is one; and as for the other, the
signorina carlies it in her pocket."

The sculptor had no reason to doubt the word of this respectable dame.
She appeared to be well meaning and kind hearted, as Roman matrons
generally are; except when a fit of passion incites them to shower
horrible curses on an obnoxious individual, or perhaps to stab him
with the steel stiletto that serves them for a hairpin. But Italian
asseverations of any questionable fact, however true they may chance to
be, have no witness of their truth in the faces of those who utter them.
Their words are spoken with strange earnestness, and yet do not vouch
for themselves as coming from any depth, like roots drawn out of the
substance of the soul, with some of the soil clinging to them. There is
always a something inscrutable, instead of frankness, in their eyes. In
short, they lie so much like truth, and speak truth so much as if they
were telling a lie, that their auditor suspects himself in the wrong,
whether he believes or disbelieves them; it being the one thing certain,
that falsehood is seldom an intolerable burden to the tenderest of
Italian consciences.

"It is very strange what can have become of the desk!" repeated Kenyon,
looking the woman in the face.

"Very strange, indeed, Signore," she replied meekly, without turning
away her eyes in the least, but checking his insight of them at about
half an inch below the surface. "I think the signorina must have taken
it with her."

It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon therefore departed,
after making an arrangement with the woman, by the terms of which she
was to allow the apartments to remain in their present state, on his
assuming the responsibility for the rent.

He spent the day in making such further search and investigation as he
found practicable; and, though at first trammelled by an unwillingness
to draw public attention to Hilda's affairs, the urgency of the
circumstances soon compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the
course of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of fathoming the
mystery, not merely by his personal efforts and those of his brother
artists and friends, but through the police, who readily undertook the
task, and expressed strong confidence of success. But the Roman police
has very little efficiency, except in the interest of the despotism of
which it is a tool. With their cocked hats, shoulder belts, and swords,
they wear a sufficiently imposing aspec