It was relief when the dressing-bell for dinner allowed him to escape to his cabin. There was quite a large gathering for dinner. Places like Genoa contain a number of highly interesting personages if the visitor discovers them. The British race produces a richer variety of human flotsam and jetsam than any other. These derelicts come to anchor in out-of-the-way parts of the earth. They seem to have been everywhere and have done everything, while the whole world is an open book to them. Thus there was no lack of variety in the conversation, and, as usual in such assemblies, it dealt more with persons than with incidents. Phyllis had arranged the guests, so it may be taken for granted that her lover was near her--in fact, he sat exactly opposite. The lady he took in to dinner was the wife of an English doctor, and the British consul at the port was Miss Browne's table companion. The consul was a chatty man, who kept himself well informed concerning society events. "By the way," he said to Phyllis, "did you ever meet Lady Dyke?" "No, her name is not familiar to me." "Do you mean the wife of Sir Charles Dyke?" said Mensmore; and the sudden interest he evinced caused Phyllis to glance at him wonderingly. "Yes, that is she." "I know Sir Charles well. What is there new about his wife?" "She is dead." "Good Heavens! Dead! When, and how?" Mensmore was so obviously agitated that others present noticed it, and Phyllis marvelled much that in all their confidence the name of Dyke had never escaped his lips. The consul, too, was a little nonplussed by the sensation caused by his words. "I fear," he said, "that I have blurted out the fact rather unguardedly. The Dykes are friends of yours?" "No, no, not in that sense. Sir Charles I have known for many years. But are you sure his wife is dead?" "My authority is an announcement in the _Times_ to hand by to-day's post. I should not have mentioned it were not her ladyship so well known in society, and the affair is peculiar, to say the least." "Peculiar--how?" In his all-absorbing interest in the consul's statement, Mensmore paid no heed to the curious looks directed at him; he had become very pale, and was more excited in manner than the circumstances appeared to warrant. "In this sense: The paper is the issue of January 28, yet the notice says that Lady Dyke died on November 6. This is odd, is it not? A woman of her position could hardly have quitted life so quietly that no one would trouble to publish the fact until nearly three months after the event." "It is extraordinary--inexplicable!" "Did you know Lady Dyke personally, Bertie?" put in Phyllis timorously. The question restored Mensmore to some sense of his surroundings. "I have never even seen her," he said, trying desperately to be commonplace; "but her husband is an old schoolfellow of mine, and I have heard much of both of them since their marriage. I am quite shocked by the news."