he was profoundly affected. He grew paler and thinner every day,
until his own man even began to fear that his health was failing. He had
done, and continued to do, everything that was humanly possible. He had
brought his wife's body to Rome, and had summoned the very highest
authorities in the medical profession to discover, if possible, the
cause of her death. They had come, old men of science, full of the
experience of years, young men of the future, brimming with theories,
experts in chemistry, experts in snake poisons; for Folco had even
suggested that she might have been bitten by a viper or stung by a
venomous spider, or accidentally poisoned by some medicine or something
she had eaten.

But the scientific gentlemen were soon agreed that no such thing had
happened. Considerably disappointed, and with an unanimity which is so
unusual in the confraternity as to be thought absolutely conclusive when
it is observed, they decided that the Signora Corbario had died of
collapse after intense excitement caused by the disappearance of her
son. Thereafter she was buried out at San Lorenzo, with the secret, if
there were any; masses were said, the verdict of the doctors was
published, with the signatures of the most eminent practitioners and
specialists in Italy; and the interest of the public concentrated itself
upon the problem of Marcello's mysterious removal, or abduction, or
subduction, or recession, or flight, from the very bosom of his family.

This problem had the merit of defying solution. In a comparatively open
country, within a space of time which could certainly be limited to five
minutes, at a place whence he should have been clearly seen by Folco
Corbario as soon as Aurora dell' Armi could no longer see him, the boy
had been spirited away, leaving not even the trace of his footsteps in
the sand. It was one of the most unaccountable disappearances on record,
as Folco insisted in his conversations with the Chief of Police, who
went down with him to the cottage and examined the spot most carefully,
with several expert detectives. Folco showed him exactly where Aurora
had stood, and precisely the direction he himself had followed in
approaching the gap, and he declared it to be almost a physical
impossibility that Marcello should have become suddenly invisible just
then.

The official thought so too, and shook his head. He looked at the
detectives, and they shook their heads, also. And then they all looked
at