“That is true—­it is all true,” cried Manutoli, eagerly, and looking almost scared by the ideas the lawyer was presenting to his mind.  “It is even truer, than you, perhaps, are aware of.  She said sneering and cutting things of him in his hearing both at the Marchese Lamberto’s ball and at the Circolo ball; I happen to know it.”

“Hey—­y—­y—­y?” said the lawyer, uttering a sound like a long sigh, with a question stop at the end of it; and then thrusting out his lips and nodding his head up and down slowly while he plunged his hands into the pockets of his trowsers.  “I’ll tell you what it is Signor Barone,” the old man added, after a pause of deep thought, “I was anxious to find such plausible grounds of suspicion against other parties, such element of doubt, such possibilities as might make it difficult for the judges to condemn our friend.  I wanted to puzzle the court; but, per Bacco!  I have puzzled myself.  This afternoon, I confess to you, I had little doubt but that the Marchesino had, in a fatal moment of anger and desperation, committed the crime.  But, upon my word now, I know not what to think.  Here we have three parties, each of whom we know to have been acted on by one of three strong passions.  We have jealousy, and wounded vanity.  Which of the three has done the deed?”

“It is an extraordinary circumstance,” said the Baron Manutoli, “that they were jeering at the Conte Leandro at the Circolo just now, about the way the Diva had snubbed him and his verses, and accusing him in joke of having been her murderer.  And, as sure as I am now speaking to you, Signor Fortini, he looked in a way then that I—­a—­a—­in short that I thought very odd—­turned all sorts of colours.  But then, you know, he is always such an unwholesome-looking animal.”

“One of the vainest men I ever met with,” said the lawyer, musing.

“Oh—­for vanity—­I believe you.  Leandro has not his equal for vanity.”

“And strong vanity, deeply wounded, by a woman too, will breed a hate as violent and vicious, perhaps, as any passion that ever prompted a crime,” rejoined the lawyer, still meditating deeply.  “Per Dio Santo!” he exclaimed, after a pause of silence, striking his open palm strongly on the table, as he spoke, and speaking with a sort of solemn earnestness, “I am inclined to think, after all, that he is the man.  The Marchesino,” he went on again, thoughtfully, “went out for a frolic—­intelligible enough; The girl went out to look after the preparations for her work—­again quite plausible.  But in the name of all the saints what took the Conte Leandro out of the Porta Nuova at that hour of the morning, after passing the night at a ball?”

“I still think that the Venetian girl has done the deed,” said Manutoli, whose opinion was no doubt in some degree warped by his desire that the criminal should turn out to be a foreign plebeian rather than a Ravenna noble.  “After all Leandro is not the man to do such a deed.  He is such a poor creature.  Besides, it seems to me that the girl’s motive for hate was the stronger.  I don’t know that wounded vanity has had many such crimes to answer for, whereas jealousy—­and such a jealousy—­why, it is an old story you know.”