as staring straight in front of her.

He came near her hesitatingly, and at first she did not seem to
see him or even to know that she was not alone in the room. Then
she looked at him wonderingly, and, as he stood beside her, lifted
her right hand and set it gently upon his head.

"Hedrick," she said, "was it you that took my book to----"

All at once he fell upon his knees, hid his face in her lap, and
burst into loud and passionate sobbing.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Valentine Corliss, having breakfasted in bed at a late hour that
morning, dozed again, roused himself, and, making a toilet,
addressed to the image in his shaving-mirror a disgusted
monosyllable.

"Ass!"

However, he had not the look of a man who had played cards all
night to a disastrous tune with an accompaniment in Scotch. His
was a surface not easily indented: he was hard and healthy,
clear-skinned and clear-eyed. When he had made himself
point-device, he went into the "parlour" of his apartment,
frowning at the litter of malodorous, relics, stumps and stubs and
bottles and half-drained glasses, scattered chips and cards, dregs
of a night session. He had been making acquaintances.

He sat at the desk and wrote with a steady hand in Italian:

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MOLITERNO:

We live but learn little. As to myself it appears that I learn
nothing--nothing! You will at once convey to me by _cable_ five
thousand lire. No; add the difference in exchange so as to make it
one thousand dollars which I shall receive, taking that sum from
the two-hundred and thirty thousand lire which I entrusted to your
safekeeping by cable as the result of my enterprise in this place.
I should have returned at once, content with that success, but as
you know I am a very stupid fellow, never pleased with a moderate
triumph, nor with a large one, when there is a possible prospect
of greater. I am compelled to believe that the greater I had in
mind in this case was an illusion: my gentle diplomacy avails
nothing against a small miser--for we have misers even in these
States, though you will not believe it. I abandon him to his
riches! From the success of my venture I reserved four thousand
dollars to keep by me and for my expenses, and it is humiliating
to relate that all of this, except a small banknote or two, was
taken from me last night by amateurs. I should keep away from
cards--they hate me, and alone I can do nothing with them. Some
young gentlemen of the place, wh