But when examined as to her disposal of herself after leaving the church of Apollinare—­as to her motives for changing her purpose, if it were true, as she stated, that she did change her purpose of entering the Pineta—­she became embarrassed and failed to give any satisfactory reply.

Ludovico had, at an early stage of the proceedings, been removed from the court, after having been in vain again and again requested by the judges to abstain from interfering with the progress of the case against Paolina.

At last, when almost everybody in the court had made up their minds that there could, in truth, be no doubt that the young Venetian, goaded to frenzy by her jealousy, had been the author of the murder, and quite everybody was convinced that such would be the decision of the judges, the latter were on the point of retiring from the court to confer, and consider their sentence, more as a matter of form, probably, than anything else, when an incident occurred that made a change in the aspect of matters.

CHAPTER VII

The Friar’s Testimony

In a criminal trial in the states of His Holiness the Pope, there is none of that absolute and inflexible adherence to certain rigid forms and rules which gives to many of the proceedings of our courts that character of an inevitable destiny-like march which is so dramatic in its operations—­that sense of the presence there of a power greater than that of the greatest of the men concerned in the administration of it, which constitutes on large element in an Englishman’s respect for the law.  At times this automatic power, which has been thus created Faust-like, by reason of the impossibility of pre-adapting its mechanism to the exigences of every case, works to unforseen and undesired ends—­sometimes even to absurd ones.  And, with thinkers of a certain phase of modern thought, it has been a favourite taunt against the average British mind, that it rather delights in the contemplation of such abnormal workings of the great automatic law in which it has created.  Some manifest mistake or error has occurred.  The man supposed to be murdered walks into court; but it is a minute too late; the verdict has been given—­the sentence pronounced.  All the court judges, witnesses, counsel—­look at each other in dismay; the great law automaton cannot be made to swerve in its path by any power there.  And the average Englishman likes the contemplation of such a case, it is sneered; and the sneer may be joined in by those who, under other systems, have the immediate power of setting any such mistakes right by a word.  But the sneer, let the Englishman be assured, would by no means be joined in by the population, who are subject to the action of courts and judges. thus able by superior word to direct the course of justice.