t hope to extort any
information from Macomer or his wife, and he had no means of reaching
Veronica, nor could he have asked direct questions if he had succeeded
in seeing her.

Suddenly, he thought of the young Princess Corleone, whom he knew
tolerably well, Corleone being a Sicilian like himself. She was
Veronica's only intimate friend. She was the niece of Cardinal
Campodonico, one of Veronica's guardians. If any one knew the truth, she
might be expected to know it.

Taquisara looked at his watch, lit a cigar, and left the gloomy Palazzo
Macomer, glad to be outside and to turn his face to the sunshine, and
his back upon all the wickedness of which its old walls kept the
secret.

CHAPTER IV.

The villas along the shore towards Posilippo face the sun all day in
winter, for they look due south from the water's edge, and their marble
steps lead down into the tideless sea, as though it were a landlocked
lagoon or a Swiss lake. In winter the roses blossom amongst the laurels,
and before the rose leaves are all fallen the violets peep out in the
borders; the broad, fan-like palms stand unsheltered in the south wind,
and the oranges and lemons are left hanging on the trees for beauty's
sake. There are but two changes in the year, from spring to summer, and
from summer back to spring.

It is sometimes cold in Naples, high up in the city, when the northeast
wind comes screaming from the snowy Abruzzi, and when Vesuvius is clad
in white almost to the lower villages. In Naples it is sometimes dreary
when the water-laden southwest sends up its mountains of black clouds.
But somehow in soft Posilippo the wind is tempered and the rain seems
but a shower, and spring and summer, summer and spring, ever join hands
amongst the ilexes and the laurels and the orange trees.

On this day it was all summer, for there was not a cloud in the air nor
a whitecap on the sea as the water gently lapped against the steps at
the foot of Bianca Corleone's garden. It was so warm that she was
sitting there herself, a book unread on her knees, her marvellous face
towards the day, her small feet resting on the lower rail of another
chair before her, just because the gravel might possibly be damp.

Beside her, and turned towards her, looking earnestly to her averted
eyes, sat Pietro Ghisleri, the man who many years afterwards married
Lady Herbert Arden, of whom many have heard,--a man young at that time
and not world-worn as he was later,