"She; a common, impudent, low-lived, brazen-faced, worn-out Jezebel. No; not where my Paolina stood on the other side. She couldn't take the Marchese away from her with all her arts. And that's why she went and put an end to herself. But she's gone—she's gone, where her painted face and her lures won't be of any more service to her. And so I won't say any evil of her. Not I. It's a good rule that tells us to speak well of the dead. Ave, Maria gratia plena, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae," said the old woman, crossing herself and casting up her eyes in attestation of the Christian nature of her sentiments.
"Amen!" said the lawyer, piously, while he waited to see if the exuberance of his visitor's feelings would lead her to throw any further light on the state of feeling that had existed between Paolina Foscarelli and the murdered woman.
"I always say and think, for my part," continued the old woman, perceiving that her companion sat silent, as if expecting her to continue the conversation; "I always think that the blessed Virgin knows what's best for us. Maybe it's just as well that that poor miserable creature did as she did. For we all know what men are, Signore Dottore; and there's no saying what hold she might have got upon the Marchese."
"And no doubt that is the feeling of our young friend Signorina Foscarelli?" said the sympathetic lawyer.
"To be sure,—to be sure it is," said the old woman, meaning to credit Paolina with the piety she had understood herself to have expressed; "she did take a mortal aversion and dislike to the woman, and small blame to her. But now she is gone, Paolina is no more likely to say anything against her than I am myself."
"Quite so, quite so. And I hope the magistrates may take the same view of the circumstances, that you have so judiciously expressed, Signora," said the lawyer, who was abundantly contented with the result of his interview with the Signora Steno, as it stood, and did not see any further necessity for prolonging it. "You may tell the Contessa Violante, if you should see her, that I am much obliged to her for having sent you to me," he added, as he rose to open the door of his sanctum for the old lady; "Beppo, open the door for the Signora Steno. Farewell, Signora, we shall meet again."
CHAPTER II
Was it Paolina after all?
Orsola Steno quitted the lawyer's studio as entirely contented with the result of her interview as she left him. She doubted not that she had fully impressed him with her own conviction as to the explanation of the mysterious circumstances of the singer's death; that Paolina's innocence would be readily recognized; and that her adopted daughter would shortly be restored to her in the Via di Sta. Eufemia.
The lawyer remained for some time seated in his chair in deep thought after his visitor had left him.
Suddenly he let his open hand fall heavily with a loud clap on the table before him, disturbing the papers on it from their places, and causing the fine blue sand, which stood in an open wooden basin for the purpose of doing the office of blotting-paper, to be spilled in all directions by the concussion, and said aloud, "By God! That girl has done it!"