He gabbled some instructions in Italian, handed over my pasteboard, and proceeded to question me politely about my business. I found this amusing, but I had no wish to quarrel with him, so I gave him verbally what my old friend, Toff Wall, the “Brummagem Pet,” used to call a “steadier on the breadbasket” by hinting at falling stocks, and followed it up with a “smasher on the snuff-box” in the shape of lachrymose comment on the sad reverses of fortune some people were subjected to. This by-play was ended by the appearance of Maggie herself. In the rich half-light of that evening in wonderland, I thought I had never seen a woman so ethereally beautiful. The plump school-girl contour had given place to a delightfully piquant femininity. Surprise, pleasure, a vague feeling of alarm, enlivened her mobile face and incardinated her pale cheeks with a delicious rose tint. I was quick to note, too, that she glanced at the Italian with some astonishment, even as she flitted towards me with outstretched hands, nor did she pay heed to the explanatory lie he murmured rapidly in his own language. I learnt afterwards that it was _his_ presence for which she was “indisposed.” But let him pass. I only set eyes on him once again--at the railway station. “I am delighted to see you,” she cried. “Remember you? Of course I do. But is it true what Baptisto said--that you have traveled from London on some errand of importance to me?” “It is quite true,” I said. “Oh, come this way. It is nothing serious, I hope? Is--is Mrs. Grier ill?” “No. It is on Karl’s behalf I am here.” “Karl! Why Karl? I have not--met him for many years.” The slight pause, with its distinctive choice of a word, did not escape me. She was leading me through the house, a treasury of art in canvas and stone, and she had now ushered me into a room which, as I fully anticipated, was the boudoir-studio in which I had already seen her. We were alone. I last beheld her on her knees in that identical apartment, and the memory of her tear-stained face surged in on me. It was no time to pick and choose expressions. The stereotyped language which I had framed to convey my thoughts was wholly inadequate to the demands of an interview fraught with such a momentous result. I placed a hand on her shoulder, and I fear there was somewhat of a break in my voice as I said: “I know much about you two. I cannot hold back my message. Karl, in this instant, is engaged in a desperate struggle between love and death. I come to you for him if not from him. I want you to return with me to England and save him.” “Save him!” she repeated, her large brown eyes dilating with a terror the true cause of which I did not divine instantly. “Yes. I am speaking from my heart. Karl is at death’s door. I, and another acquainted with all the circumstances, believe that you can bring him back to life. But you must come quickly. Even now you may be too late.” She faced me with a vehemence that was altogether unexpected.