Do
you know anything about her? I see by our books that she came here
last autumn from Venice. What is she like?"
"It so happens that I never saw her. But I am told that she is
pretty--very pretty--remarkably so." "Ah--h--h! that's what kept the
poor young fellow from running till it was too late to run. And
yet," continued the Commissary, pausing on his words, and tapping
his forehead with his finger as if a new idea had just occurred to
him--"and yet the young Don Juan goes out tete-a-tete into the
forest with this other girl."
"Che volete?" returned the lawyer with a shrug. "Boys will be boys,
and women--are women."
"Yes; but the women sometimes don't quite like--" and the Commissary
allowed the remainder of his sentence to remain unspoken, being
apparently too much occupied with his thoughts to speak it.
"I suppose the medical report can hardly have been made yet?" asked
the lawyer, on whom the suppressed meaning of the Police
Commissary's broken sentence was not lost.
"No; there has not been time. It was too late in the afternoon.
Professor Tomasarchi will make a post-mortem examination the first
thing to-morrow morning; and I daresay we shall have his report in
the course of the day, if, as is most likely, there is nothing to
call for more than a superficial examination."
"I shall be very anxious to hear the result of his investigation--
very.
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