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Put that fact side by side with the facts that he takes her to a solitary place in the Pineta, and that she is shortly afterwards found there murdered; and I am afraid I am dreadfully afraid that the judges will not resist the conclusion that, in truth, seems forced upon them. It is a bad business, Signor Marchese; a very bad and ugly business."
She knew that he would meet her at the ball; and, doubtless, the object of their expedition this morning was, as the friar had suggested, to show the stranger the celebrated Pineta.
It was only after many days spent in the Pineta, those pinewoods that go down to the sea at Gombo, where the silent, deserted shore, strewn with sea-shells and whispering with grass, stretches far away to the Carrara hills, that very early one morning I set out for Livorno, that port which has taken the place of the old Porto Pisano, so famous through the world of old.
"For heaven's sake, Signor Giovacchino, don't talk in that sort of way, even in jest," replied the young man, looking round at the lawyer with an uneasy eye. "After all, nothing can have happened to her, you know, worse than losing herself in the Pineta." "Pooh! happen to her. What should happen to her?
"Not a word of apology is needed, Signor Barone. About this shocking affair in the Pineta, of course, of course? Pur troppo, we are all interested, as you say. Will you honour my poor house, Signor Barone, by tasting what there is in the cellar?
What passed in the Pineta passed exactly as I told you. I left that unhappy girl sleeping, intending to be absent from her but a few minutes. And as there is a God in heaven I never again saw her till I saw her dead at the gate," said Ludovico, speaking with intense earnestness.
"Because, you very clever inquisitor, though I went to the Pineta with her, I did not say that I had come back with her." "The deuce you did not! Did another gentleman undertake the duty of escorting the lady back to town?
If you want to know how the thing happened, since you know so much already, walk with me to the Strada di Porta Sisi, and I will tell you how it happened. At the ball we spoke of the Pineta, she had never seen it, asked me to show it to her. In short, we agreed to start on leaving the ball, instead of going to bed.
"Well, I don't mind helping you, Signor Marchese, in your search," he added, after a moment's consideration; "but I am not going to walk to the Pineta this afternoon; and I should think you must have had enough of it for to- day. But I will tell you what I can do.
I have heard of the Pineta di Ravenna all my life." "What do you say to going this very morning?" said Ludovico, after thinking for a minute. "There is no time like the present. It will be a charming finish to our Carnival new and original, too! Do you feel as if you had go enough left for it?" "Oh, as for that," said Bianca, laughing with lips and eyes, "I am up to anything.
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