"Ah, to be sure. What is more likely? We all know how the poor Diva snubbed him. Remember the fate of his verses. If that is not enough to drive a man and a poet to do murder I don't know what is. To be sure, 'twas Leandro did it," rejoined the first. "I can believe that, if I never believe anything else," said Spadoni. "Let's send to the Commissary and tell him that the Conte Leandro confesses that it was he that murdered La Bianca, cried one of the previous speakers. "What on earth are you dreaming of," cried the persecuted poet, turning ghastly livid with affright; "I know nothing about the matter, nothing! How in the world should I know anything about it?" "Oh, I thought you knew more about it than anybody else just now," sneered one of his persecutors. "He looks to me very much as if he did know something about it in sober earnest," said the bald-headed chess-player; who had been looking hard at the evidences of terror on the poet's face. "But where is the Marchese Ludovico?" asked the same young man, who had heard that the Marchese had fainted at the sight of the body. A general silence fell on the chattering group at this question: till Manutoli answered with a very grave face "Ah, you must ask the Commissary of Police that question, Signor Marco." "You don't mean that he is arrested," returned the youngster thus addressed. Manutoli nodded his head two or three times gravely, as he said, "That is the worst of the bad business; and a very bad business it is in every way." "You don't mean that you think Ludovico can have done it, Manutoli?" said one of the others. "No, I don't say I think so. I don't know what to think. I should have said, that I was just as likely to do such a thing myself, as Ludovico di Castelmare. But if there is any truth in what is said, that the Marchese Lamberto was going to marry the girl, it looks very ugly. God knows what a man might be driven to do in such a case." "I suppose if the old Marchese were to marry and have children, Ludovico would have about the same fortune as the old blind man that sits at the door of the Cathedral?" asked the previous speaker. "Just about as much. He would be absolutely a beggar," said the Conte Leandro, who appeared to find considerable pleasure in the announcement. "I think, that if that was the case, and Ludovico had put the unlucky girl out of the way, it would be the Marchese Lamberto who ought to bear the blame of it. An old fellow has no right to behave in that sort of way," said one of the group. "Of course he has not. To bring a fellow up to the age of Ludovico in the expectation that he is to have the family property; and then to take it into his head to marry when he is past fifty. If Ludovico had put a knife into him instead of into the girl, I should have said that it served him right," said another.