Despite the friar’s illness, however, Fra Simone, the lay-brother, had once or twice been observed lately in Ravenna.  He was seen sauntering through the streets with his long linen wallet over his shoulder, stopping at a corner for a little gossip here, and receiving a contribution to the store in his bag from some friar-loving devout old woman there.  There was nothing remarkable in such a sight in the streets of Ravenna in any way.  Only Fra Simone was very rarely seen there.  And when Signor Pietro Logarini, without whose knowledge scarcely a cat stirred abroad in Ravenna, was told of the circumstance, he said to himself that the Padre Fabiano was interested in knowing what people said and thought of the coming trial.

Signor Fortini had in the meantime, not without infinite difficulty succeeded in persuading the Marchese that he must bring himself to submit to the ordeal of being present in the court on the occasion of the trial.  The Marchese’s extreme dislike to appearing thus publicly had been in no degree overcome or diminished.  And it was only the lawyer’s positive and repeated declaration, that he would assuredly be sent for, if he did not spontaneously present himself, that had availed to induce him to say at length that he would go.  Every possible attention, the lawyer had assured him, would be paid to him, and everything done to make his attendance as little disagreeable to him as possible.  Of course, as Fortini urged, it was well known, through the city how dreadfully he must have been affected by the sad circumstances that had happened—­people would be prepared to see him looking ill and changed.  Curious?  Yes, of course people were curious—­it was impossible to prevent them from being so; but he, Fortini, would take care that their curiosity should not be manifested in any way that could be offensive to the Marchese.

Thus, an unwilling consent to attend the sitting of the court on the morning of the trial had been forced from the unhappy Marchese,—­ from him who, so few weeks ago before the fatal coming of the fascinating singer to Ravenna, had been the happiest, the most prosperous, and the most secure of men; and it had been arranged that Signor Fortini should, on that morning; call for him at the Palazzo and accompany him to the tribunal.

When the morning came it seemed to Signor Fortini as if be should have to do all his work over again.  He found the Marchese up and dressed.  He had not shaved himself, however,—­declaring, with abundant appearance of truth, that, in the state he then was, it was utterly beyond his power to do so, and he absolutely refused to allow it to be done for him; and the effect of the stubbly grisled beard of a week’s growth or so on the hollow lantern jaws, which all the city had been accustomed to see clean shaved, and plump, and florid with health,—­was such as to render him barely recognizable as the same man by the eyes that had known him all his life.  It seemed, too, to the lawyer that the shocking change which had taken place in him was even more painfully marked by his attempt to dress himself in his usual manner than it had been in his chamber wrapper.  His clothes, which were wont to fit so well, and set off to advantage his well-made and stalwart figure, hung about him in bags and pantaloon-like folds, a world too wide for his shrunken form.