argue with you," the detective said, interrupting him.

Franco was about to answer. "Be quiet, you with your tongue a yard
long!" said the Receiver, brutally.

The detective passed from the drawing-room into the corridor leading to
the stairs. Would he go up or not, Luisa wondered. He went up, and she
followed him, not trembling, but imagining with a dizzy rapidity, the
many different things that might happen. All the possibilities of the
moment, both disastrous and favourable, were whirling, as it were, in
her head. If she lingered upon the first, horror carried her with a
bound to the second; if she dwelt upon these, fancy returned with
perverse eagerness to the first.

Before they had set foot in the corridor of the second floor they heard
Maria crying. Franco begged the adjunct to allow his wife to go down to
the child, but she protested that she wished to remain. The idea of not
being with him when the weapon was discovered, terrified her. Meanwhile
the detective had entered a small room where there were some books, and
finding a volume printed at Capolago, and bearing the title, Literary
Writings of a Living Italian, he said: "Who is this living Italian?"
"Padre Cesari," Franco replied boldly. The other, deceived by his
prompt answer and the priestly name, assumed the air of a man of
culture, saying: "Ah! I am acquainted with his works." Replacing the
book, he inquired where the Engineer-in-Chief slept.

Luisa was too completely dominated by the one great dread to sense
anything else, but Franco, when he saw the police-agent and his band
enter the uncle's room, which was so clean, so neat, so full of his
dear, calm spirit, when he reflected what a blow to the poor old man the
news of all this would be, was completely overcome, and could have wept
with rage. "It seems to me," he said, "that this one room at least
should be respected."

"Keep your observations to yourself," the adjunct retorted, and began by
ordering the blankets and mattresses stripped from the bed. Then he
demanded the key to the chest of drawers. Franco had it, and went down
to his room for it, accompanied by a gendarme. The uncle had entrusted
it to him before leaving, telling him that in case of need he would find
a small amount of _cum quibus_ in the top drawer. They opened it. It
contained a roll of _svanziche_, a few letters and papers, some
pocket-books, old note-books, compasses, pencils, and a small wooden
bowl in which were several