“When the body of the murdered woman was brought into the city,—­ when we two stood in the gateway, and when your hand raised the sheet that covered the face of the dead, you exclaimed aloud `Paolina!’ What was then the thought that was in your mind?  I imagined, at the time, that you recognized her in the dead woman before you.  A very few minutes, however, sufficed to show that it was not Paolina, but Bianca who lay there murdered.  And then, amid the horror of the first idea of your guilt, which the nature of the circumstances rendered inevitable, I thought no more of the exclamation you had uttered.  But I have not forgotten the fact.  You did, on seeing Bianca dead before you, exclaim, `Good God!  Paolina!’ What was the thought in your mind, Signor Marchese, that prompted that exclamation?  What but the sudden spontaneous rush of the conviction that it was she who had done the deed on which you were looking?”

For a few moments the Marchese seemed too much stunned by the inference, and the appeal of the lawyer, and by the vision of the consequences, which he purposed drawing from it, to utter any reply to the demand which had been made on him.

“You mistake, Signor Fortini,” he gasped out at last; “you are in error.  I cannot have made any such exclamation.  I have no consciousness of anything of the kind.  In any case no such monstrous idea, as you would infer from it, ever entered into my mind.  You know how anxious I was about Paolina’s prolonged absence.  I was thinking of her; at least, I suppose so, if, indeed, I uttered her name.  I have no recollection.  I don’t know why I should have done so.  All I know is that no such horrible and impossible suggestion ever presented itself to my mind for an instant.  If it were otherwise,” continued the young man, after a few moments of painfully concentrated thought,—­“if it were otherwise, why did I not suggest such a solution of the mystery when I found myself accused of the crime?”

“That, Signor Marchese, those who know you best will be least at a loss to understand,” replied the lawyer.  “The motive that ruled your conduct then, is the same that rules it now.  You were then unwilling, as you are now unwilling, to exculpate yourself at the cost of inculpating one who is dear to you.  Your objection, I am bound to tell you, carries no weight with it.  I cannot abandon that part of my case that rests upon the striking fact that your own first impression was that Paolina was guilty.”

“I utterly deny, and will continue to deny, that any such impression was ever present to my mind.  I wholly refuse to avail myself of any defence based on any such supposition; on any idea at all, that Paolina Foscarelli is guilty.  I know that she is as innocent of this deed as the angels in heaven.  I will proclaim her innocence with my last breath.  I will not accept any acquittal on the hypothesis of her guilt.  I will rather avow that I did the deed myself.  In one sense I did so.  In one sense I am guilty of her death.  For it was I who took her to the place, and into the circumstance that led to her death.”