Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands and kissed them. "Oh, thank you—bless you a thousand times! He died thinking of us—he died loving Italy!"
I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the touch of her lips hardened me.
She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness—what consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At heart she was always sure that he had written—I suppose some blessed instinct told her so." She dropped her face on her hands, and I saw her tears fall on the wretched letter.
In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted me. "Tell me where you found it," she said.
I told her.
"Oh, the savages! They took it from him—"
My opportunity had come. "No," I said, "it appears they did not take it from him."
"Then how—"
I waited a moment. "The letter," I said, looking full at her, "was given up to the warder of the prison by the son of Doctor Briga."
She stared, repeating the words slowly. "The son of Doctor Briga? But that is—Fernando," she said.