If you had committed murder--if I had committed
murder,--should we not either of us, have denied it as resolutely as
you denied this? If the circumstances are such as to cause a man--
any man--to be suspected at all, no words of his can be worth
anything whatsoever on the subject; and you must admit that, the
circumstances being as they were, it was impossible that the first
suspicion should not have fallen on you. You may believe that no
efforts or activity have been wanting on my part for: the discovery
of the means of removing this suspicion. Let us be thankful that
they have, to a very great degree, been successful."
"And what has been found out? For God's sake tell me all about it! I
declare, for my own part, I could almost believe that I had done it
myself in my sleep, or in a fit of madness without knowing it, so
utterly impossible does it seem to me to imagine what hand it could
have been that did the deed."
"Signor Marchese, the hand that did that deed was no other than the
hand of the Venetian girl, Paolina Foscarelli," said the lawyer,
with deliberate and impressive slowness, emphasizing his words with
extended forefinger as he uttered them.
"Pshaw! Is that all you have to tell me?" cried the Marchese,
jumping up from his chair, and pacing the room with impatient
strides. "It is an absurdity upon the face of it; I should have
hoped that nobody in Ravenna would have believed it possible that I
could have been guilty of such a deed; but, by Heaven, the whole
city will see that it is more likely that I should have done it than
Paolina! It is simply absurd.
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