"Were you aware, then, Signor Marchese," he asked, "that the
Marchese Ludovico had gone to the Pineta with this unhappy woman?"
The Marchese dropped his head upon his chest and paused a minute,
passing his hand slowly across his brow and before his eyes, before
he replied,--
"Yes, I knew that," he said, at length; "the Conte Leandro told me
of it."
"Your people told me, just now, that you had refused to see the
Conte Leandro, when he called," remarked the lawyer, again looking
puzzled.
"Yes, I refused to see him because my mind was full of the
conversation we had this morning. You know I promised you, Signor
Fortini, that I would think over the matter again; and I was engaged
in doing so. I have been thinking of it all day; I was thinking of
it still when you came in."
"Thinking still of your purpose of making the woman, La Bianca, your
wife. Then you could not have heard of her miserable end when I came
in,--as I supposed, indeed, you could not have heard," remarked the
lawyer.
"Heard of it? Why of course not. That is clear--that proves that I
could not have heard of it, you know," said the Marchese, with a
strange sort of eagerness.
"When was it, then, that you heard from the Conte Leandro, that the
Marchese Ludovico was in the Pineta with La Bianca?" asked the
lawyer.
"At the ball," replied the Marchese, after a minute's thought, "at
the ball.
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