‘My father’s heart is hardened against me,’ exclaimed Ludovico, ‘and I wonder not. I have indeed been loose-lived and disobedient, but never base nor dishonest, and let me not be now condemned because these appearances are against me. I solemnly swear by----’ My father fiercely checked him. ‘Add not perjury to infamy--it needs not swearing--the matter can be put beyond a doubt, ay, even beyond your own audacious denial. Mark those footsteps in the soft soil before the door: that bed was left by me smooth and unruffled yesternight--they are those of the villain thief; and, Ludovico, I cannot mistake the footprints of him who has wrought by my side since boyhood--wretched father that I am! they are _yours_. Deny it if you can.’ Convinced in my own heart of his innocence, I sprang forward to apply the test, but soon recoiled in horror, as before the anxious eyes of all I proved the accurate correspondence of the marks--a shock which for a moment crushed my own faith in my brother’s truth. What now availed my mother’s entreaties, my sister’s tears, Ludovico’s continued passionate assertion of his innocence, to change the stern conviction of my father? He vehemently reiterated his sentence of banishment, and counselled him, if he would mitigate the keenness of remorse, to confess his crime and return its ill-gotten fruits. Ludovico, stung to the quick by his reproaches, and by the agonies of my mother and Bianca, felt resentment rise in his heart to strengthen him to support his fate, and indignantly rose to depart. ‘Cease your prayers, my mother and my Bianca. Carlo, you will live, I feel, to see me righted, and my father, too, to repent his harshness to his son, and his distrust in one whom he has often detected in error, but never yet in ignominy. My sister, if my heart’s blood could at this moment be coined into treasure to replace that which you have lost, and build again your shattered hopes, freely would I pour it out. But words are idle to make your heart what it was but an hour ago. I go--better any where than here--and if you hear of me again, it will be of one who has learned seriousness from suffering, and proved by acts his love and interest for you all.’ As he finished speaking, he hurried from the door without further farewell, and, plunging among the thickly wooded slopes, was speedily lost to my passionate pursuit.