“To be sure—to be sure.” The rich full contralto of her voice sounded pleasantly in his ears. “That was a fact well-known to me at the time. But pray be seated.” A wave of his hand included Verinder in the invitation. He had dropped Giovanna’s hand, and there had been a sudden change in his tone as he spoke the last words. The fact was that he had caught the Captain smiling and rubbing one hand within the other with an air of supreme satisfaction, although the other had certainly not intended that he should do anything of the kind, and therewith he had chilled under a sudden breath of suspicion. “What, after all, if I am being victimised by a couple of schemers!” he said to himself. “And yet that any woman with such a face as that should lend herself—— No, no—I cannot believe it.” Both the others could see that some change had come over him, but were at a loss to guess the cause of it. “And where was it, madam, if I may be allowed to ask, that you first made the acquaintance of my son?” “At Catanzaro, Sir Gilbert.” “So—so. Alec’s long stay in that, to me, detestable hole of a place is now explained.” This was said half to himself. “And where, madam, were you and my son united in the bonds of matrimony?” “We were married at Malta, at the English church there.” “Ah, then you are a Protestant!” Giovanna gravely inclined her head. “My father was a Roman Catholic, but my mother was an Englishwoman and a Protestant. My only brother was brought up in the faith of his father, I in that of my mother.” “So much the better—so much the better,” ejaculated Sir Gilbert, quite unaware that the words were spoken aloud. It was a fact that Giovanna had been married at the English church at Valetta, but a prior ceremony had been gone through at Catanzaro, at which a Romish priest had been the celebrant, for Giuseppe Rispani was too good a Catholic, or had the reputation of being one, not to insist upon his daughter being married in accordance with the rites and ceremonies of his own church. That being done, he had raised no objection to accompanying the young couple as far as Malta (to him, indeed, it was a pleasure trip with all expenses paid), there to give away the bride when the ceremony was gone through for the second time. After that Rispani had bidden his daughter goodbye and gone back home, first, however, borrowing a couple of hundred pounds from his English son-in-law in order, as he averred, that he might have the means of carrying out certain much needed alterations and improvements in the _osteria_ of the Golden Fig. It is to be feared, however, that the amount in question never got any further than his own pocket. After the departure of Rispani the newly-wedded couple had made the best of their way to the United States. To return. “In that case, madam,” resumed the baronet after a brief pause, “you have doubtless been at pains to preserve your marriage certificate.”