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?

You may fancy how I answered my own questions....If Briga had been
false and cowardly then, was he not sure to be false and cowardly
still? In those days there were traitors under every coat, and more
than one brave fellow had been sold to the police by his best
friend....You will say that Briga's record was unblemished, that he had
exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by his friends too
steadfastly, to permit of a rational doubt of hi