le to
see her. So I hear them talking a great deal, and he seems to have found
out a great many things about your stepfather which nobody ever knew. He
takes an extraordinary interest in him for some reason or other."

"What has he found out?" asked Marcello.

"Enough to hang him, if people could be hanged in Italy," Aurora
answered.

"I should have thought Folco too clever to do anything really against
the law," said Marcello, who did not seem much surprised at what she
said.

"The Professor believes that it was he that tried to kill you."

"How is that possible?" Marcello asked, in great astonishment. "You
would have seen him!"

"I did. You had not been gone three minutes when he came round to the
gap in the bank where I was standing. He came from the side towards
which I had seen you go. It was perfectly impossible that he should not
have met you. The Professor says he must have known that you were there,
looking at the storm, but that he did not know that I was with you, and
that he was lying in wait for you to strike you from behind. If we had
gone back together he would not have shown himself, that's all, and he
would have waited for a better chance. If I had only followed you I
should have seen what happened."

"That is the trouble," said Marcello thoughtfully. "No one ever saw what
happened, and I remember nothing but that I fell forward, feeling that I
had been struck on the back of the head. Did you not hear any sound?"

"How could I, in such a gale as was blowing? It all looks dreadfully
likely and quite possible, and the Professor is convinced that your
stepfather has done some worse things."

"Worse?"

"Yes, because he did not fail in doing them, as he did when he tried to
kill you."

"But what must such a man be?" cried Marcello, suddenly breaking out in
anger. "What must his life have been in all the years before my mother
married him?"

"He was a kind of adventurer in South America. I don't quite know what
he did there, but Professor Kalmon has found out a great deal about him
from the Argentine Republic, where he lived until he killed somebody and
had to escape to Europe. If I were you I would go and see the Professor,
since he is in Rome. He lives at No. 16, Via Sicilia. He will tell you a
great deal about that man when he knows that you have parted for good."

"I'll go and see him. Thank you. I cannot imagine that he could tell me
anything worse than I have already heard."

"Perhaps