The strange suicide of an Italian at the Hotel Victoria had been regarded merely as a tragic incident by readers of newspapers, for no word of the motive which led Nenci to take his life had been allowed to leak out. To the public, the death of Vittorina still remains one of London's many mysteries. In the few brief months that had elapsed, peace, calm and complete, had come to Gemma and to Charles Armytage; for one morning, in the dimly lit old Church of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, and afterwards at the Office of the British Consul-General in the Via Tornabuoni, they had been made man and wife. Then, for nearly six months, they had travelled in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, subsequently spending the winter in a furnished villa high up on the olive-clad hill behind Cimiez, where they were visited by Captain Tristram and Carmenilla, who, too, had married, and were spending their honeymoon on the Riviera. At last, when Carnival had come and gone, the season waned, and Nice and Cannes were emptying, they, too, left and returned to the great old Palazza Funaro in Florence. They had dined _tete-a-tete_ one evening, had strolled arm in arm through these great silent chambers which seemed to speak mutely of the gorgeous pageantry in the days when the Medici had ruled Florence, and entered the room furnished in modern style--the same in which he had a year ago pledged his belief in her. After the man resplendent in the Funaro livery had brought their coffee, Gemma seated herself upon the settee beside her husband, and, taking up her mandolino, commenced to sing that sweet old Tuscan song he loved so well, which has for its chorus-- "O bello mio adorabile Svenire in se mi par Vorrei fuggirti rapida, Non so come mi far!" When she had finished, she was silent, as if in hesitation; then, with her clear eyes fixed upon his, exclaimed, in very good English-- "You have trusted me blindly, completely, Nino. You married me in face of all the vile libels which spread from mouth to mouth; yet only to-night am I free to tell you the truth. My story is a strange--a very strange one. Would you like to hear it?" "Of course, dearest," he cried eagerly. "You know for months I have longed to know the truth."