"
"Is the friar about again, or still in bed?" Fortini.
"Oh, he's in bed safe enough; at least I found him there, shivering
and shaking, and counting his beads, and answering a plain question
with `Ave Maria' and 'Ora pro nobis,' and the rest of it. I don't
believe he has the fever a bit. I believe that he has been scared
out of his wits by something he has seen. But the devil wouldn't get
out of him what it was if he don't choose to tell you. Oh, I know
them!" said the Commissary, provoked by his fruitless excursion.
"I suppose," said the lawyer, looking doubtfully into the
Commissary's face, "I suppose it is not on the cards that the old
fellow was the murderer himself?"
"Ha!" said the Commissary, with a start, "that is a new idea. But
no," he added, after a little consideration,--"no, that's not it; it
would be very difficult even to imagine any motive. An old man,
eighty years old. No, it's not that. But, if I am not very much
mistaken, he knows something."
"In that case, I should have thought that means might have been
found to make him speak," said the lawyer, drily.
"What means? I profess I don't know any. The devil of it is, you
see, Signor Giovacchino, that it will not do to treat those fellows
roughly. There would be the deuce and all to pay. There he lies,
shivering, and trembling, and muttering, and going on as if he was
imbecile; and swearing he is too ill to leave his bed.
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