"Never mummy was wound so exquisitely as the silkworm's chrysalis,"

said Peter; and Jenny chatted cheerfully about the silken industry and its varied interests, but found that Mr. Ganns could tell her much more than she was able to tell him.

He listened with attention, however, and only by gradual stages deflected conversation to the affairs that had brought him.

Presently he indicated an aspect of her own position arising from his words on the previous night.

"Did it ever strike you that it was a bold thing to marry within little more than nine months of your first husband's disappearance, Mrs. Doria?" he asked.

"It did not; but I shivered when I heard you talking yesterday. And call me 'Jenny,' not 'Mrs. Doria,' Mr. Ganns."

"Love has always been very impatient of law"; he declared, "but the fact is that unless proof of an exceptional character can be submitted, the English law is not prepared to say of any man that he is dead until seven years have pa.s.sed from the last record of him among the living. Now there is rather a serious difference between seven years and nine months, Jenny."

"Looking back I seem to see nothing but a long nightmare. 'Nine months!' It was a century. Don't think that I didn't love my first husband; I adored him and I adore his memory; but the loneliness and the sudden magic of this man. Besides all that, surely none could question the hideous proofs of what happened? I accepted Michael's death as a fact which need not enter the calculation. My G.o.d! Why did not somebody hint to me that I was doing wrong to wed?"

"Did anybody have a chance?"

She looked at him with a face full of unhappiness.

"You are right. I was possessed. I made a terrible mistake; but do not fear that I have escaped the punishment."

He guessed her meaning and led her away from the subject of her husband.

"Tell me, if it won't hurt you too much, a little about Michael Pendean."

But she appeared not to hear him. Her thoughts were concerned entirely with herself and her present situation.

"I can trust you. You are wise and know life. I have not married a man, but a devil!"

Her hands clenched and he saw a flash of her teeth in the gloom of the silent chamber.

He took snuff and listened, while the unfortunate woman raved of her error.

"I hate him. I loathe him," she cried, and heaped hard words on the head of the debonair Giuseppe. She broke off presently panted, and then subsided in tears.

Peter studied her very carefully, yet, for the moment, showed no great sympathy. His answer was tonic rather than sedative.

"You must keep your nerve and be patient," he said. "Even Italy's a free country in some respects; you need not stop with Doria if you don't want to."

"Might my husband be alive? Do you imagine it possible that he could be alive? I think of him as my husband again, now that this midsummer madness is over. I have much to say to you. I want you--I pray you--to help me as well as my uncle. But he must come first, of course."

"We shall possibly find that in helping him we are helping you,"

answered Peter. "But you ask a question and I always answer a question when it's reasonable to do so. No, Jenny, I cannot think that Michael Pendean is alive. Let us go out into the air; it is stuffy here. But remember I do not say that he is not alive. It was certainly man's blood that an unknown hand shed at Foggintor; it was man's blood in the cave under the cliffs near Mr. Bendigo Redmayne's home; but as yet we know no more, with absolute certainty, who lost it than who spilled it. That is the large problem I am here to solve. And perhaps, if you want to help me, you can do so. This at any rate I promise you: if you help me, you will also help yourself and your Uncle Albert."

"He is in danger?"

"Consider the situation. In process of time the estate of Albert's two brothers will devolve upon him. That means, I suppose, that sooner or later the bulk of the money must be yours. Albert is frail. I do not think he will be a long-lived man. What follows?

Surely that you--the last of the Redmaynes--will inherit everything.

And you are married. Here is a proposition, then. And what have you just told me? That your husband is 'a devil,' and that you hate him since you have seen a glimpse of his heart. These facts cannot be entirely separated. They may or may not be closely allied."

She looked at him steadfastly.

"I have only thought of Giuseppe Doria in connection with myself, never in connection with Uncle Bendigo and Uncle Albert. Uncle Bendigo died--if he is dead--before I consented to marry Doria--before he asked me to do so. But keep my mistake from my uncle. I don't want him to know I'm miserable."

