over the great features of Peter.

He nodded and Mark proceeded to tell his story, beginning with the
adventure on the mountain. He omitted no detail and described his
talk with Doria, the latter's departure to join Jenny on their
expedition to Colico, and his own subsequent surprise and escape
from death. He told how he had been fired at and fallen, hoping to
tempt the other to him, how his assailant had disappeared, and how,
at a late hour, he had planned a dummy and seen Giuseppe Doria
arrive to bury him.

He narrated how Giuseppe and Robert Redmayne had departed after
their disappointment, how he had decided to give Giuseppe an account
of the adventure, in order that he might not guess that his share in
it was known; and he told how, on the morrow, the Dorias and himself
had returned to the spot and found the empty grave with foot-marks
of native boots about the margin. He added that Jenny, four days
later, had reported a glimpse of a man whom she believed to be her
uncle; but it was dark at the time and she could not be positive,
though she felt morally sure of him. He was standing two hundred
yards from the Villa Pianezzo in a lane from the hills and had
turned and hastened away as she approached.

To this statement Peter listened with the deepest attention and he
did not disguise his satisfaction when Mark made an end.

"I'm mighty glad for two things," he said. "First that you're in the
land of the living, my son, and that a certain bullet passed your
ear instead of stopping in that fine forehead of yours; and I'm glad
to know what you've told me, because it fits in tolerably well and
strengthens an argument you'll hear later. Your little trap was
quite smart, though I should have worked it a bit different myself.
However, you did a very clever thing, and to take Doria into your
confidence afterward was up to our best traditions. Your opinion of
him needn't detain us now. There only remains to hear what you may
have to say on the subject of his pretty dame."

"My opinion of a very wonderful and brave woman remains unchanged,"
Brendon answered. "She is the victim of a hateful union and for her
the situation must get worse, I fear, before it can get better. She
is as straight as a line, Ganns; but of course she knows well enough
that her husband's a rascal.

"Needless to say I haven't dropped her a hint of the truth; but
while she is loyal in a sense and very careful, on her side, to
leave her sufferings o