At this, Father Fabroni eagerly exclaimed—
“You are wrong, Monsieur l’Abbé. Milady is the daughter of a French nobleman, called the Comte Joinville, who had great possessions in Champagne; and I have no doubt that if Madame la Baronne went to that province she would find documents that I have been told were handed over to a worthy ecclesiastic.”
On this combined advice, I decided to return at once to Florence to get further information. I had the satisfaction of finding no incredulity; my many friends all told me that they had never believed I belonged to the family of the Chiappinis.
I was told that the constable, having at one time been in danger on account of his political opinions, had entrusted the lady Massina Calamini with some papers which he told her were of the highest importance, and which he carefully reclaimed the very moment he was set free.
It is equally certain that he had a great number in a strong box, the key of which he never gave up to any one whatsoever.
But it was impossible to get anything from his son, except a few letters of no consequence, which he had already shown me with a laugh as being the only asset of his inheritance.
As to her whom up to now I had called my aunt, she came to see me several times, and I continued to look after her welfare.
It seemed to her that her brother had been quite capable of the thing he had so tardily confessed to me; she even maintained that she remembered his wife, in her fits of rage often throwing these cutting words at him—
“You monster! Have you forgotten that you’ve committed a crime worthy of the gallows?”
Count Borghi and the two old maid-servants living at Faenza having been applied to for information, the latter replied that first of all they wished to see me and to speak to me alone; the Count indignantly asserted that I had made an unpardonable mistake about him, and swore that he would make me pay dearly for it.