Signor Pietro nodded his head with most emphatic approbation and confirmation of his friend’s opinion.

“Is not it the more likely story in every way?” pursued the lawyer; “just look at it.  The Marchese is known to every man, woman, and child in Ravenna; and being known for what he is, it would be difficult to persuade anybody that he had lifted his hand to murder a defenceless and sleeping woman.  But we can all of us easily understand that it is exceedingly likely that he may have so behaved as to make these two women furiously jealous of each other; at least to have made this girl Paolina, to whom, it seems, he had promised marriage, desperately furious against the other, whom she had but too good reason to suspect of having attracted the preference of the Marchese.  Then look at the instrument with which the murder was accomplished,—­a needle.  Is it in any way likely that the Marchese Ludovico should habitually carry such a thing about with him?  Is there any unlikelihood that the girl may have had such a thing about her; Amico mio Pietro,” said the lawyer, in conclusion, tapping his fingers on the Commissary’s coat-sleeve as he spoke, “that Venetian girl is the murderess!  The deed was done under the influence of maddening jealousy.”

“How on earth could that old woman come to you with a budget of such damning facts against her friend?  Do you think she—­the old woman—­ has any guilty knowledge of the crime?”

“Lord bless you, no!  If she had, she would not have been so simple.  No, she firmly believes her own theory of the matter, that the poor Diva killed herself.  She is too firmly persuaded of it to perceive the bearing of her admissions of the hatred that existed between the two girls.”

“I learned something yesterday,” said the Commissary, “which all looks the same way, not much, but in such a case every little helps.  This old friar—­this Padre Fabiano—­is, we know, a Venetian; and now I have ascertained that, years ago, before he came here, there was some connection of some sort—­acquaintance, friendship of whatever kind you like—­between him and the parents of the girl Paolina.  I think it likely enough that the frate’s friendship was more particularly with the girl’s mother rather than with her father,—­we know what friars’ ways are, and, maybe, we should not go far wrong if we imagined that the Father had reason to feel a fatherly interest of a quite special kind in the young lady.  Now all this is worth only just this.  Why did the frate return from the Pineta in such a state of terror, agitation, and horror?  Why, supposing him to have seen, or in any way become acquainted with facts calculated to produce such an effect upon him, does he obstinately refuse to give us any information upon the subject?  How will this answer fit?  In the course of that walk to the Pineta, undertaken, no doubt, because the old man felt anxiety as to what was likely to follow from the probable meeting of