"
"For God's sake don't speak in such a tone, Signor Giovacchino. I
tell you I am seriously uneasy. Should they have met under such
circumstances--God only knows--What would you advise me to do,
Signor Giovacchino?" said the Marchese, looking into the lawyer's
face with increasing and now evidently painful anxiety.
"It is ill giving advice without knowing all the circumstances of a
case, Signor Marchese," returned Fortini, somewhat drily, looking
hard at the young man as he spoke, and putting a meaning emphasis on
the word "all."
"You do know all the circumstances as far as I know them myself. The
thing happened exactly as I told you," replied Ludovico.
"You left her sleeping on a bank in the forest, and have never seen
her since?" said the lawyer, thoughtfully.
"Exactly so! I returned to the spot where I had left her--at least
as far as I could tell it was the same spot--and she was no longer
there," replied Ludovico.
"But you were not sure that you did return to the same spot? You
could not recognise it again with certainty?"
"So it seemed to me when I was there. I think it must have been the
same place. But when I did not find her, I could not feel sure of
it. Every spot in the Pineta is so like all other spots. One pine-
tree is just like another; and the grassy openings, and the little
thickets of underwood, are all the same over and over again.
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