He reminded himself, however, that the same woman, who could be capable of such a deed might also be expected to have the presence of mind and readiness necessary for avoiding any such trap as that which he had laid for her.

He was, at the same time, strongly, but perhaps not altogether consistently, impressed with the fact; that during the whole of his interview with her, she did not once distinctly and directly deny that she had had anything to do with the crime.  When warning her, as he had been charged by Ludovico to do, of the probability that she might be arrested, he had allowed her to understand that the circumstances of this case were such, that the question of who was the guilty person became nearly an alternative one between herself and the Marchese.  On which, instead of protesting her own innocence, she had strongly insisted on that of Ludovico, which seemed a very suspicious circumstance to the Baron Manutoli.

He had tried to lead her to express some feeling, or, rather, some remembrance of what had been her feeling when she saw Ludovico and La Bianca in the bagarino together; but there she became reticent, and would say little or nothing—­another suspicious circumstance in the eyes of the Baron, so that, when he quitted her, he was, upon the whole, rather confirmed than otherwise in his previous opinion as to her guilt.

“Well, Signorina,” he had said, in rising to leave her, “I came here, in compliance with my friend’s request, to re-assure you on the subject of the warrant which will, in all probability, be issued to-morrow morning for your arrest.  You best know whether you have any reason for alarm.  My own opinion is, that if you have nothing to reproach yourself with, you have nothing to fear.  I trust it may be so.”

“I am grateful to you for coming, Signor,” Paolina said.  “You will see Ludovico again.  Tell him that I am as sure of his innocence of this horrid thing as if he had never quitted my side.”

How Paolina passed that miserable night it is useless to attempt to tell.  How happy all, ay, even all, the days of her previous life seemed to her in comparison with the misery of the minutes that were then so slowly passing.

Early the next morning Signor Fortini called at the house of his friend Dr. Buonaventura Tomosarchi, the great anatomist, for the purpose of accompanying the Professor to the room at the hospital, where the body of Bianca was awaiting the post-mortem examination which had been ordered by the police.

“I suppose,” said Fortini, as they walked together, “that there is no possibility, in such a case as this, that the death may have been a natural one?”

“Oh, I would not say that at all.  Such things occur at all ages.  I do not think it is likely,—­specially in the case of such a magnificent organization as that of yonder poor girl; but there is no saying, and, above all, no use in attempting to guess when we shall so soon know all about it,” said the Professor, a man some ten or fifteen years younger than the old lawyer.