And the pale features began to work, awl the large deep eyes filled with tears, and the neat moment she fell back into a chair sobbing hysterically.

“I was the last person with whom she was seen alive; and—­there was, it seems, strong reason why it may be supposed that I should wish her dead—­God help me!  I learned this morning—­the poor girl told me herself, to my extreme surprise—­that my uncle, the Marchese Lamberto, had proposed marriage to her.  You can understand, my darling, that such a marriage would be a very dreadful misfortune to me:  therefore, people think that I put the unhappy girl to death.”

“Oh, my love, my love; come to me, come to me, and let me hold you!” said the poor girl, struggling to speak amid her convulsive sobbing, and holding out her hands towards him.  “Oh, my Ludovico, this is very dreadful.  But it is impossible—­impossible!  They will know that it is impossible that you could have done such a thing.  Murder!  You--murder a defenceless girl!  Oh, it is nonsense.  Nobody will believe anything so monstrous.”

“Thanks, my Paolina—­thanks, my own darling.  At least there is one heart that knows me.  And, my Paolina, it is an immense comfort to me—­not that I doubted it for an instant—­but it is an infinite comfort to me to know that you, at least in your heart of hearts, are certain that I did not—­that it never could have entered into my mind to do this thing.”

“I believe it!  I could just as soon imagine that I myself had done it.  But, Ludovico, my beloved, it will not be believed; it is too monstrous.  You are known here; it cannot be believed.”

“And yet, my Paolina, one who has known me all my life, who was my father’s friend—­one who knows me well, and who looks at things as the magistrates will look at them—­he believes it; believes it so much, and is so certain that others will believe it, that he strongly urged me to escape from the city, and from the country.  That, Paolina, knowing my innocence, I would not do.  To save myself from the stake I would not have gone away without telling you, my own one, that I had not done this deed.  I could not go, and so leave you—­”

“My own—­my own!  How I love you, my Ludovico, now in the time of this great trouble better than ever I did before.  There was no need to tell me, my love, that your hands are innocent of murder.  But surely—­surely you did well not to fly, leaving the hideous accusation behind you.”

“So I thought, my own love—­my own high-minded right-thinking darling—­so I thought; and here I stay to answer my accusers.  But the fatality of the circumstances is such that—­in truth, I see little hope of clearing myself, save by the possible discovery of the causes that led to this terrible death.”

“Was there anything to show how she—­that is, I mean, whether she—­ died by violence?” asked Paolina.

“Nothing—­nothing whatever.  As we saw the body under the city gateway, when the men who found it brought it in, there was not the smallest trace of violence visible.  She lay as if, save for the deadly pallor of her face, she might have been still sleeping.  And I am most anxious for the medical examination of the body.  It may be that they will be able to discover that death was produced by some natural cause.”