she remarked. "What more do you want? The evidence which you and your friend whom you say he robbed could give would be sufficient to send him to prison, would it not?"

"I know. But I must prove more. Remember he has entrapped my Ella.

She is struggling helplessly in the web which he has woven about her."

"Much as I regret all the circ.u.mstances, Mr Leaf, I can see that it is against my own interests if I say anything further," was her calm reply.

"I have already given you an outline of the strange combination of circ.u.mstances and the unscrupulousness of two villains which has resulted in my present terrible position of doubt in the present and uncertainty of the future. The story, if I related it, would sound too strange to you to be the truth. And yet it only ill.u.s.trates the evil that men do, even in these prosaic modern days."

"Then you intend to again leave me in ignorance, even though my love's happiness is at stake?"

"My own life is also at stake."

"And yet you refuse to allow me to a.s.sist you--you decline to tell me the truth by which I could confound this man who is your bitterest enemy!"

"Because it is all hopeless," was her answer. "Had Nardini but spoken, I could have defied him. His refusal has sealed my doom," she added, in a voice of blank despair.

"But your words are so mysterious I can't understand them!" I declared, filled with chagrin at her refusal to make any statement. She was in fear of me, that was evident. Why, I could not for the life of me discern.

"I have merely told you the brief facts. The details you would find far more puzzling."

"Then to speak frankly, although you have never openly quarrelled with the lieutenant, you fear him?"

"That is so. He can denounce me--I mean he can make a terrible charge against me which I am unable to refute," she admitted breathlessly.

"And yet you will not allow me to help you! You disagree with my plan to denounce the scoundrel and let him take his well-deserved punishment!

I must say I really can't understand you," I declared.

"Perhaps not to-day. But some day you will discern the reason why I decline to confess to you the whole truth," was her firm reply.

And I looked at her slim tragic figure in silence and in wonder.

What was the end to be? Was she aware that her father was the leader of that a.s.sociation of well-dressed thieves, or was she in ignorance of it?

That was a question I could not yet decide.

I thought of Ella--my own Ella. It was she whom I had determined to save. That was my duty; a duty to perform before all others, and in defiance of all else. She loved me. She had admitted that. Therefore I would leave no stone unturned on her behalf, no matter how it might affect the stubbornly silent girl at my side.

I saw that I could not serve them both. Ella was my chief thought. She should, in future, be my only thought.

"I much regret all this," I said to Lucie somewhat coldly. "And pardon me for saying so, but I think that if you had spoken frankly this evening much of the trouble in the future would be saved. But as you are determined to say nothing, I am simply compelled to act as I think best in Ella's interests."

"Act just as you will, Mr Leaf," was her rather defiant response. "I trust, however, you will do nothing rash nor injudicious--nothing that may injure her, instead of benefit her. As for myself, to hope to a.s.sist me is utterly out of the question. The die is cast. Nardini intended that disgrace and death should fall upon me, or he would have surely spoken," and sighing hopelessly she added: "I have only to await the end, and pray that it will not be long in coming. This suspense I cannot bear much longer, looking as I daily do into the open grave which, on the morrow, may be mine. Heaven knows the tortures I endure, the bitter regrets, the mad hatred, the wistful longing for life and happiness, those two things that never now can be mine. Place yourself in my position, and try and imagine that whatever may be your life, there is but one sudden and shameful end--suicide."

"You look upon things in far too morbid a light," I declared, not, however, without some sympathy. "There is a bright lining to every cloud' the old adage says. Try and look forward to that."

She shook her head despairingly.

"No," she answered, with a short bitter laugh. "Proverbs are for the prosperous--not for the condemned."

I remained with her for some time longer, trying in vain to induce her to reveal the truth. In her stubborn refusal I recognised her determination to conceal some fact concerning her father, yet whether she knew the real truth or not I was certainly unable to determine.

The revelation that Ella was acquainted with Gordon-Wright alias the Lieutenant held her utterly confounded. She seemed to discern in it an increased peril for herself, and yet she would tell me nothing-- absolutely nothing.