"You must decide where to put your trust, my dear," answered Mr.

Ganns. "Otherwise you may find yourself on dangerous ground."

She weighed her answer.

"You are thinking of something," she said.

"Naturally. What you have told me as to your relations with your Italian husband offers considerable food for thought. But consider very carefully. You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. How many a bad man and, for that matter, how many an innocent man, has come to grief in the attempt. Tell me this. Does Giuseppe know that you no longer love him?"

She shook her head.

"I have hid it. The time has not come to let him know that. He would be revenged, and G.o.d knows what form his revenge might take. Till I have escaped from him, he must not dream that I have changed."

"That's your feeling? Well, the questions are two. Do you know enough about him to a.s.sist and justify your escape and, if you do, are you prepared to confide your knowledge to me?"

"I do not know enough," she answered. "He is a very clever man under his light-hearted and easy-going manners. He is, I believe, faithful to me, and he takes care never to be unkind in the presence or hearing of a third person. But this I think: that he knows very well what you've just told me--that all the Redmayne money must sooner or later be mine."

"And yet he behaves to you as though he were a devil? That's not very clever of him."

"I can't explain. Perhaps I have said too much. His cruelty is very subtle. Italian husbands,--"

"I know all about Italian husbands. We'll talk over this again when you have had time to think a little. There's a reason for your hate and distrust of him, no doubt. You would not pretend such emotions.

He's faithful, you say, so perhaps that reason is linked with knowledge you do not care to impart to me--or anybody? Perhaps it embraces the mystery man we want to catch--Robert Redmayne? Does Doria know more about him than you or I do! And you have found it out? There may be quite a number of things that make you hate Doria.

So think it over and consider if to hear any of them would help me."

Jenny looked at Peter with profound interest.

"You are a very wonderful man, Mr. Ganns."

"Not a bit--only practiced in the jig-saw puzzle we call life.

Attach no special importance to what I have just said, or the possibilities I have just thrown out. I may be altogether wrong. I have only at present your word that Signor Doria is not a kind husband. I may not agree with you when I know him better. You may not be a judge. Your first husband was perhaps so exceptional that the norm of husbands is unknown to you. My mind is quite open on the subject, because I have often found that a wife knows much less about her husband's character than do other people. Remember that hate blinds quite as frequently as love; and love turned to hate is a transformation so complicated that it takes a cunning psycho-a.n.a.lyst to interpret it. Therefore to know the importance of your fears, I must know more about you yourself.

"We'll leave it at that--and all you need think of me at present is that I want to serve you. But I am an old bird, while Brendon, on the contrary, is still young; and youth understands youth. Remember that in him you have a steadfast and faithful friend. I shan't be jealous if you can tell him more than you can tell me."

Jenny's lips moved and were again motionless. He perceived that she had started to say one thing, but would now say another. She took his big hand and pressed it between her own.

"G.o.d bless you!" she said. "If I have you for a friend, I am content. Mr. Brendon has been very good to me--very, very good. But you are more likely to serve Uncle Albert than he."

They parted presently and Jenny returned to the house, while the detective, finding a comfortable chair under an oleander bush, sniffed the fragrance of the red blossom above him, regretted that his vice had largely spoiled his sense of smell, took snuff and opened his notebook. He wrote in it steadily for half an hour; then he rose and joined Albert Redmayne.

The elder was full of an approaching event.

"To think that to-day you and Poggi meet!" he exclaimed. "Peter, my dear man, if you do not love Virgilio I shall be broken-hearted."

"Albert," answered Mr. Ganns. "I have already loved Poggi for two years. Those you love, I love; and that means that our friendship is on a very high plane indeed; for it often happens that nothing puzzles us more infernally than our friends' friends. In our case, however, so entirely do we see alike in everything that matters, that it is beyond possibility you should be devoted to anybody who does not appeal to me. By the same token, how much do you love your niece?"

Mr. Redmayne did not answer instantly.