Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/332

 'I was present at his trial,' said Sanctis coldly. 'Mantua believed him guilty.'

'Mantua might; you could not? You are a painter of men's faces-look in his.'

He was silent a moment. Then the justice of his nature conquered him; he remembered that when the man was nothing to him he had believed firmly in the innocence of this most unhappy lover. Had he not said to the priest on the bridge of the Argine, 'Poor Romeo! he is guiltless.' Should he say less to her? Should he affect to see the stain of blood because the accused was hateful to him?

'I did believe him innocent,' he said at length, with effort. 'Few others did; but I believed so, though the dagger was his own with which the woman was murdered. He has told you that?'

'Yes; it was one he had left in her chamber after a masked spectacle. He is innocent.'

Sanctis said nothing.

'I will go now,' said Musa. 'I came to thank you. I do thank you from my heart; I never will forget. We shall not meet any more. Farewell.'

He turned suddenly, and for the first