Of course we pay no attention to all that. I
promised to go to the girl as he told me; and I shall do so
presently. But I thought it best to see you first. The fact is,
Signor Fortini, that I do not feel any one bit of the certainty that
he professes to feel, that this Venetian girl may not have been the
real assassin."
The lawyer looked shrewdly into Manutoli's face, and nodded his head
slowly three or four times. "What would there be so unlikely in it,"
pursued Manutoli; "girls, and Venetian girls too, have done as much
and more before now? We know that she is in love with him. She sees
him going on such an expedition as that with such a girl as La
Bianca. She has already, no doubt, had cause to be jealous of her.
Ludovico used to see the Lalli frequently. What is more likely?"
"Stay, Signor Barone, one minute. This is an important point; you
say that this Paolina saw her lover with La Bianca. How do you know
that? and how did it come about?"
"Ludovico just told me so; and the girl, it seems, herself told him.
Her story is that she went out to St. Apollinare at an early hour
this morning to look after a scaffolding or some preparation of some
kind that had been made for her to copy some of the mosaics in the
church; and that from a window of the church, being on the
scaffolding, she saw Ludovico and La Bianca driving by in a
bagarino.
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