of her he came to meet. A disagreeable thrill of intelligence shot through him-suspicion appeared in his face.

Ah, so you know me-this time!' said the steerer slowly, with unpleasant emphasis.

Gervase, with a sang-froid that galled his companion, replied, as quietly as if he had known it from the first,

'You are Bruno Pagano.' But as he spoke, a sharp flush of anger overspread his cheek. A trick, a dastardly trick, had been played upon him. Brother and sister in league together. What was their sinister object?

It was my sister you came to meet,' said Bruno sneeringly. You may deal with me for us both. I did not consult her. The note-the summons-were mine. Our hands are alike.'

Forged-to draw him into a snare ! Gervase half rose; his impulse was to pitch the scoundrel overboard. Perhaps Bruno had foreseen it; he parried it, saying,

'If you upset the boat, you are an assassin. I cannot swim.'

'Coward!' hissed Gervase. He resumed his seat and his work, without, however, taking his eye off his steerer. He retained to the full his presence of mind. He measured the man yonder, and with the pleasurable assurance that on fair ground he could beat forty of him. At the first suspicious sign or movement he should detect, he was ready to resort to extremities. To swamp the boat would be a sure expedient. Bruno might sink swim; Gervase could gain the land in a few strokes. Why, he could reach the Villa Incognita itseif thus in a shorter time than it would take this fellow to row him there.

or

Bruno watched his countenance stealthily, and his next words

'How magnanimous is the signor!' put in the Italian.

'And any reasonable compensation I shall willingly accord.' 'Enough,' said Bruno; 'you have done it already.'

Gervase showed his pocket-book. 'There are English bank-notes here for three hundred pounds. I will add to the amount with pleasure; but for that you must leave these parts.'

Bruno pointed over the bay to where a large vessel lay at anchor in the harbour, gleaming phantomlike through the mist.

'The Albatross,' he said briefly, 'sails for Costa Rica to-night. After I have landed you, I shall still have time to reach it. I have friends among the crew who are ready to help my escape. Once on board, I shall be safe; but I am not secure for another hour in my hiding-place on this coast. The fishermen who have been sheltering me can do so no longer.'

6

Why did you not sign your own name? Gervase asked sternly. I should have come.'

'I did not know you would take the trouble to walk out of your way for me; and an outlaw does not denounce himself and his whereabouts by writing letters.'

Gervase felt at that moment as if he could almost forgive the deception in the satisfaction of knowing that he had heard the last to-night of the affair.

It was growing darker on the water. The breeze sank, the sail flapped dead; but already the boat had turned a point whence the cliffs under the villa-gardens were discernible at no great distance. Gervase, with an exclamation of impatience, lowered the sail, and, seizing the oars, began pulling vigorously, Bruno regarding him with a curious expression.

The signor is a better marinaro than myself. He is more accustomed to boatman's work.'

Gervase laughed.

'My man,' he said contemptuously, your work is play to us. We let you do it that you may live. It will be an ill-day for you when you force us into competition.'

He could not see the expression of Bruno's face at this moment,

or he might have repented the taunt. Something like madness gleamed in the Italian's eye,-a treasured wrong, fostered antipathy, ending in the fanaticism of vindictive hatred diseasing the mind.

Every word, look, and accent of the Englishman stung him as an insult or a blow. Gervase, in truth, could not even now quite rid himself of the impression that he was speaking to a boatman. The ragged shirt, grimed exterior, and generally ill-conditioned look were characteristic of an inferior creature, if not the most servile of slaves.

They were now in the shallow water under the rocks. Gervase paused a moment in his rowing, to take out his pocket-book, and tossed it down on the bench, saying significantly,

The rest when you are in America.'

Something of rancour unappeased betrayed itself in the speech that burst from Bruno's lips,

'Ah, you will sleep the better when I am out of the country; confess it, signor.'

Gervase, with a scathing emphasis he could not repress, retaliated,

'Do not flatter yourself. Persons like you may curtail my banking account, but hardly my sleep. Rogues don't trouble the dreams of honest men.'

His words, or his manner of speaking them, seemed to have cowed and crushed Bruno, who made no retort and did not speak again.

