“But he is innocent?” she exclaimed. “I know he is innocent, Signor Ricci. He is the victim of a woman named Nodari, at Bologna, who gave perjured evidence against him.”
“I know the whole facts. I have read the depositions given at the secret court-martial, but I have no means of judging whether he is innocent or guilty. One fact, however, I desire to learn, and it is this. Has the count ever mentioned to you the captain’s name, or has he ever admitted acquaintance with him?”
“Never to my knowledge,” was her frank answer. “Felice Solaro once declared his love for me, and therefore, in order not to arouse the count’s jealousy, I have never referred to him.”
“Naturally. But the fact is all the more curious that the allegation of Solaro’s sale of the copy of the secret document to France—the copy of that obtained from your father’s writing-table—was actually made by the count.”
“By the count?” she cried. “Then it was actually upon his evidence that poor Felice has been degraded and condemned?”
“Exactly. But the motive is utterly incomprehensible, for it would really seem as though the captain was actually guilty of the treasonable offence.”
Mary was silent as they paced down the long, deserted corridor. Then at last she turned slowly to her companion, and in a strange, hoarse voice said—
“Yes, it is incomprehensible why an innocent man should be made to suffer, unless—unless my father and the count have acted in accord to secure poor Felice’s ruin and disgrace.”
“But why?”
No words escaped her. She only shrugged her white shoulders. Yet the man at her side saw in her fine dark eyes the light of unshed tears. But even he did not suspect the truth.