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Rh of modesty, complacency, and confusion, and mumbled:

"Even that case can be unravelled."

"You see," added the professor, "I am well informed. It is a case, Countess, which Don Rocco must unravel at the next meeting of the ecclesiastical court."

"There is no such meeting going on here," said the countess. "Let it alone."

But it was not so easy to wrest a victim from the clutches of the professor.

"Let us then say no more about it," said he quietly. "But listen, Don Rocco; I am not of your opinion on that point. As for me, pereat mundus."

Don Rocco frowned furiously.

"I have n't spoken with any one," said he.

"Don Rocco, you have gossiped, and I know it," answered the professor. "Have patience, Countess, and give us your opinion."

Countess Carlotta did not care to enter upon the question, but the professor continued imperturbably to set forth the case of Sigismondo as it had been promulgated by the Episcopal tribunal.

"A certain Sigismondo, fallen suddenly ill, asked for a confessor. Hardly was he alone with the priest when he hastened to tell him that some other person was on the point of committing a homicide, which he had himself instigated.