her again here, so near to
me, it is exceedingly amazing, Jenny. Can you say positively,
without a shadow of doubt, that the melancholy figure was not a
figment of your imagination, or some stranger who resembled Robert?"

"I wish to Heaven I could, Uncle Albert. But I am positive."

"The very fact that he appeared exactly as you saw him last--in the
big tweed suit and red waistcoat--would support an argument in
favour of hallucination," declared her uncle. "For how on earth can
the poor creature, if he be really still alive, have remained in
those clothes for a year and travelled half across Europe in them?"

"It is monstrous. And yet there he stood and I saw him as clearly as
I see you. He was certainly not in my thoughts. I was thinking of
nothing and talking to Assunta about the silkworms, when suddenly he
appeared, not twenty yards away."

"What did you do?"

"I made a fool of myself," confessed Jenny. "Assunta says that I
cried out very loud and then toppled over and fainted. When I came
round there was nothing to be seen."

"The point is then: did Assunta see him also?"

"That was the first thing I found out. I hoped she had not. That
would have saved the situation in a way and proved it was only some
picture of the mind as you suggest. But she saw him clearly
enough--so clearly that she described a red man not Italian, but
English or German. She heard him, too. When I cried out he leaped
away into the woods."

"Did he see and recognize you?"

"That I do not know. Probably he did."

Mr. Redmayne lighted a cigar which he took from a box on a little
table by the open hearth. He drew several deep breaths before he
spoke again.

"This is a very disquieting circumstance and I greatly wish it had
not happened," he said. "There may be no cause for alarm; but, on
the other hand, when we consider the disappearance of my brother
Bendigo, I have a right to feel fear. By some miracle, Robert, for
the last six months, has continued to evade capture and conceal the
fact of his insanity. That means I am now faced with a most
formidable danger, Jenny, and it behooves me to exercise the
greatest possible care of my person. You, too, for all we can say,
may be in peril."

"I may be," she said. "But you matter more. We must do something
swiftly, uncle--to-day--this very hour."

"Yes," he admitted. "We are painfully challenged by Providence, my
child. Heaven helps those who help themselves, however. I have never
b