"But why did they write sabre?" inquired the Receiver, wishing to show he also was zealous.
"The writer is dead," said Franco.
"Hand over that key at once!" the detective scolded angrily. And this time Luisa found it, and the two other drawers were opened. One was empty, the other contained some blankets and a little lavender.
The search ended here. The adjunct went down to the drawing-room, and ordered Franco to make ready to follow him in fifteen minutes. "You had better arrest all of us then!" Luisa exclaimed.
The man shrugged his shoulders, and repeated to Franco: "In fifteen minutes. You may go to your room, now, if you wish to." Franco dragged Luisa away entreating her to be silent, to resign herself for love of Maria. He seemed like another man, exhibiting neither grief nor anger, and there was in his voice a ring of serious sweetness, of manly calm.
He put some linen into a bag, together with a volume of Dante and an Almanach du Jardinier, which were on the table, bent over Maria for a moment but did not kiss her, for she had gone to sleep, and he feared to wake her. He kissed Luisa, however, but as they were being observed by the gendarmes stationed at either door of the room, he quickly freed himself from her embrace, saying, in French, that they must not provide a spectacle for those gentlemen. Then he took up his bag, and went to place himself at the detective's orders.
The police-adjunct had a boat waiting not fifty paces from Casa Ribera, towards Albogasio, at the landing called del Canevaa. Upon issuing from the portico spanned by his house, Franco heard a shutter being thrown open above his head, and saw the light from his bedroom flash against the white façade of the church. He turned towards the window, saying—
"Send for the doctor to-morrow morning. Good-bye."
Luisa did not answer.
When the gendarmes reached the Canevaa with their prisoner, the adjunct ordered them to stop.