That evening, among the letters Peter received from England,

there was one from his friend Mrs. Winchfield, which contained

certain statistics.

"Your Duchessa di Santangiolo 'was' indeed, as your funny old

servant told you, English: the only child and heiress of the

last Lord Belfont. The Belfonts of Lancashire (now, save for

your Duchessa, extinct) were the most bigoted sort of Roman

Catholics, and always educated their daughters in foreign

convents, and as often as not married them to foreigners. The

Belfont men, besides, were ever and anon marrying foreign

wives; so there will be a goodish deal of un-English blood in

your Duchessa's own ci-devant English veins.

"She was born, as I learn from an indiscretion of my Peerage,

in 1870, and is, therefore, as near to thirty (the dangerous

age!) as to the six-and-twenty your droll old Marietta gives

her. Her Christian names are Beatrice Antonia Teresa Mary

--faites en votre choix. She was married at nineteen to

Baldassarre Agosto, Principe Udeschini, Duca di Santangiolo,

Marchese di Castellofranco, Count of the Holy Roman Empire,

Knight of the Holy Ghost and of St. Gregory, (does it take your

breath away?), who, according to Frontin, died in '93; and as

there were no children, his brother Felipe Lorenzo succeeded to

the titles. A younger brother still is Bishop of Sardagna.

Cardinal Udeschini is the uncle.

"That, dear child, empties my sack of information. But perhaps

I have a bigger sack, full of good advice, which I have not yet

opened. And perhaps, on the whole, I will not open it at all.

Only, remember that in yonder sentimental Italian lake country,

in this summer weather, a solitary young man's fancy might be

much inclined to turn to thoughts of--folly; and keep an eye on

my friend Peter Marchdale."

Our solitary young man brooded over Mrs. Winchfield's letter

for a long while.

"The daughter of a lord, and the widow of a duke, and the

niece-in-law of a cardinal," he said. "And, as if that were

not enough, a bigoted Roman Catholic into the bargain . . . .

And yet--and yet," he went on, taking heart a little, "as for

her bigotry, to judge by her assiduity in attending the village

church, that factor, at least, thank goodness, would appear to

be static, rather than dynamic."

After another longish interval of brooding, he sauntered down

to the riverside, through his fragrant garden, fragrant and

fresh with the cool odours of the night, and peered into the

darkness, towards Castel Ventirose. Here and there he could

discern a gleam of yellow, where some lighted window was not

entirely hidden by the trees. Thousands and thousands of

insects were threading the silence with their shrill insistent

voices. The repeated wail, harsh, prolonged, eerie, of some

strange wild creature, bird or beast, came down from the forest

of the Gnisi. At his feet, on the troubled surface of the Aco,

the stars, reflected and distorted, shone like broken

spearheads.




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