"I have not done no wrong; it ben't my fault,--and 't is that which kills
me!" concluded Lenny, with a burst of energy.

"You have not done wrong? Then," said the philosopher, drawing out his
pocket-handkerchief with great composure, and spreading it on the
ground,--"then I may sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over
sin, but I can lie down on equal terms with misfortune."

Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, but enough of their
general meaning was apparent to make him cast a grateful glance on the
Italian. Riccabocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, "I
have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted in
my day; yet I too say with thee, 'I have not done wrong.' /Cospetto/!"
(and here the doctor seated himself deliberately, resting one arm on the
side column of the stocks, in familiar contact with the captive's
shoulder, while his eye wandered over the lovely scene around)--
"/Cospetto/! my prison, if they had caught me, would not have had so fair
a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is all one; there are no ugly
loves, and no handsome prisons."

With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered in his native
Italian, Riccabocca turned round and renewed his soothing invitations to
confidence. A friend in need is a friend indeed, even if he come in the
guise of a Papist and wizard. All Lenny's ancient dislike to the
foreigner had gone, and he told him his little tale.

Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see exactly the motives
which had induced Mr. Stirn to incarcerate his agent (barring only that
of personal grudge, to which Lenny's account gave him no clew). That a
man high in office should make a scapegoat of his own watch-dog for an