E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ After dinner she drew him on one side and pointed across the water, faintly agleam now with the light of the rising moon, to a tiny island barely a mile away.
"I wonder," she said, "whether you can see amongst the trees there a little villa, the villa D'Ajuta they call it. It has been empty for three years. A fortnight ago it was taken by a countrywoman of ours."
He looked at it without interest.
"Well?" he asked.
"Do you know," she said, hesitatingly, "I am not sure even now whether I have been justified in sending you that letter. You see in Rome every one knows every one else's business. ”

“ His long lean fingers were shaking, his eyes were bright with malicious satisfaction.
"Mannister," he said, "if one comes near to death one sees things clearly. It was a hellish trick those men sought to play upon you. They made only one mistake. They did not think that you would leave me alive. I had some of the money they robbed you of. Do you want it back?"
"No!" Mannister answered. "I am a rich man. It was never the money, Sinclair."
"I came back to England," Sinclair continued, "and I watched them go, broken men, one by one. I am the last of them, Mannister. ”

“ She looked at Mannister as one might look at a ghost. Mannister calmly took the cloak from her arm and held her hand in his.
"Christine," he said, "I have been looking for you for more than two years. It has seemed a very long time that you have been coming. Won't you give your maid that luggage ticket? She can take your things wherever you will. The carriage is waiting for you and for me at the entrance here." ”

“ She charged me with it that day after you had caught us, and I told her the truth."
Mannister looked at him as one might regard some noxious insect.
"I shall not strike you, Gaston Sinclair," he said. "To be what you are, and to know yourself for what you are, is punishment enough for any one on earth."
Mannister turned on his heel and walked back to the villa where he was staying. A travelling carriage, piled with luggage, was standing there at the door. May Dunster, who had just arrived from Rome, came out to meet him. ”

“ The liveries of the carriage, dark green, and the small coronet upon the panels, served him as a basis for a restless fire of inquiries directed to the gendarmes, the commissionaire at the famous restaurant in the Bois, wherever there seemed a chance of obtaining information. Late that night Mannister obtained the information he sought, and at mid-day the next morning he was ushered into the presence of Madame la Comtesse de Lanier, in whom he recognized at once the elder of those two women. ”

“ Then Mannister became a wanderer upon the face of the earth. He sought no new lands, nor did he betray the traveller's inters est in unexplored places. He passed from country to country of Europe, he was heard of even in the great cities of America. To all appearance his journeying was the journeying of a restless man. For two years he neither shot nor hunted, sport of no kind seemed able to attract him. ”

“ He spent a few days in London, and was on the point of leaving it when he received a letter from May Dunster, written from a small town in the north of Italy.
"I am writing," she said, "not only to remind you of your promise to come to my wedding in Rome next month, but to ask you to do something which you will probably think strange, but which I will explain when I see you. I want you to take the first train you can catch and come here. You must come direct to Florence, and at the Hotel Splendide you will find a letter from me telling you how to reach this place. ”

“ I left him upon the promenade."
"Never mind about my father yet," she answered. "I want to talk to you for a few minutes. There was no one else in the world whom I wanted so much to see. Come down into the garden." ”