the chief
judge. "Was such the fact?"

"She was a near relative," answered Wagner.

"But was she your sister?" demanded the procurator fiscal.

"She was not."

"Then in what degree of relationship did she stand toward you?" asked
the chief judge.

"I must decline to reply to that question."

"The tribunal infers, therefore, that the murdered female was not
related to you at all," observed the judge. "Was she not your mistress?"

"No, my lord!" cried Wagner, emphatically. "As truly as Heaven now hears
my assertion, it was not so!"

"Was she your wife?" demanded the chief judge.

A negative answer was given.

The chief judge and the procurator fiscal then by turns questioned and
cross-questioned the prisoner in the most subtle manner, to induce him
state the degree of relationship subsisting between himself and Agnes;
but he either refused to respond to their queries, or else answered
direct ones by means of a positive denial.

The lieutenant of the sbirri was at length called upon to give an
account of the discovery of the dead body and the suspicious
circumstances which had led to the arrest of Wagner. Two of these
circumstances appeared to be very strong against him. The first was the
soiled and blood-stained appearance of the garments which were found in
his chamber; the other was the exclamation--"But how know you that it is
Agnes who is murdered?"--uttered before any one had informed who had
been murdered.

Wagner was called upon for an explanation. He stated that he had been
out the whole night; that the blood upon his garments had flowed from
his own body, which had been scratched and torn in the mazes of the
woods; that on his return home he met Agnes in the garden; that he had
left her there; and that he was told a young lady had been assassinated
in the vicinity of his dwelling, he immediately conceived that the
victim must be Agnes.

When questioned concerning the motives of his absence from home during
the entire night he maintained a profound silence; but he was evidently
much agitated and excited by the queries thus put to him. He said
nothing about the stranger-lady who had so frequently terrified Agnes;
because, in relating the proceedings of that mysterious female in
respect to his deceased grand-daughter--especially the incident of the
abstraction of the antique jewels which the late Count of Riverola had
given to her--he would have been compelled to enter into details
concerning the _