He obtained another order, an exact duplicate, also signed by the Pope, and forwarded it with an explanatory letter to the Conde de Assumar. The Count willingly carried the paper to the Patriarch, who was much offended, and refused to receive it, saying, that such matters were not to be disposed of in a hurry. He had received the Supreme Pontiff's first letter, and had, in consequence, personally visited the convent, and questioned Donna Agnes. Further investigations were on foot, and the case could not yet be decided. A friendly Portuguese Jesuit gave Vieira warning that he was in danger, and that, if he persisted in his appeals to the Pope, he would be quickly and summarily silenced. Baffled at all points, and ashamed to go home, he continued in Italy for six years, during all which time he maintained a correspondence with Agnes, by the aid of a friend at Lisbon, a well-known brother artist, André Gonsalves. He also laboured assiduously in his profession, and became famous as a painter in the land of painters. His works were purchased as fast as he could produce them, and many of them were engraved. Finally, he, was elected member of the Academy of St Luke, and was honoured with a diploma or certificate of especial merit. He now thought he might return to Lisbon, and look after his impounded treasure--his _tesouro imprisonado_. On the arrival of the ship in the Tagus, he remained on board till he could be smuggled ashore at night. His enemies imagined him to be still at Rome when he was once more plotting under the convent walls, and thus announcing himself to the faithful object of so much constant love--"Here I am again! All the doors of justice are closed against us, and we have nothing but our own wits to help us; yet I am more resolved on your deliverance than ever." He proposed to supply her with files and aqua fortis to cut through the bars of her cell, and a rope-ladder to let her down. But she rejected that expedient. "Through the gate by which I entered, and through that only, will I go out," she said. _Pois só pela portaria, por onde entrei, sahir quero._ Repairs were going on in the house; many masons were employed there daily. "Get me," said she, "a hodman's dress and a half-mask, and I will walk out of the convent. Do not look so mistrustful; I am not without courage; I know myself well. I rely, too, on higher strength than my own for aid. God does not require violent sacrifices: I am here against my will; my stay in these cloisters is not self-devotion, but sacrilege." Seeing that she had made up her mind to the adventure at all hazards, Vieira lost no time in furnishing her with the required disguise. He prides himself particularly on his skill in the fabrication of the half-mask, which he describes as a miracle of art. It fitted her exactly, and the false nose was provided with hooks to be inserted in the nostrils of the true nose, to prevent it from betraying itself by any eccentric movement,