.

"I give you no reply, because I can't," he said in Italian. "Armida--my
poor Armida--has left home."

"Why did you tell me such a tale of distress regarding her?"

"As I have already explained, signore, I was not then master of my own
actions. I was ruled by others. But I saved your life at risk of my own.
Some day, when it is safe, I will reveal to you everything."

"Let us allow the past to remain," I said. "Where is your wife now?"

He hesitated a moment, looking straight into my face.

"Well, Signor Commendatore, to tell the truth, she has disappeared."

"Disappeared!" I echoed. "And have you not made any report to the
police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"For reasons known only to myself I did not wish the police to pry into
my private affairs."

"I know. Because you were once convicted at Lucca of using a knife--eh?
I recollect quite well that affair--a love affair, was it not?"

"Yes, Signor Commendatore. But I was a youth then--a mere boy."

"Then tell me the circumstances In which Armida has disappeared," I
urged, for I saw quite plainly that his sudden meeting with me had upset
him, and that he was trying to hold back from me some story which he was
bursting to tell.

"Well, signore," he said at last in a low tone of confidence, "I don't
like to trouble you with my private affairs after those untruths I told
you when we last met."

"Go on," I said. "Tell me the truth."

After the exciting incidents of our last meeting, I was half inclined
to doubt him.

"The truth is, Signor Commendatore, that my wife has mysteriously
disappeared. Last Saturday, at eleven o'clock, she was talking over the
garden wall with a neighbor and was then dressed to go out. She
apparently went out, but from that moment no one has seen or heard of
her."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him the ghastly truth, yet so
strange was the circumstance that his own double, even to the mole upon
his face, should be lying dead and buried in Scotland that I hesitated
to relate what I knew.

"She spoke English, I suppose?"

"She could make herself understood very well," he said with a sigh, and
I saw a heavy, thoughtful look upon his brow. That he was really devoted
to her, I knew. With the Italian of whatever station in life, love is
all-consuming--it is either perfect love or genuine hatred. The Tuscan
character is one of two extremes.

I glanced across the road, and saw that the detective who had ordered
his chop and