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 young girl's evident emotion, as she turned and faced him unexpectedly.

He did a good deal of pondering in the course of that day and the next, and, as he was quite unable to justify, or even to formulate his anxieties, he wished that he might at least find out whether the truth in regard to the gondolier were known to May. That might throw some light upon the subject.

He was aware, to be sure, of the Colonel's studied secrecy in the matter, but secrets are ticklish things at the best, and no stray hint was likely to have been lost upon a girl of May's intelligence. He had a notion that, if he could get a word with Nanni himself, it would be easy to sound him on the point; a delusion that was destined to be early dissipated.

On the second morning following the Torcello trip, Geof was swimming in the Adriatic, far out beyond the line of bathers, shouting and splashing; in the shallows. There, under a dazzling sky,