On a line stretched
across from wall to wall a few clothes were hanging--a pair of
disconsolate brown hose, the waistband on the one side of the line
hanging down to meet the feet on the other, two clean shirts, and a
Sunday doublet. On the wall a cap with a black eagle's feather hung by a
nail. Here and there on the white plaster, Zorzi had roughly sketched
with a bit of charcoal some pieces of glass which he had thought of
making. That was all. The floor was paved with bricks, and a short
examination showed that none of them had been moved.
Giovanni turned back into the laboratory, stood a moment looking
disconsolately at the big stone which it had cost him so much fruitless
labour to move, and then passed round by the other side of the furnace,
along the wall against which the bench and the easy chair were placed.
His eye fell on Marietta's silk mantle, which lay as when it had slipped
down from her shoulders, the skirts of it trailing on the floor. His
brows contracted suddenly. He came nearer, felt the stuff, and was sure
that he recognised it. Then he looked at it, as it lay. It had the
unmistakable appearance of having been left, as it had been, by the
person who had last sat in the chair.
Two explanations of the presence of the mantle in the laboratory
suggested themselves to him at once, but the idea that Marietta could
herself have been seated in the chair not long ago was so absurd that he
at once adopted the other.
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