Gervase was heartily sick of his company. The stupid fellow

could not even steer ashore sensibly, but allowed his craft to run aground on the pebbles a boat's length from the land.

Gervase, with an imprecation

on his awkwardness, drove the oar into the shingle to force them onwards. Bruno jumped into the water, muttering aloud,

'The signor must not wet his feet; and began dragging the boat up to the beach, showing more strength than the other would have given him credit for. He was bending down, occupying himself with the cable, when Gervase leapt ashore, and in doing so, found his foot slightly entangled in the chain. It checked him an instant. Bruno raised himself suddenly, as a snake springs. Gervase

It was like a lightning-stroke. No cry, no struggle. A white, livid face before him, the gleam of steel in the uplifted hand, and a sound in his ears.

'For myself and my sister!' Gervase staggered back and fell on the beach, in the black shadow of the overhanging cliff.

Linda thought that night would never pass. Terrors of every sort, in every shape, haunted her unceasingly. O, to know that those two were safe out of Naples, and that instead of betraying she had saved them!

Laurence was waiting in the loggia. The roses were pale tonight, the stars dull, the wind trembled in the trees, and the sound was sad and dirge-like-a spirit singing her happy dream to its grave. All thoughts were swallowed up in a wild, rising solicitude. The night-voices whispered of dread to her as she waited, expectation turning to fear, anxiety, torture.

But Gervase lay still, there on the beach. The stars came out overhead. The sea-birds hovering near flew backwards and forwards with harsh frightened cries. The bushes overhanging the cliff's edge murmured very softly, and

the waves of the tideless sea plashed and rippled to within a foot of where he lay dead. The aim of hatred is a sure aim, and a Velletrano never strikes twice.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE VIOLIN-PLAYER.

Ir was Carnival-tide in Rome. On one of the last and gayest of its gay days, an Englishman was slowly wending his way down the crowded Corso.

He was a well-known figure in Rome now. Thrice had the Carnival-that merry herald of spring -come and gone since Val Romer returned to take up his abode again in the city of the soul.' That he has done well, his artprogress testifies. These last years have been the most productive of his career.

He is triumphant-over himself; successful-in his line; satisfied-in so far that he has stood both ordeals-of society and solitude and proved self-sufficient. Happy? That is another question. His outward life seems perfect enough. His inward lacks something, in its rigid concentration, lacks that sympathy and human fellowship given to thousands to enjoy who are not worth his little finger. Carmen and Vashti are cold company, now and then.

He has an Italian friend with him to-day, a stranger in Rome, to whom the Englishman is enacting cicerone. Val knows every house in the street, and, as the procession of carriages files by, he can name the occupants of each as it passes, and point out the celebrities of art and politics and fashion.

Now it is a Roman victoria, too small for its contents-four

persons, all of whom make frantically friendly gesticulations to Mr. Romer, and one of whom colours with pleasure.

'What pretty English girl is that?' asks Val's comrade; and the sculptor explains. It is the Araciel family. They live at Milan, where the veteran player now holds an appointment. He has partially retired from public life, but makes occasional concerttours. Now rolls by a private equipage, well-appointed to a fault. Perfection without pretension, every detail unexceptionable, in keeping with the couple within the handsomest lady and sedatest gentleman present at the Carnival show. They also exchange greetings with Val; formal greetings these. The simple Italian becomes enthusiastic:

'Another of your countrywomen? Ah, this one is a beauty indeed. It is that Lady Brereton, is it not? I knew her from the bust in your studio. What eyes! Molto di sentimento there.'

'Yes, in her eyes,' returned Val shortly. It has all gone into them, I suppose.'

The next is an open carriage in an opposite style, with a far more showy exterior, huge coronet, and most conspicuous occupants. A lady, with intenselycoloured blonde hair, pink cheeks, and gaily dressed; beside her a gentleman, with a parched complexion, and hair that by rights should have been gray, but had been carefully restored to its natural colour of jetty black. The volatile Italian's curiosity was on the qui-vive again.

'Who is she? who is she?' Val, with a look of irreverent indifference, replied,

'Eh! Linda Visconti, the operasinger, don't you know? who married old Count Janowski. They say she lost her voice, but

finds compensation for everything in her title of Countess.'

say?

