Of the two slim packets of letters one was badly charred: parts of it fell away in Roger's hands, as he carefully opened it. I cannot transcribe them literally, or even to any great length, for they are too sad, and no good end would be served by commemorating to what extent that fierce furnace of the Civil War burned away the natural ties of kindred and neighbour and home. Enough that the few remaining members spared out of what must have been a small family cut Margarita's father definitely off from them, in terms no man could have tried with any self-respect to modify. His father, a Northerner, who had identified himself since his Southern marriage with his wife's interests and kinsfolk, had lost touch with his own people, and a few death notices, slipped in among the letters, seemed to point to an almost complete loneliness, which Roger afterward verified. The other packet held two letters only, one in Italian (which language I learned, after a fashion, in order to read it) the other in French. The Italian letter was not only scorched badly, but so blistered--one did not need to ask how--that parts were quite illegible. The writer, a man, evidently, a young man, probably, conveyed in satire so keen, a contempt so bitter, a hatred so remorseless, that it was difficult to believe it a letter from a brother to his sister. Beneath the polished, scornful sentences--vitriol to a tender young heart--surged a tempest of primitive rage that thrust one back into the Renaissance, with its daggers and its smiles. "_Let me tell you, then, once and for all_," ran one sentence, breaking out fiercely, "_that there is but one country on earth which can shelter you and that villain--his own! There I scorn to put my foot or allow the foot of any member of your family, but let him or his victim leave it--and so long as I live my vengeance shall search you out and wipe out this insult to my house, my country and my church!_" The opening page was missing and the last one was badly burned, so we had absolutely no clue as to the family name. Roger and I puzzled out enough of it to gather vaguely what the situation must have been, and when we read the second letter it was all clear. This second letter was burned and blistered, too, but its simple, naive repetitions, its tender terror, its brave, affectionate persistence, left little, even in their fragmentary condition, for us to guess. I will give only a page here and there. "_I have tried for four months not to write, but what you told me last has proved too strong for me and I must.... Oh, my dear one, my more than sister in this world, how could you have been permitted this deadly sin? It may be I shall be damned for even this one letter--my only one, for you must not write again. Sister Lisabetta suspects me already, and asked me last week why I should talk with the baker's daughter so secretly? So if she brings another letter I shall tell her to destroy it. Write to me no more._"