again.
Then turning and glancing around, I exclaimed:--"What a delightful oldroom! To me it is a real pleasure to enter a thoroughly English home,as this is."
"Why?" he inquired, eyeing me with some surprise. "Because I livealmost always on the Continent, and after a time foreign life andforeign ways jar upon the Englishman. At least I've found it so."
"Ah!" He sighed, rather heavily I thought. "And I, too, have found itso. I quite agree with you. One may travel the world over, as I havedone these past twenty years, yet there's no place like our much-abusedold England, after all."
"Oh, then you've been a rolling stone, like myself," I remarked,delighted at the success of my ruse.
"Yes. And I still am," was his answer, given rather sadly. "Ever sincemy poor wife's death, now nearly twenty years ago, I've been a wanderer.This place is mine, but I'm scarcely ever here. Why? I can't for thelife of me tell you. I've tried to settle down, but cannot. After aweek here in this quiet rural dulness, the old fever sets up in myblood, a longing for action, a longing to go south to Italy--the countrywhich seems to hold me in a kind of magnetism which I have never beenable to resist."
"And I, too, love Italy," I said. "Is it not strange that most of uswho have lived any length of time in that country of blossomingmagnolias and gentle vines always desire to return to it. We may abuseits defects, we may revile its people as dishonest idlers, we mayexecrate its snail-like railways and run down its primitive hotels, yetall the same we have a secret longing to return to that glowing landwhere life is love, where art is in the very atmosphere, where the sunbrings gladness to the heaviest heart, and the night silence is brokenby love _stornelli_ and the mandoline."
"You are right," he said, gazing straight out of the old leaded windowand speaking almost as though to himself. "Byron found it so, Shelley,Smollet, Trollope, the Brownings and hosts of others. They werefascinated by the fatal beauty of Italy--just as a man is so often drawnto his doom by the face of a beautiful woman. And after all we are butstraws on the winds of the hour."
Then, turning to a cabinet, I bent and admired a fine old Lowestofttea-set and a collection of old blue posset-pots, whereupon he said:--
"Ah! I see you are interested in antiques. Do you care for pictures?I have one or two."
"I do. I should delight to see them," I answered with enthusiasm;therefore he led me across the low old-fashioned hall with its great oakbeams and open fireplace into a long gallery where the floor waspolished, and along one side was hung a choice collection of masters ofthe Bolognese, Tuscan and Venetian schools.
At a glance I saw that they were of considerable value, and as I walkedalong slowly examining them I half feared lest I might come face to facewith the daughter of the house.
Mine was a bold adventure, and surely it was fortunate for me that oldMiss Catherine had a headache.
Through room after room he conducted me with all the pride of acollector showing his treasures. Indeed, I was amazed to find such aperfect museum of Italian art hidden away in that picturesque old ManorHouse. "Yes," he said presently, as we entered the long old-fashioneddrawing-room upholstered in antique rose-pattern chintz, "I've collectedin Italy for a good many years. One can pick up bargains, even now, inthe less frequented towns, say Ravenna, Verona, Bologna or Rimini; whilein Leghorn there are still lots of genuine Sheraton and Chippendalewhich was imported from England by the English merchants of that time.I once made a splendid find of seventeenth-century English silver--twoporringers and some spoons--in the Ghetto in Leghorn."
I was at the moment looking at a circular Madonna on panel, evidently ofthe Bolognese school of the cinquecento, hanging at the end of the longpleasant old room when, in glancing round, my eye fell upon two smalltables where stood photographs in frames.
In an instant I bent over one and recognised it as that of the girl whohad come to me so mysteriously at Shepherd's Bush.
"That is my daughter," he remarked.
"Curious," I said, feigning to reflect. "I think I've met her somewhereabroad. Perhaps it was in Italy. Could it have been in Leghorn?"
"You know Leghorn?"
"I've been there many times. I know the Camerons, the Davises, theMatthews, and most of the English colony there."
