ng it without mental argument, he set himself to the task of
deduction.

"One would say I flattered myself by thinking that I had been born a
detective!" he remarked aloud to his favourite rose-bush, when Luciola
had emptied her news-bag for him, in the garden. "Me, a detective?
Heaven forbid! Yet at the same time, if I have brain-power to be of
service to my Principino, the saints give me wit to use it."

Then he thought very hard, sitting in his arbour, on the wooden seat
which gave a view over the whole coast, with its mountains whose feet
were promontories. Half amused, half alarmed lest the pretence were sin,
he tried to put himself in Vanno's place; and so doing it was borne in
upon his mind that something of importance must have happened between
the Prince and Miss Grant. She had been gambling all the while, though
Vanno had not at first gambled: but if they had met--if there had been a
scene which had driven the Prince to desperation--might that not explain
the change? Had she definitely proved herself unworthy, or had Vanno
openly done her some injustice, which had wrought bitterness for both?
In any case, the cure decided that he had been mistaken in the designs
of Providence for himself. After all, perhaps it had been meant for him
to meet Miss Grant, and he had been indifferent, had turned a deaf ear
to the voice which bade him try again and yet again.

He resolved to call upon the girl, not only once more, but many times if
necessary, and when there was something to report, he would have an
excuse to go and see Vanno.

All this, indirectly through Nathalie Verando's walks with the white
cows, in the olive woods of Cap Martin, and more directly through the
tarnishing of a silver frame on an old photograph.

XXII

Eve Dauntrey was in the act of opening the door as the cure of
Roquebrune put out his hand to touch the bell at the Villa Bella Vista.

Somehow it was a shock to find herself face to face with a priest, on
her own doorstep; and before she could quite control her nerves, she
broke out with a brusque, "What do you want?"

The cure looked calmly at her, his pleasant, sunburned face betraying
none of the surprise he felt at such a reception. In his modest way he
was a quick and keen observer, though he had never deliberately prided
himself on being a judge of character. It seemed to him that the
handsome, hard-eyed woman with the white face and scarlet lips was
startled at the sight of