"That will do, frate Simone," interrupted the Commissary, adding a word to the entry in his note-book. "Now, Signor Giovacchino, if you are ready, I think we may get your carriage out of the barn and go back to Ravenna." "We have not got much for our pains, I am afraid," said the lawyer to the Commissary of police as they began to leave the Basilica behind them on their way back to the city. "Humph!" said the Commissary, who was apparently too much absorbed in his own meditations to be in a mood for conversation. "Signor Giovacchino," he said, suddenly, after they had traversed nearly half their short journey in silence, "my belief is that your young friend the Marchese has no hand in this matter." "I am convinced he had not," said the lawyer, who was, however, very far from having reached any conviction of the kind; "but what we want is some such probable theory on the subject as shall compete successfully with the theory of his guilt in the matter." "That theory--shall I give it you? It is not only a theory; it is my firm belief as to the facts of the case." "You suspect--" "I more than suspect--I am very strongly persuaded that this murder has been committed by the girl Paolina Foscarelli." "My own notion--" "Look here, this is how it has been. The Marchese Ludovico has made love to this girl--has made her in love with him--taking the matter au grand serieux, in the way girls will--specially, I am told, it is the way, with those Venetian women. Well, by ill chance, as the devil would have it, she sees her lover starting on a tete-a-tete expedition into the Pineta with this other girl--just the woman of all others in the world, as I am given to understand, to be a dangerous rival, and to excite a deadly jealousy. This much we have in evidence. Further, we know that the girl Paolina was expected to return from her expedition to St. Apollinare early in the morning--say at nine o'clock, or thereabouts--whereas she did not return till several hours afterwards. In addition to all this, we have now ascertained that when she left the church she did not set out on her return towards the city, as she might naturally be expected to have done; but, on the contrary, went in the direction of the Pineta. Then, assuming the story, told by the Marchese to be true, we know that, about the very time that this Paolina was entering the forest, her rival was lying asleep and alone there in the immediate neighbourhood. We know that the means adopted for the perpetration of the crime were such as to be quite within a woman's physical power, and that the weapon used for the purpose such as a woman may much more readily be supposed to have about her than a man; what do you say to that as a theory of the facts? Is not the evidence overpoweringly strong against this Venetian?"