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186 bussa’s feelings by any detail of minute circumstances attending it, though it was to be expected that she would question him what could have been the subject of the prolonged discourse at the window.

“The sacristan came meanwhile with a lantern, and I determined to attend the Count. On our way to the chapel, the latter said to me, ‘It is scarcely within the limits of possibility (for probability is now out of the question) that any deception should have been practised as to my daughter’s death. The circumstances as to that event are all known to me; and you may readily imagine, Marquis, that our parental love did not permit her funeral obsequies to be performed too early. But suppose, for a moment, that this had been possible—that the fabulous legend of the robber were revived, and that, on her coffin being opened, she had awoke and come forth—it is not surely to be thought, that our beloved daughter, instead of flying for protection into our arms, would have gone hence into a distant country. Even had she been forced to go hither, at all events she would have written letters, or found her way home ere now. At present, however, my