that it was the
haunting of the _Gagliarda_ that had made him so.

We stood there I believe for half an hour without speech or motion, and
all the time that sad figure at the end of the gallery continued its
performance. Suddenly he stopped, and an expression of frantic despair
came over his face as he laid down the violin and buried his head in his
hands. I could bear it no longer. "Constance," I said, "come back to
bed. We can do nothing," So we turned and crept away silently as we had
come. Only as we crossed the landing Constance stopped, and looked back
for a minute with a heart-broken yearning at the man she loved. He had
taken his hands from his head, and she saw the profile of his face clear
cut and hard in the white moonlight.

It was the last time her eyes ever looked upon it.

She made for a moment as if she would turn back and go to him, but her
courage failed her, and we went on. Before we reached her room we heard
in the distance, faintly but distinctly, the burden of the _Gagliarda_.

CHAPTER XII

The next morning, my maid brought me a hurried note written in pencil by
my brother. It contained only a few lines, saying that he found that his
continued sojourn at Royston was not beneficial to his health, and had
determined to return to Italy. If we wished to write, letters would
reach him at the Villa de Angelis: his valet Parnham was to follow him
thither with his baggage as soon as it could be got together. This was
all; there was no word of adieu even to his wife.

We found that he had never gone to bed that night. But in the early
morning he had himself saddled his horse _Sentinel_ and ridden in to
Derby, taking the early mail thence to London. His resolve to leave
Royston had apparently been arrived at very suddenly, for so far as we
could discover, he had carried no luggage of any kind. I could not help
looking somewhat carefully round his room to see if he had taken the
Stradivarius violin. No trace of it or even of its case was to be seen,
though it was difficult to imagine how he could have carried it with him
on horseback. There was, indeed, a locked travelling-trunk which Parnham
was to bring with him later, and the instrument might, of course, have
been in that; but I felt convinced that he had actually taken it with
him in some way or other, and this proved afterwards to have been the
case.

I shall draw a veil, my dear Edward, over the events which immediately
followed your fat