Well—­in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers marked:  “Taken from political prisoners.  A.D. 1831.”  It was the year of Menotti’s conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was thrilling.  I loosened the band and ran over the letters.  Suddenly I came across one which was docketed:  “Given by Doctor Briga’s son to the warder of His Highness’s prisons.” Doctor Briga’s son? That could be no other than Fernando:  I knew he was an only child.  But how came such a paper into his hands, and how had it passed from them into those of the Duke’s warder?  My own hands shook as I opened the letter—­I felt the man suddenly in my power.

Then I began to read.  “My adored mother, even in this lowest circle of hell all hearts are not closed to pity, and I have been given the hope that these last words of farewell may reach you....”  My eyes ran on over pages of plaintive rhetoric.  “Embrace for me my adored Candida...let her never forget the cause for which her father and brother perished...let her keep alive in her breast the thought of Spielberg and Reggio.  Do not grieve that I die so young... though not with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit, and am worthy to be enrolled in the sacred phalanx...” and so on.  Before I reached the signature I knew the letter was from Emilio Verna.

I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for Milan.  I didn’t quite know what I meant to do—­my head was in a whirl.  I saw at once what must have happened.  Fernando Briga, then a lad of fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during Emilio Verna’s last hours, and the latter, perhaps aware of the lad’s liberal sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the letter.  But why had Briga given it up to the warder?  That was the puzzling question.  The docket said:  “_ Given by_ Doctor Briga’s son”—­but it might mean “taken from.”  Fernando might have been seen to receive the letter and might have been searched on leaving the prison.  But that would not account for his silence afterward.  How was it that, if he knew of the letter, he had never told Emilio’s family of it?  There was only one explanation.  If the letter had been taken from him by force he would have had no reason for concealing its existence; and his silence was clear proof that he had given it up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope of standing well with the authorities.  But then he was a traitor and a coward; the patriot of ’forty-eight had begun life as an informer!  But does innate character ever change so radically that the lad who has committed a base act at fifteen may grow up into an honorable man?  A good man may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak into a hero?