ad left the platform. Then I ventured
after them in a fly, and having seen them all enter a hotel together, I
made a note of its name and position in my mind, and took a little drive
into the country before returning. When I got back and procured rooms,
my heart leaped as I signed the visitors' book, for at the top of the
page on which I wrote I saw the names of Lady Rollinson, Miss Rossano
and maid. It cost me an effort to put the question with untroubled face
and voice, but I asked the servant who conducted me to my room if Miss
Rossano were still staying in the house. He answered uninterestedly that
he did not know the lady. But when I mentioned her as Lady Rollinson's
companion, he recalled her to mind.

"No, sir," he said; "the lady stayed in the house the night before
last, but she went away with her maid yesterday morning."

As to when she would return, or as to the direction she had taken at the
time of her departure, he could tell me nothing. And so, as fate would
have it, I was left in the ignorance and uncertainty which had perplexed
me from the first. A minute's interview with Violet would, of course,
have put an end to the danger of the situation, but in her absence I
felt as powerless here as I had been in London. I was on the scene of
action, but so long as Lady Rollinson retained her absurd suspicions,
I could not approach the actors and actresses in the scene of tragedy
which grew every moment more threatening and more imminent.

Hinge was so far in my confidence already that I had not much difficulty
in laying before him all my hopes and fears. I wrote an urgent note to
Lady Rollinson, and sent it by his hand, instructing him to deliver it
to her ladyship personally. I read it over to him when it was completed,
and at the end of every sentence he nodded assent to it.

"Dear Lady Rollinson," I wrote, "you have engaged to pay into the hands
of Signor Roncivalli a sum of forty thousand pounds, to be handed to
Count Rossano. Before you do this I beseech you solemnly to give me a
moment's interview. The payment of that money will result in the count's
betrayal to the Austrians. You know what he has suffered already, and
you know how little mercy he can look for at their hands if they should
once more succeed in getting hold of him. I beg you, for his sake, and
for the sake of Violet, whom I know you love, to give me an interview
of five minutes only. You may question the bearer of this note, who will
tel