“Is it possible that death may have been caused by foul means, yet by such as may elude your investigation?” asked Fortini.

“I think not—­I should say almost certainly not in such a case as the present.  There are poisons that act subtly and instantaneously, but there is the odour in most cases,—­in almost all some indication of their operation on the organization.”

Arrived at the hospital they found a couple of assistants, pupils of the Professor, awaiting his arrival.  There was also an official on the part of the police, and there were two or three persons waiting in the hope of being allowed to be present at the examination.  The police officer, however, very summarily declared that this could not be permitted.  Fortini was so well known, and held such a kind of half-official position and character in the city, that he passed on unquestioned on the arm of the Professor.

The body lay exactly as it had been brought in by the labouring-men who had found it in the Pineta.  The beautiful face was perfectly calm, and in the lineaments of it the difference that there is between death and sleep was scarcely perceptible.  The white dress was almost as unruffled and as spotless as when she had put it on.  It had been fastened about midway between the neck and the waist by a diamond pin or brooch; but this fastening was now undone, and the brooch was hanging loosely on one side of the bosom of the dress.  It was impossible to suppose that this jewel should have been so left by anybody who had had the opportunity and the desire of plunder.  It might have been unfastened by the wearer before she slept for the sake of more full enjoyment of the balmy breezes of the pine-forest:  and the result of this loosening of the dress was that the light folds of it opened freely as far down as the waist, so that the slightest drawing aside of them, such as even the breeze might effect, was sufficient to leave bare the entire bosom.

On either shoulder and on the bosom lay the large heavy waves of the rich auburn hair.  In death, as she had been in life, she was still a wonder of beauty; and the two men, the old lawyer and the Professor, little as, from years, character, and habits of mind, their imaginations were susceptible of being deeply touched by such a sight, stood for awhile by the side of the table on which the body had been laid, and gazed in sad silence on the sight before them.

“One might think she was still sleeping, poor creature,” said the lawyer, after a silence of a few minutes.

“Ay, almost.  It is a wonderfully lovely face.  Seems difficult to believe, doesn’t it, that any man—.  Much less such a man as the Marchese—­should have stood over that figure, and so looking down on it, have decided on destroying it?” said the Professor.

“Perhaps no man did so,” said the lawyer.

“Case of death from natural causes, you mean?  I am afraid not, I am afraid not.  Can’t say for certain yet; but, judging from appearances, I fear there is no likelihood that such was the case,” rejoined the Professor.