English, touched his cap. "Yes, Madam, I know where the
place is. And everything is in order."

As a last thought, Vanno went to the beggar and put two gold pieces into
his knotted hand. The little man's red-rimmed eyes glittered with joyful
astonishment. He bit first one coin, then the other.

* * * * * * *

Peter had expected Jim in the afternoon, but Rose promised to telephone.

Neither the girl nor Vanno thought of lunching. They went on without a
pause except for the formalities at the Italian frontier, and it was
early in the afternoon when the car slowed down before the closed gates
of the Chateau Lontana. The chauffeur got out and tried to open them,
but they were locked. He turned to the Prince for instructions. "What
are we to do, sir? There is no bell." His tone was plaintive, for he was
hungry and consequently irritable.

Vanno jumped out and tried the gates in vain. The chauffeur looked at
the ground to hide his pleasure in the gentleman's failure. Peter peered
from the car anxiously. "Perhaps Mary didn't come here after all, or
else she's gone away," the girl suggested. "It would have meant a horrid
delay, trying to find the cabman who drove her from Monte Carlo, but
after all it might have been better."

Vanno was ungallant enough not to answer. He was hardly conscious that
Peter was speaking. The iron gates, set between tall stone posts, were
very high. On the other side an ill-kept road overgrown with bunches of
rough grass wound up the cypress and olive clad hill. At the very top
stood the house which somewhat pretentiously named itself a chateau. It
was built of the beautiful mottled stone of the country, brown and gray,
veined and splashed with green, purple, yellow, and rose pink. There
were two square towers and several large balconies and terraces with
windows looking out upon them; but the windows in sight were closed and
shuttered. The thick flowering creepers which almost covered the walls
as high as the windows of the second story--roses, bougainvillea,
plumbago, and convolvulus--were tangled and matted together, great
branches trailing over the shut eyes of the windows. Cypresses and
olives were untrimmed, and there was a straggling wilderness of orange
trees. The place had a sad yet poetic look of having been forgotten by
the world.

Vanno knew little of its history, except that an elderly French woman,
a great actress long before his