Janowski, did you Where is the Count's estate?' Val shrugged his shoulders. 'Half Poland, the Visconti will tell you, would be his, if people had their rights. But his rents all come from the gamblingtables at Monte Carlo, where he lives, with his Countess.'

Six o'clock approaches. The Corso is being cleared for the horse-races, the finale to each day's sport. Val slips out of the crowd with his friend, who bids good-bye to his cicerone, saying,

'I must be at the doors of the Apollo Theatre at seven, if I am to get a place at the concert. Mdlle. Therval's name is enough to crowd the house."

Val, as the fortunate holder of a reserved seat, had time to spare still. Leaving the revellers in the Corso, he walked back to his hermitage-the Villa Marta.

The hermit is not to sup by himself to night, apparently. Brutus has already received certain orders to his great gratification; for Val, in the opinion of his good and faithful servant, is too much alone. How if he should become a prey to melancholy and depression? Brutus had heard of a dangerous malady called Le Spleen,' peculiar to Englishmen, of which the symptoms were taciturnity, gloom, aversion to the world, culminating in a desire to cut your throat to get out of it. He has been uneasy about his master ever since one day, when he surprised him in a brown' study before his statue of the Glee Maiden, and Val flew into a passion at being unreasonably disturbed.

Thus the prospect of a supperparty is cheering to Brutus. He has carefully prepared a narrow table in the sculptor's studio, grouped the plants and flowers

among the marbles, as directed, and, pleased with the effect, naïvely takes to himself the credit of the arrangements. Val looks round, approves, alters a trifle or two, then turns to his factotum, with the serious question,

'Now, what is there to eat?

Scarcely a Homeric repast; but Val agrees to the bill of fare, and bestows some further instructions on Brutus; then presently goes forth again, to stroll down to the old theatre by the Tiber, where, to-night, Laurence Therval gives her violin-recital, and makes her first public appearance in Rome.

For more than two years, indeed, the world has lost sight of her. It is only a few months since -when her name had not been heard for many seasons-she appeared at a concert at Milan, then at other places, creating, it is said, an extraordinary impression, the report of which sends all Rome rushing to hear her to-night.

Strange stories are afloat, stories at variance with each other, and mostly inaccurate, respecting her long desertion, the romantic history of her marriage with a young Englishman of distinguish ed position, and that tragic event at Naples shortly after, when he was found murdered on the beach by his own villa. That fatality was the talk of Rome for some time; but other startling events following thick, expelled it from men's minds; so that to-day, three years later, those personally unacquainted with Laurence and her nearest friends have but a confused idea of the facts. Something of a mystery indeed has shrouded them for ever. The murderer was never discovered. Suspicion fell on a wrong-headed political blusterer, then under sentence of arrest, who was reported to have been hiding in the neighbourhood, and who might

have been prompted to the act by motives of revenge. But Bruno Pagano had disappeared; and there was no evidence whatever, no clue, that could fasten the deed on him more than another.

Val had not seen her since; never, indeed, since a certain time in England, when all his moorings seemed to him to be giving way at once, and he needed the sternest force of character to keep his course straight and his mind in health, and his heart from becoming disgusted with life and the world because he had been unfortunate in some of his experiences.

He wrenched himself away from all human ties, came back to Rome, and lived for his craft only. The beginning was rough, but he soon reconciled himself to the change; and it is only of late, when his mind has entirely regained its balance, and his artfidelity and activity are secure against all attacks, that he has become discontented, and craves in his soul for what art cannot render. He can suffer solitude, but yearns more and more for human affection. In such moods his thoughts were apt to wander back to days long past, when Laurence and he were children together.

He took his place in the stalls that evening in a state of emphatic excitement. How will he find her to-night? Will she be changed?

Not beautiful, had they said? Val laughs. Ever more so, in his eyes, and in those of all who recognise its higher, finer manifestations. Surprise is one element of beauty, it is said-surprise that once made a dumb man speak. Half the charm of her face was in its delightful individuality. 'None like her-none.' But though her grave loveliness