CHAPTER II

Suspicion

The Marchese Ludovico told the lawyer that he would go immediately to the magistrates and make a voluntary statement of all that he knew of the circumstances connected with Bianca’s death; and he fully purposed doing so.  But he did not do it immediately.  There was another visit which he was more anxious to pay; and which the hint that had dropped from the old lawyer to the effect that it was very probable he might not pass that night in his own home, determined him to pay first at all hazards.

This visit, as may readily be imagined, was to Paolina.  And to the modest little home in the Strada di Santa Eufemia he hurried as fast as his legs would carry him, as soon as he quitted Signor Fortini.  Paolina, on returning home after her conversation with the Contessa Violante in the Cardinal’s chapel, had remained there busy with the preparation of her materials for beginning her work at Saint Apollinare on the following day.

She looked up as he entered the room with an arch smile on her lips and in her eyes which, perhaps, did not reflect altogether faithfully the feeling in her heart.

“Yes, I saw you, you naughty, inconstant boy, when you little thought my eye was upon you.  I saw you with—­Ludovico, there is something wrong,” she said, suddenly changing her laughing tone for one of alarm as her eye marked the expression of his face.  “I am sure from the way you look at me there is something amiss.  What is it, Ludovico mio?  What has happened to vex you?”

“A great and terrible misfortune has happened, my Paolina; and I have run to you in all haste that you might not hear it from any lips but my own.  You were going to say just now that you saw me with Bianca Lalli, were you not?  Where and when did you see us?”

“In a bagarino, driving towards the Pineta.  I was up at a high window in the church on the scaffolding prepared for my work,” said Paolina, deadly pale, and breathless with apprehension.

“Ah! you saw us from the window.  I took her there at her request to see the Pineta.  We started on leaving the ball-room.  In the forest she became sleepy:  I left her sleeping on a bank, and meaning to return to her in a few minutes.  I could not find the spot again for some time; and when I did find it she was gone.  After searching the wood in vain for hours I returned to the city, and—­at the gate—­not an hour ago—­I saw her brought in—­dead!”

“Dead!  La Bianca dead!” cried Paolina, much shocked; and with every vestige of the half-formed suspicions which had been tormenting her suddenly erased from her mind by the terrible tidings and the sadness of the end of the unfortunate Diva.

“Dead, my Paolina; and I am suspected of having murdered her,” he said slowly, and with an accent of profound despair.

“What—­what!  You suspected!  By whom?  What does it mean?  La Bianca murdered—­and by you.  What does it mean, Ludovico mio?  For pity’s sake, tell me, what does it mean?”