“Do you not in some degree deceive yourself, my dear friend?” demanded Charney, unwilling to avow how much he was confounded by these discoveries.
“Peace, sceptic, peace!” replied the old man, with an accusing smile. “You will admit, at least, that seeing is believing! Picciola has now her part to play. The foresight of the insect is not greater than that with which Nature endows the plant towards the legacy bequeathed by the butterfly; at the return of spring we will verify the prodigy together. The moment the plant puts forth its leaves, the tiny eggs will break, and emit the larvæ they contain: a law of harmony regulates the vegetation of the plant in common with the vitality of the insect. Were the larvæ to appear first, there would be no food for them; were the leaves to precede them, they would have acquired too firm a consistency for their feeble powers. But Nature, provident over all, causes both plant and insect to develop themselves at the same moment, to grow together, and together attain their maturity; so that the wings and flowers of each are simultaneous in their display of beauty.”
“Another lesson derived from my gentle Picciola!” murmured the astonished Charney; and conviction entered into his soul.
Thus passed the days of the captives, in mutual solace and instruction; and when, every evening, the hour arrived for retreating singly into the camera of each, to wait the hour of rest, the same object unconsciously occupied their meditations; for Charney thought of Teresa, and Girardi of his daughter, exhausting their minds in conjecture as to her present destiny.
The young girl herself, meanwhile, was not inactive on their behalf. Her first impulse had been to follow the Emperor to Milan; where Teresa soon discovered that it is as difficult to penetrate through the antechamber of royalty as through the ranks of an army. The friends of Girardi, however, roused by her efforts, renewed their applications, and having undertaken to procure, at no remote period, the liberation of the captive, his daughter, somewhat reassured, returned to Turin, where an asylum was offered her in the house of a near relation.
The husband of this relative happened to be the librarian of the city; and to him did Menon address himself, to select the botanical works destined for the use of the prisoner of Fenestrella. It was no difficult matter for Teresa to infer from the nature of the study to whom these books were destined; and she accordingly managed to slip into one of the volumes the mysterious despatch, which, even if discovered by the commandant, was not of a nature to compromise either her relation or the protégé in whose behalf she had already ventured so largely. She was still ignorant that her father and Charney no longer resided in each other’s neighbourhood; and when the news of their separation was brought back by the messenger employed to convey the books to Fenestrella, it became her first object to accomplish the reunion of the two captives.
After addressing letter after letter on the subject to the governor of Piedmont, she continued to interest in her behalf some of the chief inhabitants of Turin, and, through them, the wife of Menon, till the general, having strong motives for desiring to conciliate his influential petitioners, ended by granting the prayer of Teresa Girardi. And when, under the auspices of Madame Menon, she came to offer her grateful thanks to the general, the veteran, touched by the devotedness of her filial tenderness, laying aside for a moment the harshness of his nature, took the young girl kindly by the arm, as he addressed her.
“You must come and visit my wife from time to time,” said he. “In about a month’s time she may have good news to tell you.”
And Teresa, nothing doubting that the good news would consist in an order for her readmission into the fortress of Fenestrella, to pass a portion of every day with her father, threw herself at the feet of the general with a countenance bright with joy, loading him with grateful acknowledgments.