The situation was tantalising--nay maddening. I intended to save my well-beloved at all costs, yet how was I to do so?

To denounce the adventurer would, she had herself declared, only bring ruin upon her. Therefore my hands were tied and the cowardly blackguard must triumph.

The soft Italian twilight fell, and the street lamps along the broad promenade below were everywhere springing up, while to the right the high stone lighthouse, that beacon to the mariner in the Mediterranean, shot its long streams of white light far across the darkening sea.

From one of the open-air _cafe-chantants_ in the vicinity came up the sound of light music and the trill of a female voice singing a French _chansonette_, for a rehearsal was in progress. And again a youth pa.s.sing chanted gaily one of those _stornelli d'amore_ which is heard everywhere in fair Tuscany, in the olive groves, in the vineyards, in the streets, in the barracks, that ancient half dirge, half-plaintive song, the same that has been sung for ages and ages by the youths in love:--

Mazzo di fiori!

Si vede il viso, e non si vede il core Tu se' un bel viso, ma non m'innamori.

Lucie heard the words and smiled.

The song just described my position at that moment. I saw her face but could not see her heart. She was beautiful, but not my love.

And as the voice died away we heard the words:--

Fiume di Lete!

Come la calamita mi tirate, E mi fate venir dove velete.

Old Marietta, the Tuscan sewing-woman, entered and lit the gas. She looked askance at me, wondering why I remained there so long I expect.

"It is growing late," I exclaimed in Italian; "I must go. It is your dinner-hour," and glancing round the room, carpetless, as all Italian rooms are in summer, I saw that it was cheaply furnished with that inartistic taste which told me at once that neither she nor her father had chosen it. It struck me that they had bought the furniture just as it had stood from some Italian, perhaps the previous occupier.

Old Marietta was a pleasant, grey-faced old woman in cheap black who wore large gold rings in her ears and spoke with the pleasant accent of Siena, and who, I saw, was devoted to her young mistress.

"This is Mr Leaf," she explained in Italian. "He is an English friend of my father's." Then turning to me she said, laughing, "Marietta always likes to know who's who. All Italians are so very inquisitive about the friends of their _padrone_."

The old woman smiled, showing her yellow teeth and wished me _buona sera_, to which I replied in her own tongue, for the position of servants in Italy is far different from their position with us. Your Tuscan house-woman is part of the family, and after a few years of faithful service is taken into the family council, consulted upon everything, controls expenditure, makes bargains, and is, to her _padrone_, quite indispensable. Old Marietta was a typical _donna di casa_, one of those faithful patient women with a sharp tongue to all the young men who so continuously ran after the young _padrona_, and only civil to me because I was a friend of the "signore."

She was shrewd enough to continue to be present at our leave-taking, though it was doubtful whether she knew English sufficiently to understand what pa.s.sed between us. I saw that Marietta intended I should go, therefore I wished her young _padrona_ adieu.

She held her breath for a moment as our hands clasped, and I saw in her brown eyes a look of blank despair.

"Be courageous," I said, in a low voice. "The future may not hold for you such terrors as you believe."

"Future!" she echoed. "I have no future. _Addio_." And I went down the wide, ill-lit stone staircase full of dismal foreboding, and out from the secret lair of the thief who was notorious, but whom the police of Europe had always failed to arrest.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

CONTAINS ANOTHER SURPRISE.

I dined at a small table alone in the big crowded _table-d'hote_ room of the hotel. About me were some of the most exclusive set in Italy, well-dressed men and women, Roman princes, marquises and counts, with a fair sprinkling of the Hebrew fraternity. At the table next mine sat a young prince of great wealth together with the fair American girl to whom he was engaged to be married, and the young lady's mother. The prince and his fiancee were speaking Italian, and the old lady from Idaho City, understanding no other language but her own, seemed to be having anything but an amusing time.

All this, however, interested me but little. I was reflecting upon the events of that afternoon, trying to devise some means by which to solve the enigma that was now driving me to desperation.

My well-beloved was in a deadly peril. How could I save her?