I turned toward the old man, but he only shook his head and sighed; then I questioned the physician who accompanied me. "That young man," he said, "is one of the most interesting cases we have; his history is a strange one." My curiosity was now excited, and I begged of my companion to satisfy it. "May I, without indiscretion, listen also?" asked a tall man, with a sad and gloomy countenance, who now approached us, and who, as I learned afterward, was under Dr. B----'s care for a serious affection of the heart. "You may, certainly," replied my friend, bowing, and then began: "In the year 1823, one of the first families in Portugal inhabited an old castle not far from Coimbra. The Marquis de San Payo, the head of this house had played an important part in the revolution which, for a short time, removed from the throne Juan VI. and his imperious queen, Carlotta. The attempt, however, having been finally frustrated, the men who had made it fell victims to their temerity, and the marquis, disgraced and distrusted by the reigning powers, was forced to live in his castle, as it were in exile. His wife and his two sons accompanied him thither; the eldest of these, named Manoel, was fifteen years of age, and of an ardent, excitable temperament; his brother, Jacinto, two years younger, was of a tender, melancholy, dreamy disposition. The minds of both were fully nurtured in the political views which had ruined their father's fortunes, both by his conversation and the instructions imparted to them at the college of Coimbra. That city had become the centre of the Cortes' revolutionary operations, and the University had not escaped the contagious excitement of the times. The students organized the plan of a new insurrection, and at their head was Manoel; the contest, however, proved an unequal one--a charge of cavalry, a few volleys of shot and shell, two hundred corpses on the field, and all was over. Manoel was taken, and thrown into the prison of Oporto. The rebels were divided into three classes; the first, and least guilty, were condemned to perpetual confinement, the second to transportation, and the third to death; among the latter was Manoel. No allowance was made for his youth and inexperience, for among his judges was the Duca d'Arenas, a former rival of the marquis, first in love and then in ambition, whose cowardly malicious spirit sought to strike the father through the son." Here the stranger, who was listening attentively, gave a visible start.