"I--I heard it said. I was told so. I am sure I don't know who it
was said so. Nobody has been talking about anything else. Some
fellow or other said that Ludovico had proposed the trip to her."
"The fact is, in short, that you know just nothing at all about it.
You happen to know, forsooth! It seems to me, Signor Conte, that you
are strangely ready to fancy you know anything that might seem to go
against Ludovico," rejoined Manutoli.
"And what would be the result if it should turn out that he was
guilty--if be were condemned?" asked one of the younger men, looking
afraid of his words, as he spoke them.
"God knows,--the galleys, I suppose. But one must not imagine such a
thing. It is too frightful," said Manutoli.
"Horrible! Shocking! Impossible!" cried a chorus of voices.
"Good God! Result! The disgrace and destruction of the noblest
family in the province. The ending of a fine old name in infamy.
Gracious heaven, it is too horrible to think of," exclaimed
Manutoli, with much emotion.
"It would kill the old Marchese as dead as a door-nail, for one
thing," said another of the group of young men.
"And serve him right too. If it is really true that he has
contemplated being guilty of such a monstrous piece of injustice and
folly," said the same man, who had before expressed a similar
opinion.
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