addle wheels, as the white steamers came and went.

* * * * *

Doria returned for a while during the afternoon, and Jenny told him
that her uncle was better but still thought it wise to keep his
room. Her husband appeared to have recovered his good temper. He
drank wine, ate fruit and addressed most of his conversation to
Brendon, who spoke with him in the dining-room for a while.

"When you and Mr. Ganns are weary of hunting this red shadow, I hope
you will come and see me at Turin," he said. "And perhaps you will
also be able to convince Jenny that my suggestions are reasonable.
What is money for? She has twenty thousand pounds upon her hands and
I, her husband, offer such an investment as falls to the chance of
few capitalists. You shall come and see what my friends and I are
doing at Turin. Then you will make her think better of my sense!"

"A new motor car, you told me?" asked Mark.

"Yes--a car that will be to all other cars as an ocean 'liner' to
Noah's Ark. Millions are staring us in the face. Yet we languish for
the modest thousands to launch us. The little dogs find the hare;
the big dogs hold him."

Jenny said nothing. Then Doria turned to her and bade her pack his
clothes.

"I cannot stop here," he said when she had gone. "This is no life
for a man. Jenny will probably remain with her uncle. She is fed up,
as you say, with me. I am very unfortunate, Marco, for I have not in
the least deserved to lose her affection. However, if a new
inamorato fills her thoughts, it is idle for me to yelp. Jealousy is
a fool's failing. But I must work or I shall be wicked!"

He departed and Brendon joined Albert Redmayne, to find the old man
had grown uneasy and fearful.

"I am not happy, Brendon," he said. "There is coming into my mind a
cloud--a premonition that very dreadful disasters are going to
happen to those I love. When does Ganns return?"

"Soon after dark, Mr. Redmayne. Perhaps about nine o'clock we may
expect him. Be patient a little longer."

"It has not happened to me to feel as I do to-day," answered the
book lover. "A sense of ill darkens my mind--a suspicion of
finality, and Jenny shares it. Something is amiss. She has a
presentiment that it is so. It may be, as she suspects, that my
second self is not happy either. Virgilio and I are as twins. We
have become strangely and psychologically linked together. I am sure
that he is uneasy on my account at this moment. I