that handsome, happy, self-
confident face had once belonged to Mr Vanburgh himself; it was his own
portrait at which she looked. Nan wheeled round to the servant with an
agitated question:

"It is himself! But why is he here? They are dead, these others, but
he--"

"He also is dead, signorina," the man replied, and bent his head as if
in obeisance before the picture. "He died with those he loved.
Something lived on, perhaps, but not my master. He lies buried with
them--his wife--his son--his daughter. All that he had. Ah, what a
tragedy! One day all happiness and love; the next it is done, it is
over, his heart is broken! We were out yachting together, and my master
and I have gone on shore on business--to make purchases, to buy
provisions. We should join them again next day; and meantime they went
a little cruise to pass the time--an excursion to a bay which the
signora wished to visit. It was all calm when they started, but those
are treacherous seas; a squall sprang up, and they were driven on the
rocks. The gale lasted two days, and at the end pieces of wood were
washed ashore from the wreck. There was nothing else--no, nothing! We
were like madmen both, searching about, and waiting, always waiting,
year after year. ... They might have been picked up, and landed at some
far-away port; they might for a time have lost their minds and been
unable to remember. Such things have been; and why not again? But at
last hope died away, and strength with it. He took no rest, no care for
himself, and so the illness came which ends as you see. Then I took him
away, for the living must come before the dead, and I had my duty to him
to remember. We have wandered over the world, signorina, in search of
health and peace, but they come not with money. Everything else,"--he
waved his hand round the exquisite room, with its paintings, its
carvings, its china, its treasures of ancient art--"everything else, but
not these. So at last we came home, to rest--and die!"

Nan trembled and was silent. She had no words in which to express her
passion of pity, but the Italian understood, with the quick insight of
his race, and flashed a grateful glance upon her.

"It is not every one to whom he shows these pictures. They are covered
with a curtain, so that they are hidden from the stranger; but every
morning we come together, he and I, and put fresh flowers. It is a
great sign of his favour to the signorina that he