you!"

Whereupon the inflexible old lady moved towards the door.

"Marchesa!" Beniamino called after her, while Friend, who had jumped
from the chair, barked furiously around his legs. "It concerns your
husband's will!"

This time the Marchesa could not but stop. She did not, however, turn
round.

"This will cannot be pleasing to you," Gilardoni added rapidly. "But I
have no intention of publishing it. I entreat you to listen to me,
Marchesa."

She turned round. Her impenetrable face betrayed a certain emotion in
the quivering of the nostrils. Nor were the shoulders entirely at rest.

"What tales have you to tell?" she retorted. "Do you think it fitting to
thus inconsiderately mention my poor Franco to me? How dare you meddle
with my family affairs?"

"Excuse me," the Professor repeated, searching in his pocket. "If I do
not meddle some one else may do so even less considerately. Kindly
examine these documents. These----"

"Keep your scribblings to yourself," the Marchesa interrupted, seeing
him draw some papers from his pocket.

"These are copies I have made----"

"I tell you to keep them, to take them away!"

The Marchesa rang the bell, and once more started to leave the room.

Gilardoni, quivering with excitement, hearing the approaching steps of
a servant, and seeing her about to open the door, threw his documents
upon one of the armchairs, saying hastily, in an undertone: "I will
leave them here. Let no one see them. I am staying at the Sole, and will
return to-morrow. Examine the papers, and think over them carefully!"
And before the servant arrived he had rushed out at the same door by
which he had entered, had seized his heavy cape, and fled downstairs.

The Marchesa dismissed the footman, and stood listening for a few
moments. Then she retraced her steps, took up the papers, and went to
her room, locking her door behind her. Having put on her spectacles she
took her stand near the window, and began to read. Her brow was clouded
and her hands trembled.

* * * * *

The Professor was preparing to go to bed in his icy room at the Sole
when two police-agents came with a summons for him to appear at once at
the police-station.

He felt some secret misgivings, but did not lose his head, and went
quietly away with the two men. At the station a little impudent
Commissary asked him why he had come to Lodi, and upon being informed
that he had come on private business shr