el, calmly.

"I have it asserted here, however, by those of whose statements you have
already acknowledged the accuracy."

"It is not the less a falsehood."

"Perhaps you will allow more correctness to the next allegation? It is
said that, under the pretended right to a large inheritance, you visited
England, and succeeded in preferring a claim to a vast estate?"

Roland bent his head in assent.

"And that to this property you possessed neither right nor title?"

Roland started: the charge involved a secret he believed unknown, save
to himself, Hammond, and Linton, and he could not master his surprise
enough to reply.

"But a weightier allegation is yet behind, sir," said the prefetto,
sternly. "Are you the same Roland Cashel whose trial for murder occupied
the assizes of Ennis in the spring of the year 18--?"

"I am," said Cashel, faintly.

"Your escape of conviction depended on the absence of a material witness
for the prosecution, I believe?"

"I was acquitted because I was not guilty, sir."

"On that point we are not agreed," said the prefetto, sarcastically;
"but you have admitted enough to warrant me in the course I shall pursue
respecting you--the fact of a false name and passport, the identity with
a well-known character admitted--I have now to detain you in custody
until such time as the consul of your country may take steps for your
conveyance to England, where already new evidence of your criminality
awaits you. Yes, prisoner, the mystery which involved your guilt is at
length about to be dissipated, and the day of expiation draws nigh."

Roland did not speak. Shame at the degraded position he occupied, even in
the eyes of those with whom he had associated, overwhelmed him, and he
suffered himself to be led away without a word.

Alone in the darkness and silence of a prison, he sat indifferent to
what might befall him, wearied of himself and all the world.

Days, even weeks passed on, and none inquired after him; he seemed
forgotten of all, when the consul, who had been absent, having returned,
it was discovered that the allegations respecting the murder were not
sufficient to warrant his being transmitted to England, and that the
only charge against him lay in the assumed nationality,--an offence it
was deemed sufficiently expiated by his imprisonment. He was free then
once more,--free to wander forth into the world where his notoriety
had been already proclaimed, and where, if not his guilt,