“We have only met once,” she answered a little evasively, “when your late brother introduced me to the members of his family. I wonder if you have quite forgotten my big black eyes and my hideous complexion?” She lifted her veil as she spoke, and turned so that the moonlight rested on her face. Francis recognised at a glance the woman of all others whom he most cordially disliked—the widow of his dead brother, the first Lord Montbarry. He frowned as he looked at her. His experience on the stage, gathered at innumerable rehearsals with actresses who had sorely tried his temper, had accustomed him to speak roughly to women who were distasteful to him. “I remember you,” he said. “I thought you were in America!” She took no notice of his ungracious tone and manner; she simply stopped him when he lifted his hat, and turned to leave her. “Let me walk with you for a few minutes,” she quietly replied. “I have something to say to you.” He showed her his cigar. “I am smoking,” he said. “I don’t mind smoking.” After that, there was nothing to be done (short of downright brutality) but to yield. He did it with the worst possible grace. “Well?” he resumed. “What do you want of me?” “You shall hear directly, Mr. Westwick. Let me first tell you what my position is. I am alone in the world. To the loss of my husband has now been added another bereavement, the loss of my companion in America, my brother—Baron Rivar.” The reputation of the Baron, and the doubt which scandal had thrown on his assumed relationship to the Countess, were well known to Francis. “Shot in a gambling-saloon?” he asked brutally. “The question is a perfectly natural one on your part,” she said, with the impenetrably ironical manner which she could assume on certain occasions. “As a native of horse-racing England, you belong to a nation of gamblers. My brother died no extraordinary death, Mr. Westwick. He sank, with many other unfortunate people, under a fever prevalent in a Western city which we happened to visit. The calamity of his loss made the United States unendurable to me. I left by the first steamer that sailed from New York—a French vessel which brought me to Havre. I continued my lonely journey to the South of France. And then I went on to Venice.” “What does all this matter to me?” Francis thought to himself. She paused, evidently expecting him to say something. “So you have come to Venice?” he said carelessly. “Why?” “Because I couldn’t help it,” she answered. Francis looked at her with cynical curiosity. “That sounds odd,” he remarked. “Why couldn’t you help it?”