About midday on Tuesday he called on Giovanna at the boarding-house—one largely frequented by foreigners—at which she had located herself for the time being. That the news of which he was the bearer was a great surprise to her hardly needs to be stated. It was both a surprise and a shock, for although she had never really cared for Alec as a wife should care for her husband, and had left him of her own accord and under most cruel circumstances, through all the years which had intervened since then his image had been often in her thoughts, but it was as a man still living and in the prime of life that he had dwelt in her memory. Consequently, to be told suddenly that he had met with a violent death seventeen years before, which pointed to a time almost immediately after her desertion of him, was enough to thrill her through every fibre of her being. Well, whatever uncertainty she might heretofore have felt with regard to her husband’s fate had no longer any room for existence. She had been a widow all these years without knowing it. Before long the Captain went on to speak of Sir Gilbert, and to detail all that he had heard in reference to him. He had always been rather clever as an amateur sketcher, and could catch a likeness better than most people, and he now took pencil and paper and with a few bold strokes drew an outline portrait of the baronet. Pushing it across the table to Vanna, he said: “Does that in any way resemble the English _milor_ who travelled all the way to Catanzaro to see the Mr. John Alexander who became your husband a little later?” “Yes, that is the man,” said Vanna quietly when she had examined the sketch. “Ah; I thought as much,” remarked her uncle drily. “And now that you have found out all this about Sir Gilbert Clare, in what way does it, or can it, affect me?” queried Vanna presently. The Captain regarded her with a pitying smile, as he might a child who had asked him some utterly preposterous question. “Cannot you see that the fact of your father-in-law being a rich and childless man may be made—I say _made_—to affect your fortunes very materially—very materially indeed? That is,” he added a moment after, “if you only know how to put the knowledge thus acquired to a practical use.” Giovanna shook her head. It was evident that she could not in the least comprehend what her uncle was driving at. The Captain’s shoulders went up nearly to his ears. “What a very fortunate thing it is, my dear, that at such an important crisis of your life you have by your side a thorough man of the world like myself—and one so completely devoted to your interests! Were you my own child I could not entertain a greater regard and affection for you than I do.” Vanna sat grandly unmoved, her statuesque features betraying no slightest trace of emotion. “As cold as a marble goddess,” muttered the Captain under his breath as he produced his cigar case, for he was a man who regarded smoking as one of the necessaries of existence.