n."

"I wonder what she is frightened of," Jean said thoughtfully, and
frowning a little. "She says 'was yours' too; I don't like that."

"Well, you must do your best for her," Hilaire answered in his most
matter-of-fact tone. "Be prepared."

Jean agreed, and when he went to get ready he transferred a pistol
from a drawer of the bureau to his coat pocket. "I shall bring her
back with me if I can. Good-bye."

The sun shone for a few minutes after its rising through a rift in the
clouds, but soon went in again; the rain still poured down, and the
distance was hidden in mist that clung to the hillsides and filled
each ravine and cranny in the rocks. They were near Orvieto when the
car broke down; Vincenzo was out on the road at once, but his master
sat quite still. He could not endure the thought of any delay.

"What is it? Will it take long?" He had forced himself to wait a
minute before he asked the question, but still his lips felt stiff,
and all the colour had gone out of them.

The man reassured him. "It is nothing."

Jean went to help him, and soon they were able to go on again.

They came presently to the fen lands--the Campagna that so greatly
needs the magic and glamour of the Roman sunshine, the vault of the
blue sky above, and the sound of larks singing to adorn it. It seemed
a desolate and dreary waste, wind-swept, and shivering under the lash
of the rain on such a morning as this, and the car was a very small
thing moving in that apparently illimitable plain along a road that
might be endless. Jean saw a herd of the wild, black buffaloes
standing in a pool at the foot of a broken arch of the Claudian
aqueduct, and now and again he caught a glimpse of fragments of
masonry, or a ruined tower, ancient stronghold of one or other of the
robber barons who preyed on Rome-ward pilgrims in the age of faith and
rapine.

They reached Albano soon after eleven o'clock, and Jean left his man
in the car while he went in to the Ristorante of the Albergo della
Posta. He ordered a cup of coffee, and sat down at one of the little
marble tables near the door to drink it. There was no one else in the
place at the moment.

"Can you tell me the way to the Villino Bella Vista?"

The waiter looked at him curiously. "It is down in the olive woods and
quite near the lake, and you must go to it by a lane from the Galleria
di Sopra, the upper road to Castel Gandolfo." After a momentary
hesitation he added, "_Scusi!_ But are