fi, his sister--to whose house he had
been carried--asked him if Giuseppe Ripa was not the assassin; and he
answered in the affirmative.

Giuseppe was thrown into prison to await his trial; and having public
opinion, as well as that of the authorities against him, he was
universally considered a dead man. The only person that adhered to him
was Bianca, who visited him in the jail, and refused to believe him
guilty. But if he was innocent, who was the criminal? It appeared
afterwards that Ripa himself had his own suspicions on that subject, but
as they were founded only on two slight indications, he felt it was
useless to advance them.

In the mean time Gaspar Mendez was slowly recovering the injuries he had
received, and was of course expected to give a more explanatory account
of what had happened to him after he left Forni on his way to Alessandro
Malfi's. That he had been robbed as well as wounded was already
known--his brother and sister having found his pockets empty and his
watch gone. The explanation he could give, however, proved to be very
scanty. Indeed, he seemed to know very little about the matter, but he
still adhered to his first assertion, that Ripa was the assassin. With
regard to the money he had lost, there was necessarily less mystery,
since it consisted of a sum that he was carrying to his sister, and was
indeed her property, being the half share of some rents which he had
received on that morning, the produce of two houses in the town of
Aquila which had been bequeathed to them conjointly by their mother. The
money was in a canvas bag, and the other half which belonged to himself
he had left locked in his strong box at home, where, on searching for
it, it was found. As Ripa was known to be poor, and very much straitened
by his endeavors to make good the sum he had lost, that he should add
robbery to assassination was not to be wondered at. On the contrary, it
strengthened the conviction of his guilt, by supplying an additional
motive for the crime.

The injuries having been severe, it was some time before Mendez
recovered sufficiently to return home; and when he was well enough to
move, instead of going to Forni, he discharged his servant Antonio
Guerra, and went himself to Florence, where he remained several months.

All this time Giuseppe Ripa was in prison, condemned to die, but not
executed; because after his trial and sentence, a letter had been
received by the chief person in authority, w