The lawyers came and talked about the will, and explained to him that
all the great property was his, unless Marcello came back, and that in
any case he was to administer it. They said that if no news of the boy
were obtained within a limited time, the law must take it for granted
that he had perished in some unaccountable way. Folco shook his head.

"He must be found," he said. "I have good nerves, but if I do not find
out what has become of him I shall go mad."

The lawyers spoke of courage and patience, but a sickly smile twisted
Folco's lips.

"Put yourself in my place, if you can," he answered.

The lawyers, who knew the value of the property to a farthing, wished
they could, though if they had known also what was passing in his mind
they might have hesitated to exchange their lot for his.

"He was like your own son," they said sympathetically. "A wife and a son
gone on the same day! It is a tragedy. It is more than a man can bear."

"It is indeed!" answered Corbario in a low voice and looking away.

Almost the same phrases were exchanged each time that the two men came
to the villa about the business, and when they left they never failed to
look at each other gravely and to remark that Folco was a person of the
deepest feeling, to whom such an awful trial was almost worse than
death; and the elder lawyer, who was of a religious turn of mind, said
that if such a calamity befell him he would retire from the world, but