y would, they were baffled in every scheme which they planned
for his arrest. At one moment his extraordinary nerve saved him,--for
instance, when chased by the police, he sought shelter in one of the
very tribunals, which they might naturally imagine was about the last
place where he would have been found. Mingled with this wild and savage
character were some generous qualities; he had been known to assist
people in misfortune, and a vague kind of interest attached to him on
account of traits of self-denial that were attributed to him. But now,
when Rachel told me of his heartless conduct to her, I learned how
entirely visionary are all those tales of nobility of character among
men who are leading an abandoned and vicious life.

From her story it could not be doubted for a moment that he it was who
had instigated her to commit the act which had brought her to despair.
Nothing could equal the bitterness with which she inveighed against him.
She told all his hiding-places--the secret passages by which he evaded
all pursuit; and when the story was finished, and her vengeance
accomplished, she wept like a child.

Even the stern M. Narelli was touched at the painful tale. He gave
orders that every comfort should be shown her, and after some minutes
further delay, we left the prison.

We had been there almost three hours, but the time had seemed very
short. When we crossed the Ponte St. Angelo the people were leaving the
Opera, after three hours of fictitious sorrow, while I had been passing
that time in the presence of real affliction--side by side, as it were,
in the face of each other, the mockery of woe and its solemn reality.
And how often is it so! Unthought of--not, indeed, uncared for--but
unthought of by the happy, the carriage rolls along, passing the
hospital and the prison in its rapid progress; the golden youth,
listlessly reclining in happy indolence, hears not the voice of pain,
sees not the hectic glow of suffering on the cheek; nursed in the sweet
sorrows of romance, dreams not of living agonies more fearful than those
which the greatest actor can portray, and of death as a reality.

I determined to lose no time in fulfilling my mission. The directions of
the house where the child lived had been very carefully written, so I
had no difficulty in discovering it; but I had to pass through a
labyrinth of dirty streets, until at last, in a small, narrow lane, next
the Farnese Palace, I found the house. Eviden