“Well, that much is true, I am afraid, Niccolo; but I hope it may not be for long,” said Fortini, pausing in his walk, as though he were not unwilling to talk to the old man.

“Couldn’t ye say a word to the Marchese, to take him out?” said the old groom coaxingly; “if so be as the woman is dead, what is the use of any more ado about it?”

“Well, I hope there may not be much more ado about it.  She was probably killed, poor woman, by some strolling vagabonds.  But I wish it had not happened to vex the Marchese just now.  He is not well, the Marchese.  Has he ridden much lately?”

“Hasn’t backed a horse since the first week in Carnival,” said the old groom emphatically.

“I hope he will take to his riding again, now Carnival is over.  I think it helps to keep him in health,” remarked the lawyer.

“I’m sure I wish he would, for my part,” returned the groom; “and I wished it this morning, I can tell you.  I was a-taking his own mare out this morning—­it’s a week since she has been out of the stable—­ and she was that fresh it was pretty well more than I could do to hold her.  I brought her in all of a lather, and splashed with mud to her saddle-girths.  People; must ha’ thought I had been riding a race,—­that is, if any of them had seen me when I came into the yard; but there wasn’t a soul of ’em stirring.  Catch any of the lot up at that time the first morning in Lent.”

“He is getting old, too.  It would have been a mighty hard horse to ride that my friend Niccolo would not have been able to hold a year or two ago,” thought the lawyer to himself, as he walked out of the stable-yard into the little back street that runs behind the palazzo, and pursued his way thoughtfully towards the residence of the celebrated anatomist.

And again, as he walked, the lawyer turned his mind, with all the analytical power of which he was master, to the question whether or no there were any possibility of hope that the Marchese Ludovico were innocent of the crime imputed to him,—­whether there were any other theory possible by virtue of which any other person might be suspected of the deed.

His anxiety to speak with Professor Tomosarchi indicated, indeed, that he had not wholly abandoned, despite what he had said on that point both to the Marchese Ludovico and his uncle, the hope that the death might be pronounced to have resulted from natural causes.  Possibly, had the lawyer possessed more medical knowledge, this chance might have seemed to him a somewhat better one; but, to his thinking, it was altogether incredible that a healthy girl of Bianca’s age should lie down to sleep, and, without any such change of position as would disorder her attire—­without any evidence of a death-struggle—­should simply never wake again.  Again the lawyer’s meditations told him that small hope was to be found in this direction.