a few days previously, her father had received a letter from his son, which he had burned, but that before doing so he had written Orso’s address (he had just changed his garrison) in the note-book with his pencil.  Now, his address was no longer in the note-book, and Colomba concluded that the mayor had torn out the leaf on which it was written, which probably was that on which her father had traced the murderer’s name, and for that name the mayor, according to Colomba, had substituted Agostini’s.  The magistrate, in fact, noticed that one sheet was missing from the quire on which the name was written, but he remarked also that leaves were likewise missing from other quires in the same note-book, and certain witnesses testified that the colonel had a habit of tearing out pages when he wanted to light a cigar—­therefore nothing was more probable than that, by an oversight, he had burned the address he had copied.  Further, it was shown that the mayor could not have read the note-book on receiving it from Maddalena Pietri, on account of the darkness, and it was proved that he had not stopped an instant before he went into his house, that the sergeant of the gendarmes had gone there with him, and had seen him light a lamp and put the note-book into an envelope which he had sealed before his eyes.

When this officer had concluded his deposition, Colomba, half-distracted, cast herself at his feet, and besought him, by all he held most sacred, to say whether he had not left the mayor alone for a single moment.  After a certain amount of hesitation, the man, who was evidently affected by the young girl’s excitement, admitted that he had gone into the next room to fetch a sheet of foolscap, but that he had not been away a minute, and that the mayor had talked to him all the time he was groping for the paper in a drawer.  Moreover, he deposed that when he came back the blood-stained note-book was still on the table, in the very place where the mayor had thrown it when he first came in.

Monsieur Barricini gave his evidence with the utmost coolness.  He made allowances, he said, for Mademoiselle della Rebbia’s excitement, and was ready to condescend to justify himself.  He proved that he had spent his whole evening in the village, that his son Vincentello had been with him in front of the house at the moment when the crime was committed, and that his son Orlanduccio, who had had an attack of fever that very day, had never left his bed.  He produced every gun in his house, and not one of them had been recently discharged.  He added, that, as regarded the note-book, he had at once realized its importance; that he had sealed it up, and placed it in the hands of his deputy, foreseeing that he himself might be suspected, on account of his quarrel with the colonel.  Finally, he reminded the court that Agostini had threatened to kill the man who had written a letter in his name, and he insinuated that this ruffian had probably suspected the colonel, and murdered him.  Such a vengeance, for a similar reason, is by no means unprecedented in the history of brigandage.