

"Horrible! Shocking! Impossible!" cried a chorus of voices.

"Good God! Result! The disgrace and destruction of the noblest family in the province. The ending of a fine old name in infamy. Gracious heaven, it is too horrible to think of," exclaimed Manutoli, with much emotion.

"It would kill the old Marchese as dead as a door-nail, for one thing," said another of the group of young men.

"And serve him right too. If it is really true that he has contemplated being guilty of such a monstrous piece of injustice and folly," said the same man, who had before expressed a similar opinion.

Just then a servant of the Circolo came into the room and put a note into the hands of the Baron Manutoli.

"It is from Ludovico, asking me to go to him. So there's an end to our game of billiards, Signor Conte," said Manutoli to one of the group; "I must go at once."

"But you'll come back here after you've seen him, won't you? You'll come back and tell us all about it, Manutoli?" said two or three of the group which had been discussing the topic.

"I don't know, I shall see. I will, if I can--if it's not too late. It may be that I shall be detained with him. I suppose that he has had no means of communicating with any of his people since the police folk clapped their hands on him."

"Do look in here for a moment, Manutoli. We shall all be anxious to hear about him, poor fellow,", said another of the young men, who had pressed around Signor Manutoli as soon as it was known from whom his note had come.

"If I can I will. It is likely enough he may want me to go somewhere else for him. We shall see. A rivederci, Signori."

CHAPTER VII

A Prison Visit

The note which had been given to the Baron Manutoli begged him to come with as little delay as possible to the Palazzo del Governo.

Adolfo Manutoli was a somewhat older man than the majority of those who had formed the group which had been discussing the all-absorbing topic of the day at the Circolo; and he was Ludovico di Castelmare's most intimate friend among the younger members of the society in which he lived. It was a friendship strongly approved by the Marchese Lamberto, as might have been perceived by his selection of Manutoli to accompany him on the occasion of meeting La Lalli on her first arrival in Ravenna, as the reader may possibly remember. And the special ground of this approval was Manutoli's strong advocacy of the projected marriage between Ludovico and the Contessa Violante, and his consequent disapproval and discouragement of his friend's friendship and admiration for Paolina. He was not a man who would have counselled or desired his friend to behave badly or unworthily to Paolina or to any woman; for he was a man of honour and a gentleman. But, short of any conduct which could be so characterized, he would have been very glad to see the Marchese quit of an entanglement which alone stood in the way, as he conceived, of his forming an alliance so desirable in every point of view as the marriage with the great-niece of the Cardinal Legate.

"Can I be permitted to see the Marchese Ludovico, Signor Commissario? He has requested me to come to him," said the Baron, on arriving at the police-office.

"Certainly, Signor Barone. I myself sent his note to you. Though, on his own statement of the very unfortunate circumstances connected with this unhappy affair, I was compelled to detain him, still there is at present no definite accusation against him which should justify me in preventing him from having free communication with his friends. You shall be taken to his room immediately. You will see, Signor Barone, that we have endeavoured to make him as comfortable as the circumstances would allow."

"Manutoli," said Ludovico, after the first expressions of astonishment and condolence had been spoken between the young men, "of course I knew I should see you here before long; and my note was to call you at once, instead of waiting to see you in the morning; because I want you to do something for me before you sleep this night--something that I don't want to wait for till to-morrow morning."

"To be sure, my dear fellow, anything; I am ready for anything, if it takes all night."

"Thanks. Well, now, look here: I am innocent of this deed--"

"S' intende; of course you are."

"S' intende, of course; that's just the worst of it. It is so much a matter of course that I should say I had not done it if I had, that my saying so is of no use at all. Nevertheless, to you I must say that I neither did it nor have I the slightest conception or suspicion who did. And you may guess that the fact itself is a horror and a grief to me that I shall never get over, putting this dreadful suspicion of my own guilt out of the question. A horror and a grief, and a remorse, too; for if I had not moved away from her the tragedy could not have happened."

"I really do not see that you need blame yourself for--"

"I ought not to have left her side. Yet, God knows, it never entered my head to dream of the possibility of any harm; all seemed so still, so peaceful, so utterly quiet; yet, at that moment, the hand that did the deed could not have been far off."

"Let the circumstances have been what they might," resumed Manutoli, after a moment's pause, "nobody would have dreamed of connecting you with the deed had it not been for the strong motive which seems so clear and intelligible to every fool who sets his brains to work on the matter. I suppose it is true that you had been informed of your uncle's intention to offer the poor girl marriage?"

"True that I had been told of it, for the first time, by herself during our drive, poor girl."

"Ah--h--h! To think of such a man being guilty of such insane folly- -and of all the misery that is likely to grow out of it. How on earth did she ever contrive to get such a fatal influence over him?"

"She schemed for it from her first arrival here--aimed avowedly to herself at nothing less than inducing the Marchese di Castelmare to marry her--and succeeded. For all that, I'll tell you what, Adolfo-- there was a great deal more good in that poor girl than you would have thought."

"Bah! Good in her--Well, she's gone. She has had her reward, poor soul; and I pity her with all my heart. But as for the good in her-- "

"There was good in her, and not a little. I tell you that if you or any one else could have heard all that passed between us, I should hardly be suspected of having murdered her, poor girl."

"That is likely enough; but--"

"Do you know, Manutoli, I have a very strong idea that if this had not happened, the marriage with the Marchese would never have come off?"

"You think that, between us all, we should have induced him to listen to reason?"

"I don't know about that; I was not thinking of that; I think that Bianca would have been induced to listen to reason; I think that the scheme would have come to nothing through her renunciation of it."

"When, according to your own account, she had been scheming all the time she has been here to bring it about?" said Manutoli, with arched eyebrows.

"Yes, even so. She had never known--how should she?--that such a marriage would turn me out on the world a beggar; she had never known what sort and what degree of misery and ruin it would bring about to all parties."

"And you told her this?"

"Yes, in some degree I told her. As to the effect of such a marriage on myself, I told her simply the entire truth."

"And you are disposed to think that the Diva--No, poor girl! I didn't mean to speak sneeringly of her. She has paid for her fault a heavier penalty than it deserved, any way. You are disposed to think, then, that she would have given up the prize of all her scheming--this marriage, which was to have given her everything in the world that she could desire, and more than she could have ever dreamed of attaining; she would have voluntarily relinquished all this, you think, for your sake?"

"I'll tell you what it is, Manutoli. A man can never appreciate,-- can never fathom, the depth of woman's generosity till he has tried it."

"But, caro mio,--after all I don't want to be hard upon her, poor soul, God knows!--but to expect generosity on such a point from such a woman--"

"You may say what you will, Manutoli, I know what she was, poor girl, as well as you do--better, a great deal; for, I tell you, that there was a real generosity in her nature. Look here," continued Ludovico; after a pause of a minute or two, "I would not say it to anybody else than you, or to you either, except under circumstances that make one wish to state the whole truth exactly as it was. It seems so coxcomblike,--so like what our friend Leandro would say;