They then applied to the police, who, after some days' inquiry, discovered that a person answering the description given had quitted Rome a few years before, and had been a clerk in the office of a _notario_. No farther evidence was necessary to convict Mascalbruni of being a swindler; and, not trusting to a letter's safe arrival, Mr. M. travelled night and day till he reached the palace at ----. It is not difficult to imagine the scene that ensued,--the indignation of the father, the vexation and self-reproaches of the mother, or the heart-rending emotions of the unfortunate girl. Mascalbruni at first, with great effrontery, endeavoured to brave the storm; contended that Louisa was bound to him by the most sacred ties, the most solemn engagements; that his she should be,--or, if not his, that she should never be another's; denounced them as her murderers; and ended with threats of vengeance,--vengeance that, alas! he too well accomplished. It is not very well known what now became of Mascalbruni; but there is reason to believe that he lay _perdu_ somewhere in the neighbourhood, watching like a vulture over the prey from which he had been driven, the corpse of what was once Louisa. A suspicious-looking person was frequently seen at night-fall prowling about the environs of the palace; and Miss M.'s _femme de chambre_, with whom he is said to have carried on an intrigue, was observed by the servants in animated conversation with a stranger in the garb of a peasant among the shrubberies and pleasure grounds. It was through her medium that Mascalbruni gained intelligence of all that was passing in the palace. The shock which Louisa had sustained was so sudden, so severe, that, acting on a frame naturally delicate, it brought on a brain fever. Her ravings were so dreadful, and so extraordinary; and so revolting was the language in which she at times clothed them, that even her mother--and no other was allowed to attend her--could scarcely stay by her couch. How perfect a knowledge of human nature has Shakspeare displayed in depicting the madness of the shamelessly-wronged and innocent Ophelia!--The fragments of those songs to which her broken accents gave utterance, especially that which ends with "Who, in a maid, yet out a maid, Did ne'er return again," may suggest an idea of the wanderings of the poor sufferer's heated imagination. For some weeks her life hung on a thread; but the affectionate cares and sympathy of a mother, and a sense of the unworthiness of the object of her regard, at last brought back the dawn of reason; and her recovery, though slow, was sufficiently sure to banish all anxiety.