“Would you like to keep it as a memento?” he asked.  “Or shall I destroy it before you?”

His voice never quavered, his face was not discomposed.  Giovanni, the noble-hearted gentleman, wondered whether he himself could have borne such a blow so bravely as this innkeeper cousin of his.  Hopes, such as few men can even aspire to entertain, had been suddenly extinguished.  A future of power and wealth and honour, the highest almost that his country could give any man, had been in a moment dashed to pieces before his eyes.  Dreams, in which the most indifferent would see the prospect of enormous satisfaction, had vanished into nothing during the last ten minutes, almost at the instant when they were to be realised.  And yet the man who had hoped such hopes, who had looked forward to such a future, whose mind must have revelled many a time in the visions that were already becoming realities—­that man stood before them all, outwardly unmoved, and proposing to his cousin that he should keep as a remembrance the words that told of his own terrible disappointment.  He was indeed the calmest of those present.

“Shall I tear it to pieces?” he asked again, holding the document between his fingers.  Then the old prince spoke.

“Do what you will with it,” he answered.  “But give me your hand.  You are a braver man than I.”

The two men looked into each other’s eyes as their hands met.

“It shall not be the last deed between us,” said Saracinesca.  “There shall be another.  Whatever may be the truth about that villain’s work you shall have your share—­”

“A few hours ago, you would not take yours,” answered San Giacinto quietly.  “Must I repeat your own words?”

“Well, well—­we will talk of that.  This has been a terrible morning’s work, and we must do other things before we go to business again.  That poor man’s body is outside the door.  We had better attend to that matter first, and send for the police.  Giovanni, my boy, will you tell Corona?  I believe she is still in the house.”

Giovanni needed no urging to go upon his errand.  He entered the drawing-room where Corona was still sitting beside Faustina upon the sofa.  His face must have been pale, for Corona looked at him with a startled expression.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked.

“Something very unpleasant has occurred,” he answered, looking at Faustina.  “Meschini, the librarian, has just died very suddenly in the study where we were.”

“Meschini?” cried Faustina in surprise and with some anxiety.

“Yes.  Are you nervous, Donna Faustina?  May I tell you something very startling?” It was a man’s question.

“Yes—­what is it?” she asked quickly.

“Meschini confessed before us all that it was he who was the cause—­in fact that he had murdered your father.  Before any one could stop him, he had shot himself.  It is very dreadful.”

With a low cry that was more expressive of amazement than of horror, Faustina sank into a chair.  In his anxiety to tell his wife the whole truth Giovanni forgot her at once.  As soon as he began to speak, however, Corona led him away to the window where they had stood together a few hours earlier.