It is not only that I think I may say there is now very little
chance of any mischief falling on you in consequence of that unlucky
excursion to the Pineta, but that I am able, thank God, to say that
I have myself no longer the smallest suspicion that you had any hand
in the crime that has been committed there."
"Has anything been discovered, then?" asked Ludovico, eagerly. "Ah--
h--h! that would be good news indeed," added the young man, drawing
a long breath of relief,--the evident strength of which feeling
afforded a measure of the suffering he had endured more indicative
of the real state of his mind than any amount of depression which he
had before allowed to be apparent.
"Well; enough, I think, has been discovered to relieve you of all
suspicion--enough, as I said, to convince my own mind very
satisfactorily that you are innocent of all complicity in the
matter."
"I confess that I should have preferred, Signor Fortini, that my own
assertion should have sufficed to produce that conviction," replied
the young man, somewhat drily.
"My dear Signor Marchese, permit me to say that such preference
would have been ill founded. Is not my conviction, based upon the
probabilities of the known facts, of much greater value than any
mere acquiescence with your assertions? These are matters, my dear
sir, which must be looked at reasonably, and not merely
sentimentally.
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