xpress dislike of it.
Whereupon my friend promised to find me another.

Day after day I waited in Florence, hoping against hope that Robertson
would be able to furnish me with Miss Thurston's address. But though I
saw him several times he reported that the drawer containing the
address book was still locked.

Mr. De Gex had gone to Rome, and was away for three days. The British
Ambassador was giving some official function and the millionaire had
been invited. Indeed, I read all about it in the _Nazione_.

On the fourth day he returned, for I saw him in his big yellow car
driving along the Via Calzajoli. An elegant Italian, the young
Marchese Cerretani, was seated at his side, and both were laughing
together.

Twice I had been up to the Villa Clementini, and wandered around its
high white walls which hid the beautiful gardens from the public gaze.
Surely there was no fairer spot in all sunny Italy than that chosen by
the rich man as his abode. To the hundreds of visitors of all nations,
who came up by train to Fiesole from Florence to lunch or dine at the
various pleasant little restaurants, the great imposing place was
pointed out as the residence of the rich "Inglese"--the man who
possessed more money than any of the most wealthy in the kingdom of
Italy.

When I thought of that fateful night in Stretton Street, I waxed
furious. Was it possible, that, by the possession of great riches, a
man could commit crime with impunity? Perhaps what goaded me to
desperation more than anything was the foul trick that had been played
upon me--the administration of that drug which had caused me to lose
all sense of my own being.

That subtle odour of _pot-pourri_ had gripped me until I felt faint
and inert beneath its perfume, and it often returned to me--but in
fancy, of course.

In the winter sunshine I wandered about the busy, old-world streets of
Florence, idling in the cafes, gazing into the many shop-windows of
the dealers in faked pictures and faked antiques, while often my
wandering footsteps led me into one or other of the "sights" of the
city, all of which I had visited before--the National Museum at the
Bargello, the Laurenziana Library, with its rows of priceless chained
manuscripts, the Chiostro dello Scalzo, where Andrea del Sarto's
wonderful frescoes adorn the walls, or into the Palazzo Vecchio, or
the galleries of the Pitti, or the Uffizi. I was merely killing time
in the faint hope that the good-natured Robe