sky and faded into the
night.

All this was about a pack of cards. She had promised to lend the cards
to a neighbour that evening; her husband was to have brought them home
early in the day; he had forgotten to do so and she had come to fetch
them. So there was no murder and no dirty linen, but the cabin had to be
tidied.

What would this woman do had she the motive and the cue for passion that
I had supposed for her? If her husband ever does entertain another lady
in his cabin and his wife hears of it, I hope I may not be in the
neighbourhood. But if I were to be there and to witness the crime,
omerta would forbid me, as a good Sicilian, to say anything about it. I
should have to forget the claims of justice and go to prison, if
necessary, rather than give such information as might lead to the
conviction of the person or persons guilty.

Lastly, there was the lady in the restaurant-car--but perhaps she ought
not to be included in the list. Let her have the benefit of the doubt
and a chapter to herself.

CASTELLINARIA

CHAPTER XV
THE CARDINALESSA

One day, as I was travelling through the island by rail, I lunched in the
restaurant-car and divided my attention between the colazione, the view
and the other lunchers.

At the table in front of me sat three gentlemen; beyond them, at a
separate table, sat a distinguished-looking lady, quietly but well
dressed in foamy white musliny stuff, with a good deal of lace and a few
touches of pale green. She had a lovely hat and a veil, which she wore
in such a way that I thought how well she would look in a motor-car. She
did not appear to be much over thirty, and she was alone except that she
had a little dog, whom she fed from her plate and who was evidently very
fond of her. She was not strictly beautiful, her face depended for its
charm more on its expression than on the regularity of its features, but
there was about her a certain indescribable combination of dignity and
vivacity that was curiously attractive, and that soon attracted the three
gentlemen, who, I presently became aware, had entered into conversation
with her. Possibly they had asked the waiter to introduce them while I
was looking out of the window. Certainly they cannot have met her
before, because I heard them ask her her nationality, and she told them
that her father was an Italian, a native of Rome, and that her mother was
French. And where was she going? To some place whose n