incess Chiaromonte had been one of her most assiduous and
intimate enemies for years, and, in order to make her uncomfortable,
advanced the theory that the officer in question was no other than
Giovanni Severi himself.

The Princess was not so easily disturbed, however, and smiled in her
designing friend's face. The poor man was dead and buried, she said, and
every one knew it. The report rested on nothing more substantial than a
letter said to have been written by an English traveller and lion-hunter
to one of the secretaries at the British Embassy in Washington, who was
said, again, to have mentioned the fact to an Italian colleague, who had
repeated it in writing to his sister, who lived somewhere in Piedmont
and had spoken of it to some one else; and so on, till the story had
reached the ears of a newspaper paragraph-writer who was hard up for a
'stick' of 'copy.' All this the Princess knew, or invented, and she ran
off her explanation with a fluency that disconcerted her assailant.

The immediate result was that she bethought her of Ugo Severi, whom
she had passed lately in her motor as he was riding leisurely along
the road beyond Monteverde. She had noticed him because her chauffeur
had slackened speed a little, and she had nodded to him, though it was
not likely that he should recognise her face through her veil. She had
thought no more about him at the time, but she now telephoned to a
friend at headquarters to find out where he was living, and she soon
learned that he was in charge of the magazine.

After a little reflection, she wrote him a note, recalling their
acquaintance and the fact that she had known his poor brother very
well. She had never seen a powder magazine, she said; would he show
the one at Monteverde to her and two or three friends, next Wednesday?

Ugo answered politely that this was quite impossible without a special
permission from the Commander-in-Chief or the War Office, and that he
greatly regretted his inability to comply with her request. As he was
a punctilious man, though he lived almost like a hermit, he took the
trouble to send his orderly into the city on the following afternoon
with a couple of cards to be left at the Palazzo Chiaromonte for the
Prince and Princess, in accordance with Roman social custom.

A few days later a smart 'limousine' drew up to the door of Ugo's
little house and a footman rang the old-fashioned bell, which went on
tinkling in the distance for a long