o meant
distrusting her husband.

He considered now his own course of action and presently proceeded
to the region in which Robert Redmayne had been most frequently
reported. Certain appearances were chronicled and, before Ganns
returned to England, the theory had been accepted that the fugitive
hid and dwelt aloft in some fastness with the charcoal burners. Now
Brendon felt the need to probe this opinion and determined, if
possible, to find the lair of the red man.

Not single-handed did he expect to do so. His purpose henceforth was
to watch Doria unseen and so discover whom he served. Thus he would
kill two birds with one stone and simplify action for Peter Ganns
when he returned.

Brendon climbed steadily upward and presently sat down to rest upon
a little, lofty plateau where, in the mountain scrub, grew lilies
of the valley and white sun-rose. Idly he sat and smoked, marked the
steamers creep, like waterman beetles, upon the shiny surface of the
lake stretched far below, watched a brown fox sunning itself on a
stone and then plucked a bunch of the fragrant valley lilies to take
to Jenny that night when he came to sup at the Villa Pianezzo. But
the blossoms never reached the hand of Mrs. Doria.

Suddenly, as he rose from this innocent pastime, Mark became aware
that he was watched and found himself face to face with the object
of his search. Robert Redmayne stood separated from him by a
distance of thirty yards behind the boughs of a breast-high shrub.
He stood bare-headed, peering over the thicket, and the sun shone
upon his fiery red scalp and tawny mustache. There could be no
mistaking the man, and Brendon, rejoicing that daylight would now
enable him to come to grips at last, flung down his bouquet and
leaped straight for the other.

But it appeared that the watcher desired no closer contact. He
turned and ran, heading upward for a wild tract of stone and scrub
that spread beneath the last precipices of the mountain. Straight at
this cliff, as though familiar with some secret channel of escape,
the red man ran and made surprising speed. But Mark found himself
gaining. He strove to run the other down as speedily as possible,
that he might close, with strength still sufficient to win the
inevitable battle that must follow, end effect a capture.

He was disappointed, however, for while still twenty yards behind
and forced to make only a moderate progress over the rocky way he
saw Robert Redmayne suddenly