lighted another cigar, and pulled a cushion under his head
so that he could look down to the distant lights of the city. "This is
the story," he said.

"Once upon a time, late in the last century, the Duca di Castiglione
was attached to the court of Charles III., King of the Two Sicilies,
down at Palermo. They tell me he was very ambitious, and, not content
with marrying his son to one of the ladies of the House of Tuscany, had
betrothed his only daughter, Rosalia, to Prince Antonio, a cousin of the
king. His whole life was wrapped up in the fame of his family, and he
quite forgot all domestic affection in his madness for dynastic glory.
His son was a worthy scion, cold and proud; but Rosalia was, according
to legend, utterly the reverse,--a passionate, beautiful girl, wilful
and headstrong, and careless of her family and the world.

"The time had nearly come for her to marry Prince Antonio, a typical
_roue_ of the Spanish court, when, through the treachery of a servant,
the Duke discovered that his daughter was in love with a young military
officer whose name I don't remember, and that an elopement had been
planned to take place the next night. The fury and dismay of the old
autocrat passed belief; he saw in a flash the downfall of all his hopes
of family aggrandizement through union with the royal house, and,
knowing well the spirit of his daughter, despaired of ever bringing her
to subjection. Nevertheless, he attacked her unmercifully, and, by
bullying and threats, by imprisonment, and even bodily chastisement, he
tried to break her spirit and bend her to his indomitable will. Through
his power at court he had the lover sent away to the mainland, and for
more than a year he held his daughter closely imprisoned in his palace
on the Toledo,--that one, you may remember, on the right, just beyond
the Via del Collegio dei Gesuiti, with the beautiful ironwork grilles at
all the windows, and the painted frieze. But nothing could move her,
nothing bend her stubborn will; and at last, furious at the girl he
could not govern, Castiglione sent her to this convent, then one of the
few houses of barefoot Carmelite nuns in Italy. He stipulated that she
should take the name of Maddelena, that he should never hear of her
again, and that she should be held an absolute prisoner in this
conventual castle.

"Rosalia--or Sister Maddelena, as she was now--believed her lover dead,
for her father had given her good proofs of this, and sh