as a little uneasy. He looked steadfastly at his visitor
for a moment, however, and seemed to regain his composure.

"I have neither," he answered sorrowfully. "The friends of former days
are silent; they have forgotten me."

"You have lived in England for long, then?"

"Since I was a boy, sir."

"And you are content?"

The Professor shrugged his shoulders and looked round. The gesture was
significant.

"Scarcely so," he answered. "But what would you have? May I now ask you
a question, sir?" he continued.

"Yes."

"Your name?"

His visitor looked around him mournfully.

"The day for secrecy is past, I suppose," he said sadly. "I am the Count
Leonardo di Marioni."

"What!" shrieked the Professor.

"Count Leonardo di Marioni--that is my name. I am better known as Signor
di Cortegi, perhaps, in the history of our society."

"My God!"

If a thunderbolt had burst through the ceiling of the little sitting
room, the Professor could not have been more agitated. He had sunk down
upon a chair, pale and shaking all over with the effect of the surprise.

"He was a young man?" he faltered.

His visitor sighed.

"It was five-and-twenty years ago," he answered slowly. "Five-and-twenty
years rotting in a Roman prison. That has been my fate. I was a young
man then. You see me now."

He held up his arms, and let them drop again heavily to his side. It was
a gesture full of sad dramatic pathos, but in that little room there was
no one to observe it, no one to pity him for those white hairs and
deep-drawn lines. But that was nothing. It was not pity that he wanted.

There was silence. Both men were absorbed in their own thoughts. Signor
Bartlezzi was thunderstruck and completely unnerved. The perspiration
stood out upon his forehead, and he could feel his hands and legs
shaking. This was a terrible and altogether unexpected blow to him. It
was not the thought of that twenty-five years' lonely captivity which
was oppressing him, so much as the fact that it was over--that the day
of release had come, and that it was indeed Count Marioni who stood
before him, alive and a free man. That was the serious part of it. Had
it not been proclaimed that the imprisonment was for life? That had
certainly been the sentence. A gleam of hope flashed in upon him.
Perhaps he had escaped from prison. If so, the sooner he was back there
the better.

"Was not the sentence for life?" he gasped.

The Count assented, shaking his head s