nine o'clock
The Marchese Ludovico has made love to this girl -- has made her in love with him -- taking the matter au grand serieux , in the way girls will -- specially , I am told , it is the way , with those Venetian women . Well , by ill chance , as the devil would have it , she sees her lover starting on a tete-a-tete expedition into the Pineta with this other girl -- just the woman of all others in the world , as I am given to understand , to be a dangerous rival , and to excite a deadly jealousy . This much we have in evidence . Further , we know that the girl Paolina was expected to return from her expedition to St. Apollinare early in the morning -- say at nine o'clock , or thereabouts -- whereas she did not return till several hours afterwards . In addition to all this , we have now ascertained that when she left the church she did not set out on her return towards the city , as she might naturally be expected to have done ; but , on the contrary , went in the direction of the Pineta . Then , assuming the story , told by the Marchese to be true , we know that , about the very time that this Paolina was entering the forest , her rival was lying asleep and alone there in the immediate neighbourhood . We know that the means adopted for the perpetration of the crime were such as to be quite within a woman 's physical power , and that the weapon used for the purpose such as a woman may much more readily be supposed to have about her than a man ; what do you say to that as a theory of the facts ?