lad in prison, and we shall go again. We don't desert our friends in trouble, murderers or no murderers." "And I daresay Signor Guido was very much obliged to you," replied Beppina, spitefully. "At the same time I think it is a pity the whole neighbourhood should say that Lucia is engaged to a condemned murderer." "Guido is not a murderer, but the neighbourhood is quite right in saying that I am engaged to him," said Lucia, quietly, raising her wan face from her work. Angela nudged Beppina confidentially. "Zitta! don't answer her. She will get over it in time, you know. But just now it is no use talking," whispered the blind woman. "Twenty years is a long while to be engaged," giggled Beppina. "And the sposo away, too! It's worse than having none at all." "Lucia could marry to-morrow if she liked," remarked Angela, loftily. "But if she does not choose to take a husband, what business is that of anybody?" "Oh, none at all, of course," said Beppina. "But come, Lucia, you are not serious, are you? You might as well become a nun at once." "I would rather not talk about it at all, if you please," replied Lucia, gently. A nun? What renunciation ever made behind a cloister's walls was more perfect than that sealed by her in the noisome prison with a kiss on Guido's pallid lips? Before her mental vision now stretched the gray vista of hopeless years. With the keen prescience of pain she saw the frozen dawns when her bleeding heart would follow him upon his shameful task; she felt the anguished awakening in dream-haunted nights, and knew the lustre to her for ever shadowed, the sweetness to her for ever poisoned of the remorseless southern noons. "She is quiet enough, after all," remarked her neighbours, who did not know the depth of the tomb in which one great grief can bury all the smaller worries and all the trivial cares of ordinary life. But if Lucia was quiet, so much could not be said of Signor Renzo. In him all the chivalry of a young man, and all the vanity of a young lawyer, rose to do battle for Guido. Lucia's despair touched his heart, and the sentence of the Court wounded his pride. He felt that he had not been able to do justice either to Guido or to himself. He had the conviction that the painter was innocent, and yet he had failed altogether, not simply to establish the fact, but even to transport it into the regions of probability. This was primarily the fault of the evidence. What if Signor Renzo could bring to light such new truths as would result not only in the technical reversal of the verdict, but in the triumphant vindication of Guido ? He grew quite excited at the bare idea; and after a day or two spent in meditation he went to call upon Lucia. alone. Fortunately she was "You must not fret," said the lawyer kindly, as he looked at her pale cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes. "I feel sure all will come right in the end. But we must find somebody else to accuse." "And whom?" said Lucia, despairingly. "You know how in the first investigation nothing could be discovered against the servants.' "True. But the servants must have had friends or acquaintances coming constantly to the house. My impression is that the law was thrown off the right track in the very first instance by Count Cioronski's own apparent conviction of Guido's guilt. You know how damning his evidence was in Court. I hear that it was, if possible, even stronger before the Judge of Instruction. And in Court he would, of course, have added much more but for his crazy fit of excitement." "But why should he have made up his mind that Guido was guilty?" "Who knows?" Signor Renzo shrugged his shoulders. "Madness (he is half demented evidently), caprice, jealousy even. Was he jealous, do you think?" asked the lawyer, sharply. "I don't know." Lucia turned deadly pale. The thought was torture for all her faith in Guido. "You see," said Signor Renzo, "the strongest point against Guido. is his presence in the house at that particular moment, combined with his fatal forgetfulness in regard to old Baroni's change of residence. The theory of the prosecution is that he had gone to the Countess's apartment with some plan, probably not very definite, of robbery, or perhaps only with the idea of obtaining money from her. Disappointed of seeing her at first, he had lingered about the stairs until he heard, or saw, Carlotta descend. Then he entered, found the rooms deserted, the Countess asleep, and saw the jewels on the table. The temptation was overpowering; he took them. The Countess suddenly roused, started up, and the thief shot her to avoid detection." "So that you suppose him to have committed a second crime to escape from the consequences of the first?" exclaimed Lucia, half indignantly. "Cara mia! if criminals were always cool headed and always logical, I assure you we should have very few interesting trials," answered Signor Renzo. "This, as I tell you, is the theory of the prosecution. To destroy it we must substitute another theory for it: in other words, find another assassin. Now you were a good deal at the Countess's. Were there any miserable, half-starved hangers-on of the servants, who would be likely to learn the habits of the household, and be able, consequently, to choose the best moment for a robbery?" Lucia shook her head sadly. She could think of nobody of the