as to convey to others his own passionate
conviction of the innocence of Generosa; but he utterly failed in doing
this; and his very anxiety to defend her only created an additional
suspicion against her.

The issue of the preliminary investigation was that the wife of Tasso
Tassilo, murdered on the morning of the day of St. Peter and St. Paul,
was consigned to prison, to be "detained as a precaution" under the lock
and key of the law, circumstantial evidence being held to be strongly
against her as the primary cause, if not the actual executant, of the
murder of her lord.

Every one called from the village to speak of her spoke against her,
with the exception of Falko Melegari, who was known to be her lover, and
whose testimony weighed not a straw, and Don Gesualdo himself, a priest,
indeed, but the examining judge was no friend of priests, and would not
have believed them on their oaths, whilst the strong friendship for her,
and the nervous anxiety to shield her, displayed so unwisely though so
sincerely by him, did her more harm than good, and made his bias so
visible that his declarations were held valueless.

"You know I am innocent!" she cried to him, the day of her arrest; and
he answered her, with the tears falling down his cheeks, "I am sure of
it! I would die to prove it! For one moment I did doubt you,--pardon
me!--but only one. I am sure you are innocent, as I am sure that the sun
hangs in the skies."

But his unsupported belief availed nothing to secure that of others: the
dominant feeling among the people of Marca was against her, and, in face
of that feeling and of the known jealousy of her which had consumed the
latter days of the dead man, the authorities deemed that they could do
no less than order her provisional arrest. Her very beauty was a weapon
turned against her. It seemed so natural to her accusers that so lovely
and so young a woman should have desired to rid herself of a husband,
old, ill-favored, exacting, and unloved. In vain--utterly in vain--did
Falko Melegari, black with rage and beside himself with misery, swear by
every saint in the calendar that his relations with her had been
hitherto absolutely innocent. No one believed him.

"You are obliged to say that," said the judge, with good-humored
impatience.

"But, God in heaven, why not when it is true?" shouted Falko.

"It is always true when the _damo_ is a man of honor?" said the ironical
judge, with an incredulous, amused smil