A week afterwards, when the young girl was admitted to pay a second visit to her father, she turned her steps, almost unconsciously, towards the grated window for a glimpse of the prisoner; when Girardi, laying his hand upon her arm, exclaimed, “My fellow-prisoner has not been near his plant these three days. The poor gentleman must be seriously ill.” “Ill; seriously ill!” exclaimed Teresa, with emotion. “I have noticed more than one physician traversing the court: and from what I can learn from Ludovico, they agree only to a single point—that the Count de Charney will die.” “Die!” again reiterated the young girl, with dilating eyes, and terror rather than pity expressed in her countenance. “Unhappy man—unhappy man!” Then turning towards her father, with terror in her looks, she exclaimed, “People DIE, then, in this miserable place!” [Illustration] “Yes, the exhalations from the old moats have infected the citadel with fever.” “Father, dearest father!” She paused—tears were gathering under her eyelids; and Girardi, deeply moved by her affliction, extended his hand tenderly towards her. Teresa seized and covered it with tears and kisses. At that moment Ludovico made his appearance. He came to present to the fly-catcher a new captive whom he had just arrested—neither more nor less than a dragon-fly with golden wings, which he offered with a triumphant smile to Girardi. The fly-catcher smiled, thanked his jailer, and, unobserved by Ludovico, set the insect at liberty; for it was the twentieth individual of the same species, with which he had furnished him during the last few days. He profited, however, by the jailer’s visit to ask tidings of his fellow-prisoner. “_Santissimo mio padrono!_ do you fancy I neglect the poor fellow?” cried Ludovico, gruffly: “though still under my charge, he will soon be under that of St. Peter. I have just been watering his favourite tree.” “To what purpose—since he is never to behold its blossoms?” interrupted the daughter of Girardi. “_Perche, damigella—perche?_” cried the jailer, with his accustomed wink, and sawing the air with a rude hand, of which the forefinger was authoritatively extended; “because, though the doctors have decided that the sick man has taken an eternal lease of the flat of his back, I, Ludovico, jailer of Fenestrella, am of a different opinion. _Non lo credo—trondidio!_—I have notions of my own on the subject.” [Illustration] And turning on his heel he departed; assuming, as he left the room, his big voice of authority, to acquaint the poor girl, that only twenty-two minutes remained of the time allotted for her visit to her father. And at the appointed minute, to a second, he returned, and executed his duty of shutting her out.