twenty minutes their one-horse vehicle had reached Mr.
Redmayne's modest home and they found three persons just about to
take an evening meal. Simultaneously there appeared Mr. Redmayne,
his niece, and Giuseppe Doria; and while Albert, Italian fashion,
embraced Mr. Ganns and planted a kiss upon his cheek, Jenny greeted
Mark Brendon and he looked once more into her eyes.

There had come new experiences to her and they did not fail of the
man's observation. She smiled indeed and flushed and proclaimed her
wonder and admiration at the speed which had brought him across
Europe to her uncle's succour; but even in her animation and
excitement the new expression persisted. It set Mark's heart
throbbing vigorously and told him that perchance he might yet be
useful to her. For there hung a shadow of melancholy on Jenny's face
her smiles could not dispel.

Doria held back a little while his wife welcomed her uncle's friend;
then he came forward, declared his pleasure at meeting Mark again
and his belief that time would soon reveal the truth and set a
period to the sinister story of the wanderer.

Mr. Redmayne was overjoyed at seeing Ganns and quite forgot the
object of his visit in the pleasure of receiving him.

"It has been my last and abiding ambition to introduce you to
Virgilio Poggi, dear Peter, so that you, he and I may sit together,
hear each other's voices and look into each other's eyes. And now
this will happen. Thus the unhappy spirit who wanders upon the hills
has unconsciously accomplished a beautiful thing."

Jenny and Assunta, had hastily prepared for the visitors and now all
sat at supper and Brendon learned how rooms were already taken for
him and Mr. Ganns at the Hotel Victoria.

"That's as may be," he declared to Doria's wife. "You will find, I
think, that Mr. Ganns is going to stop here. He takes the lead in
this affair. Indeed there was no great reason why I should have
intruded again, where I have failed so often."

Jenny looked at him softly.

"I am very thankful you have come," she said--in a whisper for his
ear alone.

"Then I am very thankful too," he replied.

After a cheerful meal Peter absolutely declined to cross Como and
visit Signor Poggi on the instant.

"I've had enough of your lakes for one day, Albert," he announced,
"and I want to talk business and get a rough, general idea of what
more is known than Mark and I already know. Now what has happened
since you wrote, Mrs. Doria?"