The Home of the Mysterious Englishman.

At half-past five o’clock that same afternoon, heedless of the Countess Moltedo’s mysterious warning, I was standing by Lucie’s side at the long French window that opened upon the balcony. Below, hundreds of visitors, mostly dressed in white, as is the mode of Leghorn, were promenading in the little pine wood that lies between the roadway and the sea, while beyond stretched the broad glassy Mediterranean aglow in the fiery rays of the Tuscan sunset, the mystic islands showing dark purple on the far-off horizon.

It was the hour when all Leghorn was agog after the siesta, that period from two o’clock till five, when all persiennes are closed, the streets are silent and deserted, and the city dazzlingly white lies palpitating beneath the blazing sun that blanches everything—the hour for the evening bath, and the stroll and gossip before dinner.

Perhaps nowhere else in all Europe can be seen such a living panorama of beautiful girls as there, upon the Passeggio at Leghorn on a summer’s evening at six o’clock, those dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome-featured children of the people walking in twos and threes, with figure and gait perfect, and each with her santuzza, or silken scarf of pale blue, mauve, pink, or black, twisted around her head with the ends thrown carelessly over the shoulders.

As the white veil is part of the costume of the Turkish woman so is the santuzza part of that of the merry, laughing coral-pickers, milliners and work-girls of Leghorn. It enhances their marvellous beauty and is at the same time the badge of their servitude.

Of all the people in the whole of proud old Tuscany assuredly none were so easy-going and vivacious, none so light-hearted and full of poetry as those Livornese people passing to and fro below us. The more I had dwelt among the Tuscan people the more I loved them. There is surely no other people on the face of the earth so entirely lovable, even with their many sad faults, as they; none so gregarious, so neighbourly, so courteous, kindly or poetic, none so content upon the most meagre fare that ever held body and soul together.

Your popolano even in his rags will bring a flower to a woman with the air of a king, and he will resent an insult with a withering scorn to which no regal trappings could lend further dignity. It is the land where Love still reigns just as supreme as it did in the days of La Fiammetta, of Beatrice, of Laura, or of Romeo—the Land of Amore—the sun-kissed land where even in this prosaic century of ours men and women live and die—often by the knife-thrust, be it said—for “amore,” that king who is greater and more powerful even than good Vittorio Emanuele himself.

At Lucie’s side I stood in silence, gazing down upon the gay scene below. In those people’s eyes were always dreams, and in the memories there was always greatness.

A writer has asked with deep truth, who, having known fair Tuscany, can forsake her for lesser love? Who, having once abode with her, can turn their faces from the rising sun and set the darkness of the Pisan mountains betwixt herself and them?

Yes. I had been back again in Tuscany for those few brief hours only, yet the glamour of Italy had again fallen upon me, that same glamour that holds so many of the English-speaking race—irrevocably compelling them to return again and again to those amethystine hills and mystical depths of seven-chorded light—the land that is grey-green with sloes and rich with trailing vines, the land of art and antiquity, of youth and of loveliness.

“And your father went on from Pisa?” I said at last, turning to my neat-waisted little companion. “He did not come home with you?”

“No. He has some urgent business down in Rome, and sent me back here to wait for him.”

“When does he arrive?”

“He does not know. His business is very uncertain always. Sometimes when he goes away he’s absent only three days, and at other times three months. Dear old dad is awfully tiresome. He never writes, and Marietta and I wait and wait, and wonder what’s become of him.”

“Is he staying with friends in Rome?”

“With Dr Gavazzi, a great friend of ours.”

“You left Studland very suddenly,” I said.

“Because of a telegram. We left at once, with hardly an hour to pack up. But how did you know we had gone to Italy?”

“I called after you had left, and your aunt told me. I wanted to speak to you, Miss Miller,” I added, turning to her seriously. “I came here to Leghorn purposely to see you.”

“It’s surely a long way to travel,” she said, turning her soft dark eyes upon mine and regarding me with wonder.

“Yes. But the reason I am here is to consult you regarding something which very closely concerns myself—regarding Ella.”

“Ah! It was strange that she left us so suddenly,” she remarked, “and stranger still the events of that night. I wonder who attacked her? She recognised her assailant, otherwise she would have said something to me. I’ve thought over it several times. The whole thing is an utter enigma. She evidently left us because she feared that her assailant would either call to see her, or perhaps make another attempt upon her.”

“Then she said nothing to you?”

“Absolutely not a word, even though when she came in she was half fainting. I naturally concluded that you and she had had some words, and therefore I made no inquiry.”

“We had no words, Miss Miller,” I said, in a low, serious voice. “Our hearts were too full of tragedy for that.”

“Of tragedy?” she cried. “What do you mean?”

“Ella is already engaged to be married.”

“Engaged?” she cried. “Why, I thought she was to be yours? I was congratulating you both!”

“No,” I answered, my heart sinking. “Though we have come together again after that long blank in both our lives, we are yet held apart by a cruel circumstance. She is already engaged to be married to another man.”

“But she will break it, never fear. Ella loves you—you can’t doubt that.”

“I know. I know that. But it is an engagement she cannot break. She will be that man’s wife in a month.”

“You absolutely amaze me. She told me nothing of this, but on the contrary led me to believe that she was still free, and that you were to be her affianced husband.”

“There is some reason—some secret reason why I cannot be,” I said. “It was to discuss this point with you that I have travelled from London. I must ask you to forgive me, Miss Miller, for troubling you with my private affairs, but you are, you know, Ella’s most intimate and most devoted friend.”

“You are not troubling me in the least,” my companion declared. “We are friends, you and I, and if I can help you, I will with pleasure do so.”

“Then I want to ask you a few questions,” I said eagerly. “First, tell me how long you have known Mr Gordon-Wright?”

“Oh! ever since I was quite a little girl. He used to give me francs and buy me bon-bons long ago in the old days in Paris. Why?”

“Because I had an idea that he might perhaps be a new acquaintance.”

“Oh, dear no. My father and he have been friends for many years. He comes here to stay, sometimes for a couple of months at a time. He has bad health, and his London doctor often orders him abroad.”

“Who is he?”

“A gentleman. He was in the Navy on the China station, I think. He’s a most amusing companion, full of droll anecdotes, and seems to know everybody. Dad says that he’s one of the most popular men about London. He has a splendid steam yacht and once or twice he has taken us for cruises. It was in port here for a week at the beginning of the year.”

“Where does he live?”

“In Half Moon Street in London.”

“Has he a country place?”

“I never heard of it.”

Then she was unaware, I saw, that he lived on the Cornish border. Her father, of course, knew the truth, and kept it concealed from her. The fact that he came there to hide for months at a time, and that he travelled about in a steam yacht were sufficient to show that he was one of the clever and ingenious band who had, during the past ten years, effected certain coups so gigantic that they had startled Europe.

“When I met him how long had he been staying with you at the Manor?”

“Only one day. He came on the previous morning, and he left an hour after you did. He wished to consult my father about something—some securities he contemplates purchasing, I think.”

“Was Ella acquainted with him?”

“No. Ella never saw him. He was upstairs in his room, you remember, when we brought her home, and she left in the morning before he was up.”

“You don’t think that it was he who met her in the park after she left me?” I suggested.

She looked at me strangely, as though endeavouring to read my innermost thoughts.

“No, I hardly think that. Why should he, of all men, attack a woman who was a perfect stranger to him?”

“But was Ella a perfect stranger?” I queried. “How do you know that?”

“Of course we can’t say so. He might have met her some............