"Then you may possibly have met her there," he said. "We have a smallflat on the sea-front, and my daughter often plays tennis."
"Of course!" I exclaimed, as though the mention of tennis brought backto me full recollection of the incident. "It was at tennis that I sawher--last season when I was at the Palace Hotel. I remember now, quitewell. Our Mediterranean fleet were lying there at the time, and therewere lots of festivities, as there are every summer. Is your daughternow in England?"
"Oh, yes. She's up in London, but returns to-morrow."
"And are you going back to Italy soon?" I inquired.
"I hardly know. My movements are never very certain. I'm quite acreature of circumstances, and nowadays drift about with the wind ofchance," he laughed.
"But this is a lovely old place," I remarked. "If I had it I shouldcertainly not prefer a flat in a sun-baked Italian town, like Leghorn."
"Circumstances," he remarked simply, with a mysterious smile upon hisgrey face.
What, I wondered, was his meaning?
Did he really intend to convey that the circumstances of hisdishonourable profession compelled him to hide himself in a small flatin that somewhat obscure town--obscure as far as English life went?
When he learnt that I knew some of his friends in Leghorn he becameenthusiastic, and began to discuss the town and its notabilities. Whatdid I think of the English parson? And whether I did not think thatseeing the small English congregation the church ought not to be removedto some town with a larger English colony. It was absurd to keep aparson there for half a dozen people.
And while my sharp eyes were busy examining the photographs set amongvases of fresh-cut flowers, I made replies and sometimes laughed at hiswitty criticisms of persons known to both of us in "the Brighton ofItaly."
"What a contrast is the quiet rural life here, with all its old-worldEnglish tranquillity, to that of the gay, garish, sun-blanched_passeggiata_ of Leghorn, with its bright-eyed women, its oleanders, itsnoise, movement, the glare and strident music of the _cafe-chantants_,and the brightness of the newly discovered spa," I said.
He sighed, pursing his lips.
"Yes, Mr Leaf, you are quite right," he answered. "I love Italy, but Iconfess I very often long to be back here at Studland, in my own quietold home. Lucie is always begging me to forsake the Continent andreturn. But it is impossible--utterly impossible."
"Why impossible?" I asked, looking into his deeply furrowed face.
"Well--there is a reason," was his response. "A strong reason, one ofhealth, which induces--nay, compels me to live abroad. And I greatlyprefer Italy to any other country."
Little did he dream that I had that secret document of the ItalianDetective Department in my possession, or that I had learnt the truthfrom my friend Sampson, the friend of the young Chilian Carrera.
We were chatting on, having halted at the open window which lookedacross the old-fashioned garden with its rose arbours, moss-grownterrace and grey weather-beaten sundial, away to the park beyond, when Isuddenly crossed to another table, whereon were other photographs.
One of them I thought I recognised even in the distance.
Yes! I was not mistaken! I took it in my trembling hand with a word ofapology, and looked into the picture intently. Sight of it staggeredme.
"Who is this?" I asked hoarsely, and my host must, I think, havenoticed the great change in my countenance.
"A friend of my daughter's, I think. Do you know her?"
"I knew her," I replied in a hard, low tone, for sight of that smilingface brought back to me all the bitter remembrance of a part that Iwould have fain forgotten. "It is Ella Murray!"
"Ah!--yes, that's her name. I recollect now," he said; a
nd I saw by hisface that he was interested. "I think they were at school together."
Again I looked upon the portrait of my dear dead love, my eyesfascinated, for I beheld there, at her throat, the small brooch I hadgiven her on her birthday, a green enamelled heart with two hearts indiamonds entwined upon it.
Those sweet, wide-open eyes, clear blue and wondering like a child's,gazed out upon me; her well-formed lips were slightly parted, as thoughshe were speaking again, uttering those soft words that had so charmedme when she was mine, and mine only. I recollected the dress, too, oneshe had worn one night at dinner at the big country-house where we hadbeen fellow-guests. Every feature of that