My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what could I do but give the letter to Donna Candida? To keep it back was out of the question; and with the best will in the world I could not have erased Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in thinking it lucky that the paper had fallen into my hands.
Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but she held out her hand with a smile of pardon, and asked what news I brought from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she were trying to get me into her power again.
"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to her. I had purposely turned the superscription downward, so that she should not see it.
She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light struck up from it into her face as she read--a radiance that smote me to the soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her and efface the name on the back. It hurt me to think how short-lived her happiness must be.
Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands and kissed them. "Oh, thank you--bless you a thousand times! He died thinking of us--he died loving Italy!"
I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the touch of her lips hardened me.
She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness--what consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At heart she was always sure that he had written--I suppose some blessed instinct told her so." She dropped her face on her hands, and I saw her tears fall on the wretched letter.
In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted me. "Tell me where you found it," she said.
