ou disappeared. I am seeking to bring
punishment upon those who are responsible for your present condition."

She shook her head mournfully, and a faint smile played about her
lips. But she did not reply.

"Tell me more about Mrs. Cullerton," I went on. "She was in Florence
when you were there."

"In Florence!" exclaimed the girl, as though amazed. "What could she
be doing there?"

"She was living in a furnished villa with her husband. And she went on
several visits to Mr. De Gex who lives up at Fiesole. Are you quite
sure you do not know him?" I asked. "He lives at the Villa Clementini.
Have you ever been there? Does the Villa Clementini recall anything to
you?"

She was thoughtful for a few moments, and then said:

"I seem to have heard of the villa, but in what connexion I do not
recollect."

"You are certain you do not know the owner of the villa?" I asked
again, and described him once more very minutely.

But alas! her mind seemed a perfect blank.

For what reason had Moroni come to London and taken her with him to
Florence? But for the matter of that, what could be the motive of the
whole puzzling affair--and further, whose was the body that had been
cremated?

The points I had established all combined to form an enigma which now
seemed utterly beyond solution.

The pale tragic figure before me held me incensed against those whose
victim she had been, for it seemed that for some distinct reason her
mental balance had been wantonly destroyed.

Again and again, as she sat with her hands lying idly in her lap, she
stared at the carpet and repeated to herself in a horrified voice
those strange words: "Red, green and gold!--red, green and gold!"

"Cannot you recollect about those colours?" I asked her kindly. "Try
and think about them. Where did you see them?"

She drew a long breath, and turning her tired eyes upon mine, she
replied wearily:

"I--I can't remember. I really can't remember anything!"

Sometimes her eyes were fixed straight before her just as I had seen
her in the Via Calzajoli in Florence--when I had believed her to be
blind. At such times her gaze was vacant, and she seemed to be
entirely oblivious to all about her. At others she seemed quite
normal, save that she could not recall what had occurred in those days
when she was lost to her friends--days when I, too, had been missing
and had returned to my senses with my own memory either distorted or
blotted out.

Could it be that