The cruisers were not back within the hour, nor within three hours. The whole world was to change strangely for them both, meanwhile. The order of what Langdon Openshaw had intended to say and do came to naught, because what happens to happen is lord over the strongest human will. He had prepared his cunning questionings, as if to force his own fate, forgetting that the aggregation of outer circumstance which we call fate is itself an irresistible vortex; the trapper, and not the trapped. Up stream, by Frank's Fort, under a sapphire sky, while as yet little had been said, he found that his watch had run down, and he asked for the correct time. Rodolfo set him right from a cheap timepiece. As he handled it, there appeared, linked to the guard, an artistic bit of bronze, a tiny Renaissance figure, with bow and hound, the blown draperies minutely fair. Openshaw saw it, and the whole universe was not so manifest to him as that small ominous curio within it. "The Diana! On your soul, where, how, did you get that?" It was familiar to him; he knew it, though he had not seen it for more than a score of years. The rower dropped it back into his breast, definitely. "It is mine, and dear to me. My mother who gave it, she is dead." "Did you say your mother's name was Potenza? Was it Agata Potenza? Agata Boldoni once?" "Yes." There was a thronging pause. "When did she die?" "It was sixa years ago; I proceed to America." "Have you brothers and sisters?" "I have, in Italy, twin brothers, older; their lame-a father, Niccola Potenza, live with them. But he is notta mine." Quick, loud, sure, the queries and the answers fell, like the hammer-strokes of a coffin in the making. "Your father was--?" "How can I know? They tell me he was vera handsome, vera rich, and from this America. _Malfattore!_ He steal away, and I am born after; and she see him not in her life, I see him not in mine." The crew had apparently hurt the passenger, for the latter heaved against the thwarts. "Once more. Was your mother ever married to your father?" Rodolfo knit his brows, and set his teeth. "No." For a long, long time there was no sound but the little singing keel on its joyous flight, and Openshaw's head was hidden in his hands. Rodolfo, of his own vigorous accord, took the way of Dover Bridge, across the noble inland bay, and branched up the shallowing Oyster. There by the bank, in the stiller solitudes, he shipped his oars, and, reaching forth, touched the bowed shoulder, not without compassion. "_Illustrissimo_, look up! Tell me." Then did Openshaw begin, steadily, but hardly above his breath, intent the while on the image of his own youth before him, as if from that only he might draw courage to confess.