To many minds the guilt of the Venetian girl seemed so clear that it appeared altogether superfluous to spend time and trouble in bringing her to confess it.  Her hatred of the victim she had confessed; and the confession of it was in evidence.  The motive for that hatred was perfectly well known and understood.  It was a motive that many a time ere now had led to similar deeds.  She was close at hand when the crime must have been committed.  She could give no satisfactory account of her reasons for going thither, or of the occupation of her time during the hours, which must have comprised the moment of the assassination.  And the manner of the murder rendered it infinitely probable that it must have been the deed of a female.  What more could be wanted?  It was rarely that a murder had ever been brought home to the murderer by circumstantial evidence of a more conclusive and irresistible character.

Signor Fortini was among those who thought and reasoned thus.  But in the several interviews which he had had with the Marchese Ludovico, he had not judged it judicious to enlarge to him on this part of the subject.  While assuring him that he might make himself perfectly easy, and that his innocence in the matter would beyond all doubt be fully recognised, he had preferred to lead him to imagine that the result of the trial would be altogether negative; that it would be found that no case that would warrant a conviction should be made out against any party.

Signor Logarini had meanwhile made one or two more excursions to the Basilica of St. Apollinare.  But he had gained nothing by his pains.  The padre Fabiano was on each occasion found in bed, no whit better to all appearance than he had been on that day when the police Commissary and Signor Fortini visited him together.  Nor had Signor Logarini’s persevering cross-examinations availed to obtain anything more from the aged friar than repetitions of his first statements.  Nevertheless the Commissary was confirmed more than ever in his opinion that the friar knew something; if he could only be made to speak.  Still it had been determined not to attempt to bring the old man by force before the tribunal.  There was every reason to think that nothing would be obtained from him in addition to what he had already said.  In all probability he was really ill, more or less, as Signor Logarini said, and living under the government of the Holy Father, it was necessary to treat ecclesiastical personages with a greater degree of consideration than might have been accorded to such under similar circumstances on the other side of the frontier between the territory of the church and Austria.