Like Von Apsberg and d'Harcourt, taken in the snare which had been set for him by the police of Naples, Taddeo was captured after a brief but violent contest. It seemed to him that his soul was torn from his body when he was separated from La Felina. He had however previously heard her at San Carlo. Though charmed by her talent and wonderful beauty, the illusion was so perfect that he fancied he saw the Juliet of Zingarelli or the Donna Anna of Mozart, but not a woman to be herself adored,--in one word, the magnificent Felina. The fancy of the Neapolitan was enkindled by the eyes of the Neapolitan. He did not love, but was consumed. In the cold and solitary cell he had occupied for some days, he forgot danger, his friends, and almost his mother and sister. Rovero thought only of his love. Concentrating all power in his devotion, he evoked La Felina, and in his mind contemplated her. Wild words wrested from him by delirium declared to the phantom all his hopes and fears. In his fancy he ran over all the perfections of this beautiful being. It seemed to him that his idol hovered around the prison, shedding its rays on him, and filling his heart and senses with an ardor the impotence of which he cursed. Religious exaltation, like the enthusiasm of love, assumes in solitude gigantic proportions unknown to the most pious man and most devoted lover living in the world. Long days and endless nights occupied with one idea, fixed and immutable, rising before us like the ghost of Banquo in our dreams, and when we wake, are a sufficient explanation of the martyrs of love, of the cloister, or of the Thebais. Many days had passed since the Duke of Palma had imprisoned young Rovero. We have already spoken of the ideas which occupied his mind. Ever under the influence of one thought, the life of the young prisoner was but one dream of love, which so excited his imagination that he could scarcely distinguish fiction from reality, and after a troubled sleep he asked if he had addressed his burning declarations to the phantom of the singer or to La Felina herself. Taddeo in his cell was not subjected to the malicious barbarities with which Monte-Leone had been annoyed. The Duke of Palma wished the inmates of his palace, though they might be prisoners, not to complain of their fare. Taddeo had a bed and not a pallet. He could read and write, it is true only by means of a doubtful light which reached him through the stained windows of the antique chapel. This light however was mottled by the blue cloak of St. Joseph and the purple robe of St. John. Sometimes it fell on the pavement in golden checkers, after having passed through the _glory_ of the Virgin. Still it was the light of day, which is half the sustenance of a prisoner.