kind. "Supposing there to have been such a person," continued Signor Renzo, "he must either have been lurking about the stairs for some time before committing the deed, or he must have entered the house by the deaf porter's lodge after Carlotta descended, or he must have been concealed in the apartment. If he had been lurking about the stairs, Guido himself, in all probability, would have seen him, nor could he have failed to mention a fact so much in his own favour. If he were concealed in the apartment one would be led to suspect the connivance of the servants. But against them, as you yourself have just said, the preliminary inquiry elicited absolutely nothing. There remains the third hypothesis, that the thief entered the house after the maid had left the ante-chamber." Lucia sighed wearily. -who could he be? This nameless, invisible, intangible murderer "He might have been anybody," resumed the lawyer, unconsciously answering her thought. "Some abject wretch, half-meditating a crime as an escape from starvation, who, seeing an open door, entered, and tempted, succumbed." Signor Renzo rose, and perplexed, took a turn or two about the room. "The Countess was almost recklessly benevolent, I have heard," he went on. "I suppose there were all sorts of poor creatures who went to her for relief?" "All sorts." Lucia gave a faint, sad smile of recollection, as she remembered how the people had thronged to the beautiful Countess's dwelling as to some miraculous shrine. "And, of course, it would be in this particular neighbourhood where she lived on the outskirts of such a seething mass of poverty, that her reputation for charity was greatest?" "Yes," said Lucia, "everybody went to her until the Count interfered. And to the last she was very, very kind." "Humph!" Signor Renzo grew more and more meditative. "You know of no unusually miserable creature living hereabouts, who showed any special agitation on hearing of the murder, or behaved in any way strangely?" Again she shook her head. "Nobody left the neighbourhood rather suddenly?" persisted the lawyer. "Ah!" cried Lucia, and clasped her hands in a positive spasm of remembrance. "Tito!" "Tito?" Signor Renzo took a chair and dropped into it in front of her. "And who is Tito?" But already Lucia was remorseful. "Do not ask me to suspect him." "It is impossible," she said. "Tell! tell!" urged her companion excitedly. "Never mind who he is. I would suspect the Judge on the Bench, now, rather than Guido." Thus entreated, reluctantly, with many protests, she told how on the very evening of the murder Isoletta had been ill, how Tito, desperate, had gone out to get money, and had returned in about an hour apparently with a good deal. "And you say that the interval of his absence corresponded as nearly as possible to the time of the murder?” "Yes." "And what has become of him ?" "He is living at Pistoja, I hear. He left this a very few days after the murder." "Suddenly?" "And yet nobody ever thought of connecting his departure with the murder!" exclaimed Signor Renzo. "In all that excitement I think his going attracted no attention," said Lucia. "And what is he doing at Pistoja, do you know?" "Working at his trade as a carpenter." "Prosperously?" "Very prosperously, I believe. Somebody even said that he had opened a shop." "I am always suspicious of ne'er-do-weels who are suddenly found in easy circumstances. But what I do not understand is how, supposing him to be our man, he could so quickly have converted the jewels into money. Who were his associates? Oh, Internationalists! I would believe any harm of them," said the prejudiced lawyer. He relapsed into musing. "I am afraid it is not very much of a clue, after all," he presently continued. "Nay, don't lose heart, Signora Lucia! It is a starting point if it is nothing else. You must leave me to think it all over. Meanwhile, I know that I need not entreat you to be silent. The least hint would ruin everything. You shall hear from me in a few days. Good-bye." "I am very grateful," said Lucia, with her modest grace. Signor Renzo, bowing with an involuntary reverence over her outstretched hand, muttered something not very clear about his duty and the cause of justice. But as he walked home the young lawyer caught himself wondering more than once wherein lay the nameless charm of this proud but gentle maiden of the people. Certain it is that she played a far more prominent part in his meditations than the austere goddess of the Sword and Scales. (To be concluded.) PLEASURE AND SORROW. I READ within an ancient book one day Upon a legend of the Goddess Pleasure. That wayward nymph, escaping, it would seem, The crowd of zealous courtiers who had sought her, Had wandered to the margin of a stream, And here to bathe her rosy limbs bethought her. So by the covert side her clothes she laid, Who, when she sported in the wave anon, Drawing anear with furtive glances eager, The dainty garments stole, and put them on To shroud her form, and veil her visage meagre. And thus disguised pale Sorrow went her way, At last too surely only Sorrow found her. The volume slipped unheeded from my knee, Sorrow in Pleasure's stolen garb has wandered. And some she tempts with wealth, and some with wine, True pleasure lives not here, and he to whom And train his thoughts that they may rise to Heaven. SYDNEY GREY. |