"And now, Signor Barone," said the old lawyer, as soon as the wine and the praise it merited, had been both duly savoured, "about this bad business? Do you bring me any information? Information is all we want. I hope and trust information is all we want," he repeated, looking hard at the Baron. "Of course, that is all we want; information which should put us on some clue to the real perpetrator of this crime." "That is what we want; that is the one thing needful; and it is absolutely needful," said the lawyer, again looking meaningly in his companion's face. "Of course that is what we want. But even supposing no light upon the matter can be got at all, it is not to be supposed that--that any judge would consider there was sufficient ground for assuming our friend to be guilty?" "Ah, that's just the point; just the point of the difficulty. We must not expect, Signor Barone, that the judges will look at the question quite with the same eyes that we do. They will have none of the strong persuasion that we--ahem!--that the Marchese Ludovico's friends have--that he is wholly incapable of committing such a crime. On the other hand, they are men used to suspicion, and to the habit of considering a certain amount of suspicion as equivalent to moral certainty. And I confess--I must confess, my dear sir, that I am very far from easy as to the result, if we should be unable to find at least some counterbalancing possibilities, you understand?" "But it seems to me, Signor, that such are already found; and it was just upon this point that I was anxious to speak with you to-night. I have just seen Ludovico. He sent for me to the Circolo. And what he mainly wanted was to bid me go to the Signorina Paolina Foscarelli, in order to prepare her for the probability of her own arrest, and to comfort her with the assurance that no evil could come to her. Also I was directed by him to tell you, that any attempt to fix the guilt of this deed on the girl, would be met by an avowal--a false avowal, of course--that he is himself the guilty person." "Ta, ta, ta, ta! Mere stuff, chatter, the talk of a boy in love with a pretty girl," said the lawyer. "Just so, just so. Of course we pay no attention to all that. I promised to go to the girl as he told me; and I shall do so presently. But I thought it best to see you first. The fact is, Signor Fortini, that I do not feel any one bit of the certainty that he professes to feel, that this Venetian girl may not have been the real assassin." The lawyer looked shrewdly into Manutoli's face, and nodded his head slowly three or four times. "What would there be so unlikely in it," pursued Manutoli; "girls, and Venetian girls too, have done as much and more before now? We know that she is in love with him. She sees him going on such an expedition as that with such a girl as La Bianca. She has already, no doubt, had cause to be jealous of her. Ludovico used to see the Lalli frequently. What is more likely?"