“But as to the poor girl being dead, there is unhappily no shadow of doubt at all,” said the Baron Manutoli; “I saw old Signor Fortini the lawyer just now, who told me that he was at the Porta Nuova when the body was brought in.”

“And is it true that the Marchese Ludovico was with him, and fainted dead away at the sight of the body?” said a very young man.

“It is true that Ludovico was there with Fortini at the gate, but I heard nothing about his fainting; and should not think it very likely.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, I should have thought it likely enough by all accounts,” said the Conte Leandro Lombardoni, whose face was looking more pasty and his eyes more fishy than usual.

“Much you know about it.  Why, in the name of all the saints, should it be likely?  What should Ludovico faint for?” rejoined Manutoli, fiercely.

“What for?  Well, one has heard of such things.  And as for what I know about it, Signor Barone, maybe I have the means of knowing more about it than anybody here,” said the poet.

“Here is Lombardoni confesses he knows all about it,” cried one.

“That ought to be told to the Commissary of Police” said another

“I say, my notion is that Lombardoni did it himself,” exclaimed a third.

“Ah, to be sure.  What is more likely?  We all know how the poor Diva snubbed him.  Remember the fate of his verses.  If that is not enough to drive a man and a poet to do murder I don’t know what is.  To be sure, ’twas Leandro did it,” rejoined the first.

“I can believe that, if I never believe anything else,” said Spadoni.

“Let’s send to the Commissary and tell him that the Conte Leandro confesses that it was he that murdered La Bianca, cried one of the previous speakers.

“What on earth are you dreaming of,” cried the persecuted poet, turning ghastly livid with affright; “I know nothing about the matter, nothing!  How in the world should I know anything about it?”

“Oh, I thought you knew more about it than anybody else just now,” sneered one of his persecutors.

“He looks to me very much as if he did know something about it in sober earnest,” said the bald-headed chess-player; who had been looking hard at the evidences of terror on the poet’s face.

“But where is the Marchese Ludovico?” asked the same young man, who had heard that the Marchese had fainted at the sight of the body.

A general silence fell on the chattering group at this question:  till Manutoli answered with a very grave face “Ah, you must ask the Commissary of Police that question, Signor Marco.”

“You don’t mean that he is arrested,” returned the youngster thus addressed.

Manutoli nodded his head two or three times gravely, as he said, “That is the worst of the bad business; and a very bad business it is in every way.”

“You don’t mean that you think Ludovico can have done it, Manutoli?” said one of the others.