The note which accompanied Langhetti’s journal was as follows: “HALIFAX, December 18, 1848. “TERESUOLA VIA DOLCISSIMA,--I send you my journal, _sorella carissima_. I have been silent for a long time. Forgive me. I have been sad and in affliction. But affliction has turned to joy, and I have learned things unknown before. “_Teresina mia_, I am coming back to England immediately. You may expect to see me at any time during the next three months. _She_ will be with me; but so sensitive is she--so strange would she be to you--that I do not know whether it will be well for you to see her or not. I dare not let her be exposed to the gaze of any one unknown to her. Yet, sweetest _sorellina_, perhaps I may be able to tell her that I have a dearest sister, whose heart is love, whose nature is noble, and who could treat her with tenderest care. “I intend to offer my Opera to the world at London. I will be my own impresario. Yet I want one thing, and that is a Voice. Oh for a Voice like that of Bice! But it is idle to wish for her. “Never have I heard any voice like hers, my Teresina. God grant that I may find her! “Expect soon and suddenly to see your most loving brother, “PAOLO.” Mrs. Thornton showed this note to Despard the next time they met. He had read the journal in the mean time. “So he is coming back?” said he. “Yes.” “And with this marvelous girl?” “Yes.” “She seems to me like a spirit.” “And to me.” “Paolo’s own nature is so lofty and so spiritual that one like her is intelligible to him. Happy is it for her that he found her.” “Paolo is more spiritual than human. He has no materialism. He is spiritual. I am of the earth, earthy; but my brother is a spirit imprisoned, who chafes at his bonds and longs to be free. And think what Paolo has done for her in his sublime devotion!” “I know others who would do as much,” said Despard, in a voice that seemed full of tears; “I know others who, like him, would go to the grave to rescue the one they loved, and make all life one long devotion. I know others,” he continued, “who would gladly die, if by dying they could gain what he has won--the possession of the one they love. Ah me! Paolo is happy and blessed beyond all men. Between him and her there is no insuperable barrier, no gulf as deep as death.” Despard spoke impetuously, but suddenly checked himself. “I received,” said he, “by the last mail a letter from my uncle in Halifax. He is ordered off to the Cape of Good Hope. I wrote him a very long time ago, as I told you, asking him to tell me without reserve all that he knew about my father’s death. I told him plainly that there was a mystery about it which I was determined to solve. I reproached him for keeping it secret from me, and reminded him that I was now a mature man; and that he had no right nor any reason to maintain any farther secrecy. I insisted on knowing all, no matter what it might be.