Both the persons respecting whom he made
inquiry had been seen to pass out of the city at a very early hour
that morning.
To his great surprise he heard that the Conte Leandro had passed the
gate before it was daylight; and the officer had been struck by the
strangeness of the circumstance. He was much muffled up in a large
cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat drawn down over his eyes and face.
But his person was perfectly well known to the official; and he had
recognized him without difficulty.
He also perfectly well remembered seeing the girl--a remarkably
pretty girl--pass through about an hour or a little more afterwards.
And, imagining that the one circumstance explained the other--that
it was an affair of some assignation outside the city in the
interest of some amourette that was attended by difficulties within
the walls--he had thought no more about it.
But Signor Fortini knew enough to feel very sure, that the
exceedingly singular facts, as they seemed to him, of both these
persons having gone out of the city in the direction of the Pineta
at such an unusual hour, was not to be accounted for by any such
explanation. But neither did it seem in any degree likely or
credible, that these two facts, the passing out of the Conte
Leandro, and the passing out of Paolina, should have had any
connection with each other in reference to the murder in the Pineta.
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