As she closed the last door, her attention was caught by a strange bust placed on a pedestal above the entrance. What was wrong with it? An accident? An injury? She went nearer, straining her eyes to see. No!--there was no injury. The face indeed was gone. Or, rather, where the face should have been there now descended a marble veil from brow to breast, of the most singular and sinister effect. Otherwise the bust was that of a young and beautiful woman. A pleasing horror seized on Kitty as she looked. Her fancy hunted for the clew. A faithless wife, blotted from her place?--made infamous forever by the veil which hid from human eye the beauty she had dishonored? Or a beloved mistress, on whom the mourning lover could no longer bear to look--the veil an emblem of undying and irremediable grief? Kitty stood enthralled, striving to pierce the ghastly meaning of the bust, when a sound--a distant sound--a shock through her. She heard a step overhead, in the topmost apartment, or _mansarde_ of the palace, a step that presently traversed the whole length of the floor immediately above her head and began to descend the stair. Strange! Federigo must have shut the great gates by this time--as she had bade him? He himself inhabited the smaller _entresol_ on the farther side of the palace, far away. Other inhabitants there were none; so Donna Laura had assured her. The step approached, resonant in the silence. Kitty, seized with nervous fright, turned and ran down the broad staircase by which she had come, through the series of deserted rooms in the _piano nobile_, till she reached the great hall. There she paused, panting, curiosity and daring once more getting the upperhand. The door she had just passed through, which gave access to the staircase, opened again and shut. The stranger who had entered came leisurely towards the hall, lingering apparently now and then to look at objects on the way. Presently a voice--an exclamation. Kitty retreated, caught at the arm of a chair for support, clung to it trembling. A man entered, holding his hat in one hand and a small white glove in the other. At sight of the lady in black, standing on the other side of the hall, he started violently--and stopped. Then, just as Kitty, who had so far made neither sound nor movement, took the first hurried step towards the staircase by which she had entered, Geoffrey Cliffe came forward. "How do you do, Lady Kitty? Do not, I beg of you, let me disturb you. I had half an hour to spare, and I gave the old man down-stairs a franc or two, that he might let me wander over this magnificent old place by myself for a bit. I have always had a fancy for deserted houses. You, I gather, have it, too. I will not interfere with you for a moment. Before I go, however, let me return what I believe to be your property." He came nearer, with a studied, deliberate air, and held out the white glove. She saw it was her own and accepted it. "Thank you."