"I think not," he replied. "I am at peace with all my neighbours."
"Was no one seen to enter the house in your absence?"
"No one, Signore."
"Did the shoemaker's wife hear no sound?"
"None whatever."
"And you have been robbed of nothing?"
"Not to the value of a quattrino."
The Englishman's heart sank within him. He felt profoundly discouraged. The double mystery seemed doubly impenetrable, and his double task doubly hopeless. He turned again to the little bed, and took one long, last look at the waxen figure with its folded hands and funeral chaplets.
"What is this?" he asked, pointing to a white silk scarf fringed with gold which lay folded across the feet of the corpse.
The mother snatched it up, and covered it with passionate kisses.