Can't say I do. I could give a pretty fair guess, though, if you asked
me."

"Could you take me to him?"

"Take you to him!" exclaimed the young man, starting.

"Can you find the way? Where is it?"

"I've been there often enough," said Rupert.

"What place is it?"

"The queerest place you ever saw. Do you recollect Mr. St. Leger
telling us once about wine-shops in Venice? You and he were talking"----

"Yes, yes, I remember. Is it one of those? Not a cafe?"

"Not a cafe at all; neither a cafe nor a trattoria. Just a wine-shop.
Nothing in it but wine casks, and the mugs or jugs of white and blue
crockery that they draw the wine into; it's the most ridiculous place
altogether I ever was in. I haven't been in it now, that's a fact."

"What were you there for so often, then?"

"Well," said Rupert, "I was looking after things."

"Drink wine and eat nothing!" said Dolly again. "Are there many people
there?"

"Well, you can eat if you have a mind to; there are folks enough to
sell you things; though they don't belong to the establishment. They
come in from the street, with ever so many sorts of things, directly
they see a customer sit down; fish and oysters, and cakes and fruit.
But the shop sells nothing but wine. Mr. St. Leger says that is good."

"Not many people there?" Dolly asked again.

"No; not unless at a busy time. There won't be many there now, I guess."

"What makes you think my father is there?"

"I've seen him there pretty often," Rupert said in a low voice.

Dolly stood some minutes silent, thinking, and struggling with herself.
When she turned to Rupert at the end of those minutes, her air was
quite composed and her voice was clear and calm.

"Can you take me there, Rupert? Can you find the way?"

"I know it as well as the way to my mouth. You see, I didn't know but
maybe--I couldn't tell what you might take a notion to want me to do;
so I just practised, till I had got the ins and outs of the thing. And
there are a good many ins and outs, I can tell you. But I know them."

"Then we will go," said Dolly. "I'll be ready in two minutes."

It was a brilliant moonlight night, as I said. Venice, the bride of the
Adriatic, lay as if robed in silver for her wedding. The air was soft,
late as the time of year was; Dolly had no need of any but a light wrap
to protect her in her midnight expedition. Rupert called a gondola, and
presently they were gliding along, as still as ghosts, under the shadow