ould pass
before proceeding and we did not appear before her remaining uncle
for many months. Meantime we revelled in a second honeymoon,
reported our marriage to Albert Redmayne and the egregious Marco, to
whom, at Jenny's suggestion we conveyed a piece of wedding cake,
that he might the better grasp our achievement. We had not finished
yet with the pride of New Scotland Yard.

And now for Italy. It is true that in my early manhood I had
suffered a sad accident at Naples, the secret of which was known to
my mother and myself alone. I therefore entertained some grudge
against her country; but the fact at no time lessened my love for
the south; and Jenny and I had always determined that when our task
was accomplished the balance of our united life should there be
spent in dignity and peace.

CHAPTER XIX

A LEGACY FOR PETER GANNS

If at any time I entertained one shadow of regret in the execution
of those who had traduced me and so earned their destruction, it was
after we had dwelt for a season with Albert Redmayne beside Como.
The lake itself is so flagrantly sentimental and the environment so
serene and suggestive of childlike peace and good-will that I could
almost have found it in my heart to lament the innocent book lover's
taking off. But Jenny swiftly laughed me out of these emotions.

"Keep your tenderness and sentiment for me," she said. "I will not
share them."

We might have killed Albert a thousand times and left no sign--a
fact that brings me to that part of my recital I most deplore. But a
measure of delay was necessary that we might learn the market value
of his books--otherwise Virgilio Poggi would doubtless have robbed
us after the old man's death. There was a medieval history of the
Borgia family I should myself have greatly treasured under happier
circumstances.

Nevertheless, though things difficult and dangerous we had
triumphantly achieved, before this task for a child we failed; and
the reason for our collapse was not in Jenny but in me. Had I
listened to my austere partner I should have waited only until she
had searched for and found her uncle's will. This she did; and as
the instrument proved entirely satisfactory, my duty was then to
proceed about our business and remember that better an egg to-day
than a hen to-morrow. Only an artist's fond pride intervened;
nothing but my vanity, my consciousness of power to excel, upset the
rightful climax. We were, indeed, both artists, b