"I am now going home to expose him," I said determinedly. "I have fully considered all the risks, and am prepared to run them."

"Ah!" she cried, turning to me in quick alarm, "do not do anything rash, I beg of you, Mr Leaf! There is some mystery--a great mystery which I am, as yet, unable to fathom--but to speak at this juncture would a.s.suredly only implicate her. Of that I feel sure from certain information already in my possession."

"You've already told me that. But surely you don't think I can stand by and see her go headlong to her ruin without stretching forth a hand to save her. It is my duty, not only as her lover but also as a man. The fellow is a thief and a scoundrel."

When we love much we ourselves are nothing, and what we love is all.

"I only beg of you to be patient and be silent--at least for the present," she urged.

Was she in fear, I wondered, lest any revelation I made should implicate her father? Was it possible that she had any suspicion that he was at that moment seeking asylum in his comfortable English home?

All the disjointed admissions which she had made regarding her acquaintance with the dead Minister for Justice, her appeal to him to speak the truth and clear her of some mysterious stigma, and her mention of the Villa Verde out at Tivoli crowded upon me. When we suffer very much everything that smiles in the sun seems cruel.

Beneath that beautiful face, pale in the bright moonbeams shining upon it, was mystery--a great unfathomable mystery. Was she not daughter of one of the cleverest thieves in Europe? And, if so, could she not most probably keep a secret if one were entrusted to her?

For some ten minutes or so I was silent. The engines throbbed, the dark waters hissed past, and swiftly we were heading for the lights of Dover.

At any moment Miller, who had gone below to get a whisky and soda with a friend he had met, a gentlemanly-looking Englishman, might return. I wondered whether it were judicious to tell her one fact.

At last I spoke.

"You recollect, Miss Miller, that you once mentioned the Villa Verde, at Tivoli, where, I think, Nardini lived the greater part of the year?"

"Yes," was her rather mechanical answer. "Why? What causes you to recollect that?"

"Because--well, because the other day I learnt something in confidence concerning it."

"Concerning the villa!" she gasped, starting and turning to me with a changed expression of fear and apprehension. "What--what were you told?

Who told you?"

"Well, probably it is a fact of which you are unaware, for only the police know it, and they have hushed it up," I said. "After the flight of Nardini the police who went to search the villa and seize his effects made a very startling discovery."

"Discovery! What did they find?" she inquired eagerly, her face now blanched to the lips.

"The body of a young woman--the young Englishwoman who was your friend!"

I said, with my eyes fixed upon her.

She started forward, glaring at me open-mouthed. She tried to speak, but no sound escaped her lips. Her gloved hands were trembling, her dark eyes staring out of her head.

"Then the police have searched!" she gasped at last.

"They know the truth! I--I am--"

And she fell back again into the long deck-chair, rigid and insensible.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

AN EVENING AT HYDE PARK GATE.

When Miller returned and found his daughter conscious but prostrate, he naturally attributed it to _mal-de-mer_, and began to poke fun at her for being ill upon such a calm sea.

She looked at me in meaning silence.

Then, when he had left us to walk towards the stern, she said in a low, apologetic voice:--

"Forgive me, Mr Leaf. I--I'm so very foolish. But what you have told me is so amazing. Tell me further--what have the police found at the villa?"

I wondered whether she had seen in any of the Italian papers an account of the second discovery--the man who had been so brutally done to death.

"Well, from what I gather the police found a dead woman locked in Nardini's study."

"And has she been identified?" she asked eagerly.

"I believe not. All that is known about her is that she was your friend."

"Ah, yes!" she sighed, as though she had previous knowledge of the tragedy. "And they know that--do they? Then they will probably endeavour to find me, eh?"

"Most probably."

"Perhaps it is best that I should return to England, then," she remarked, as though speaking to herself. "I wonder if they will discover me here?"

"I understand that they know your name, but are ignorant of where you reside. Besides, in England your name is not an uncommon one."

"I hope they'll never find me, for I have no desire to answer their inquiries. The affair is an unpleasant one, to say the least."

"The police have some ulterior object in view by hushing it up," I remarked.

"Yes. But how did you know?"

"A friend told me," was my vague reply. She, of course, never dreamed that I had been in Rome.

"He told you my name?"

"He was an Italian, therefore could not p.r.o.nounce it properly. The police evidently do not know, even now, that Nardini is dead."

"No, I suppose not," she said. "But--well, what you've told me is utterly staggering."

"Then you were not aware of the mysterious affair?"

"Aware of it! How should I be?"

"Well, you were Nardini's friend. You were a frequent visitor at the Villa Verde. You told me so yourself, remember."

She did not reply, but sat staring straight before her at the stream of moonlight upon the rolling waters.

Whether she were really acquainted with the details of the tragic affair or not, I was unable to decide. She, however, offered me no explanation as to who the unknown woman was, and from her att.i.tude I saw that she did not intend to reveal to me anything. Perhaps the mere fact that I had gained secret knowledge caused her to hold me in fear lest I should betray her whereabouts.

The situation was hourly becoming more complicated, but upon one point I felt confident, namely, that she held no knowledge of the second tragedy at the villa--a tragedy in which her father was most certainly implicated.