“_Never!_ In my country, we think far less of such things than you do in yours. A husband who kills his wife through jealousy, and especially when he has found her with her lover, is too common an offender to provoke condign punishment. I was had up before the tribunal to afford an explanation of my wife’s death, and the reasons I gave were considered sufficient. I left the country afterwards, more to escape from my maddening recollections than to avoid Society--I also had a burning desire to meet young Centi and give him his due, but he was so successfully concealed by his family, that I never gained my wish. Perhaps it was for the best. My hands might have been imbrued in a second unnecessary murder! When, after many years’ wandering, I ventured to return to Rome, it was to find that my estates were no longer mine, and I was doomed to exile. Now, you have my history, Steinberg, and you may thank God that you have escaped so sad a one!” Karl Steinberg was silent for awhile--so was his companion. This narrative had rather shocked the German’s sensibilities, while it had excited great sympathy for the lonely man before him, who had been bereft of all he held dear, or that made life worth living for him. The Doctor, with his want of faith in Women, had not much doubt in his own mind that the Signor’s wife had merited her doom, but he declined to express an opinion on the subject either way. After a few minutes’ pause, he said, with the view of turning a conversation which had become so painful to both of them, “But what has all this to do, Professor, with your study of the Black Art?” CHAPTER II. Ricardo looked up dreamily, as if he had quite forgotten that part of the subject. “Have I not told you?” he inquired; “do you not understand?” “Indeed I do not! I am quite in the dark about it! You have related to me the painful story of your poor wife’s death, with which I fully sympathise, but I do not trace any connection between that and your interest in Mysticism.” “How strange! How very strange!” replied Ricardo, shaking himself together. “Why! to me they are one. My one object in life now is to learn the truth--to hear if I were only the rightful agent to avenge a great wrong, or if my mad jealousy prompted me to commit a murder. It is for this reason alone that I have studied, as far as I am able, the Art of Magic, and pored over my books and my experiments half the nights through, in order to gain an answer.” “But how can that avail you, Signor? Do you expect the Spirits of Evil to aid you in this matter?” “No! no! Leonora herself! It is for Leonora only that I sit up night after night, listening for a sign, a whisper--straining my eyes for a glance, a shadow--but it seems all in vain. I must have help, and in this house, surrounded as I am by curious eyes, I know not how to obtain what I require.”