"And this piece of lace you stole?" continued the inquisitor, turning sharply to Rachel,—a style of examination which would scarcely be understood in England.
She made no reply, but looked at him with a calm, steady glance. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike her.
"I ask you but one favor," she said, speaking to M. Narelli, who had just returned. "Order these men away, and leave me alone for ten minutes with this gentleman: if you mistrust me, you will, at least, have confidence in an English gentleman. Besides, what chance is there of my escaping from this place?" And she cast a melancholy glance around the cell. "You can watch at the door, if you choose," she continued, with additional animation; "do this, and I will give him some most important information; if you remain, I will tell nothing at all."
The men whispered together, and appeared to hesitate about granting her request. I looked on in great anxiety. I was most desirous of being of some use to the poor girl, more especially as I felt myself to have been the innocent, but still the original cause, of all her sufferings.
"Do this," she continued, with a heightened tone,—"do this, and I will tell you much more: I will put you upon the track of a man who has stolen countless wealth—who has done worse than steal, who has stained his hands with blood. You know Flavio. Well, I know him also; and at the present moment I can tell you where he is to be found. Do you believe me now?"
Flavio had been well known some two years previously as one of those bandits who was the terror of a whole province. He was accused of several daring crimes, and a few months before these events a person had been murdered in one of the narrow streets which skirt the city, and the strongest circumstantial evidence pointed him out as the criminal. Since then the police had been vigorously on the alert to discover his hiding-place, but all their efforts up to this period had been fruitless. I had often heard him spoken of, more especially in connection with the republican movement then in progress in Italy; but I was quite at a loss to imagine what connection could have subsisted between this man and Rachel, or where she had had the opportunity of seeing him.
The men left the cell, M. Narelli whispering me to curtail the interview as much as possible, as they were anxious to terminate the first inquiry. So soon as the door was closed, she threw herself at my feet, took from her bosom a small packet, which I opened, and there I saw the picture of a fair child—she might have been seven years of age; and packed up with the picture was a lock of hair, and an address.
"As you are the cause of my misery," she said, "be also the source of my happiness, even in this infliction. Give this to my child at the inclosed address, and tell her to love me."
"Your child!" I exclaimed, with astonishment.
"My child, and by a man who you heard me mention so recently—Flavio!"