some of it very sad and
wild, but I understood Nino's enthusiasm. I could have listened to the
old guitar in his hands for hours together,--I, who care little for
music; and I watched his face. He stalked about the room with the
thing in his hands, in a sort of wild frenzy of execution. His
features grew ashy pale, and his smooth white hair stood out wildly
from his head. He looked, then, more than a hundred years old, and
there was a sadness and a horror about him that would have made the
stones cry aloud for pity. I could not believe he was the same man. At
last he was tired, and stopped.

"You are a great artist, baron," I said. "Your music seems to affect
you much."

"Ah, yes, it makes me feel like other men for the time," said he, in a
low voice. "Did you know that Paganini always practised on the guitar?
It is true. Well, I will find out about the Liras for you in a day or
two, before I leave Rome again."

I thanked him and he took his leave.

CHAPTER XII

Benoni had made an impression on me that nothing could efface. His
tall thin figure and bright eyes got into my dreams and haunted me, so
that I thought my nerves were affected. For several days I could think
of nothing else, and at last had myself bled, and took some cooling
barley-water, and gave up eating salad at night, but without any
perceptible effect.

Nino wrote often, and seemed very much excited about the disappearance
of the contessina, but what could I do? I asked everyone I knew, and
nobody had heard of them, so that at last I quite gave it over, and
wrote to tell him so. A week passed, then a fortnight, and I had heard
nothing from Benoni. Nino wrote again, enclosing a letter addressed to
the Contessina di Lira, which he implored me to convey to her, if I
loved him. He said he was certain that she had never left Italy. Some
instinct seemed to tell him so, and she was evidently in neither
London nor Paris, for he had made every inquiry, and had even been to
the police about it. Two days after this, Benoni came. He looked
exactly as he did the first time I saw him.

"I have news," he said, briefly, and sat down in the arm-chair,
striking the dust from his boot with his little cane.

"News of the Graf?" I inquired.

"Yes. I have found out something. They never left Italy at all, it
seems. I am rather mystified, and I hate mystification. The old man is
a fool; all old men are fools, excepting myself. Will you smoke? No?
Allow me,