CHAPTER III
Guilty or not Guilty?
Signor Fortini hurried home, when he quitted the Marchese Ludovico
in the little quiet street, in which they had talked together after
the terrible sight they had together witnessed at the city gate, and
shut himself up in his private room to think. He was much moved and
distressed, more moved than the practised calm of the manner natural
to him, and the slow movements of old age, allowed to be visible.
What a dreadful, what a miserable misfortune was this. A tragedy, if
ever there was one, which would for ever strike down from their
place an ancient and noble family, whose merit and worth had from
generation to generation been the pride and the admiration of the
entire city--a tragedy which would come home as such to the heart of
every human being in Ravenna. Great heaven, what a fall!
And this was the first outcome of the disastrous purpose of his old
friend the Marchese. Truly he had felt that nought but evil--evils
manifold and wide-spreading--could arise from so insane a line of
conduct. But he had been far from anticipating so overwhelming a
calamity as the first result of it.
Then, the deed itself! It would cause an outcry from one end of
Italy to the other. It would be a disgrace, and an opprobrium to the
city for many a year. What! Ravenna invites, entices this hapless
girl, who had been the admiration of so many cities, to come within
her walls; and in return for the delight which she had given them--
murders her.
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