idence!"

"The world is full of them, for it is a very small world after all. This
old man, driven from place to place by police persecutions,--for he had
been a great conspirator in early life, and never got rid of the taste
for it,--came here as a sort a refuge, and painted the frescos of the
chapel at the price of being buried at the foot of the altar, which was
denied him afterwards; for they only buried there this box, with his
painting utensils and his few papers. It is to these papers I wish now
to direct your attention, if good luck will have it that some of
them may be of use. As for me, I can do little more than guess at the
contents of most of them.

"Now these," continued he, "seem to me bills and accounts; are they
such?"

"Yes, these are notes of expenses incurred in travelling; and he
would seem to have been always on the road. Here is a curious note:
'Nuremberg: I like this old town much; its staid propriety and quietness
suit me. I feel that I could work here; work at something greater and
better than these daily efforts for mere bread. But why after all should
I do more? I have none now to live for,--none to work for! Enrichetta,
and her boy, gone! and Carlotta--'"

"Wait a moment," said the lawyer, laying his hand on hers. "Enrichetta
was the wife of Montague Bramleigh, and this boy their son."

"Yes, and subsequently the father of Pracontal."

"And how so, if he died in boyhood?" muttered he; "read on."

"'Now, Carlotta has deserted me! and for whom? For the man who betrayed
me! for that Niccolo Baldassare who denounced five of us at Verona, and
whose fault it is not that I have not died by the hangman.'"

"This is very important; a light is breaking on me through this cloud,
too, that gives me hope."

"I see what you mean. You think that probably--"

"No matter what I think; search on through the papers. What is this?
here is a drawing. Is it a mausoleum?"

"Yes; and the memorandum says, 'If I ever be rich enough, I shall place
this over Enrichetta's remains at Louvain, and have her boy's body laid
beside her. Poor child, that if spared might have inherited a princely
state and fortune, he lies now in the pauper burial-ground at St.
Michel. They let me, in consideration of what I had done in repairing
their frescos, place a wooden cross over him. I cut the inscription with
my own hands,--G. L. B., aged four years; the last hope of a shattered
heart.'

"Does not this strengthen your im