“'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 impression?” asked Julia, turning and confronting him.
“Aged four years: he was born, I think, in '99,—the year after the rebellion in Ireland; this brings us nigh the date of his death. One moment. Let me note this.” He hurriedly scratched off a few lines. “St. Michel; where is St. Michel? It may be a church in some town.”
“Or it may be that village in Savoy, at the foot of the Alps.”
“True! We shall try there.”
“These are without interest; they are notes of sums paid on the road, or received for his labor. All were evidently leaves of a book and torn out.”