heavens, and the manifold suggestions of the towers of Dante's city,
and the neighbourhood of Savonarola's cell, affect the imagination and
call up comparisons by far too mighty. Edmund Grosse's weariness of evil
is nothing but a sickly shadow of the weariness of the great imprisoned
soul to whom an angel cried to take up and read aright the book of life.
Grosse is in fact only a middle-aged man in pajamas with a travelling
rug about his shoulders, with a sallow face, a sickly body, and a rather
shallow soul. He will not go quite straight even in his love quest, and
he cannot bring himself to believe how strongly that love has hold of
him. He is cynical about the best part of himself and to-night only
wishes that it would trouble him less.

"Damn it," he muttered at last, "I wish I had slept indoors--I am bored
to death by those stars!"

Next day Grosse set about the work for which he had come to Florence. He
called on two men whom he knew slightly, and found them at home, but
neither of them had ever heard of Madame Danterre. Dawkins, his
much-travelled servant, of course, was more successful, and by the
evening was able to take Edmund in a carriage to see some fine old iron
gates, and to drive round some enormous brick walls--enormous in height
and in thickness.

The Villa was in a magnificent position, and the gardens, Dawkins told
his master, were said to be beautiful. Madame Danterre had only just
moved into it from a much smaller house in the same quarter.

Edmund next drove to the nearest chemist, and there found out that Dr.
Larrone was the name of Madame Danterre's medical man. He already knew
the name of her lawyer from Mr. Murray, who had been in perfunctory
communication with him during the years in which Sir David had paid a
large allowance to Madame Danterre. But he knew that any direct attempt
to see these men would probably be worse than useless. What he wished to
do was to come across Madame Danterre socially, and with all the
appearance of an accidental meeting. His two friends in Florence did
their best for him, but they were before long driven to recommend
Pietrino, a well-known detective, as the only person who could find out
for Grosse in what houses it might be possible to meet Madame Danterre.

Grosse soon recognised the remarkable gifts of the Italian detective,
and confided to him the whole case in all its apparent hopelessness.
There was, indeed, a touch of kindred feeling between them, f