"Naturally my poor friend takes up hees pen like, as they say, a slave scourged to hees dungeon," he laughed. While he had spent a good many years in America with his mother who, following the death of his Italian father, had taken up residence in New York, there was a touch of foreign accent in the pronunciation of certain words. His education had been in Florence, and each winter he returned there for two or three months. "Tell me, Mees Sheridan, is hees new wife so beautiful as I have been told?" Joan nodded. "Yes, she is beautiful, a very beautiful woman. Now I'll run and find Kirk. He'll feel much humiliated that he wasn't here to greet you. You're to make the illustrations for the new book. That's wonderful. I've always admired your drawings; there's such intensity in your pictures." Sarbella, bowing, murmured an acknowledgment of the compliment and turned to follow the butler into the house and up the stairs to the second floor. A few minutes later he was unpacking his bags, as Bates drew a tub of water for him. "What time is dinner, Bates?" "A quarter past six, Mr. Sarbella." "It is now nearly half past four," said the artist, glancing at his watch. "Every one dresses for dinner, I suppose." "Oh, certainly, sir." "Then I wish you would press my dinner coat, Bates; it's badly wrinkled. I was never good at packing. You may tell Meester Gilmore that I will not come down until six. There's no sense in dressing twice." "Quite so," nodded Bates and, accepting the dinner coat, shuffled out of the room. Sarbella took a brief plunge in the tub of tepid water, finished it off with an invigorating cold shower, and, slipping into a light bath robe, pulled a chair to the window and began to smoke. His thoughts evidently took an unpleasant turn, for his eyes glowed hotly, and his muscles tensed until his fingers crushed the burning cigarette, and the fiery end of it smoldered odorously in the nap of the rug at his feet. "To-day is the ninth," he smiled, half aloud; "day after to-morrow would have been hees twenty-third birthday--Andrea's twenty-third birthday! If I could but find her, that woman, I would kill her with my own hands! Heaven curse her! She----" The tense soliloquy of hate was interrupted by a rap at the door; Sarbella turned with a start and called, "Yes, come." Kirklan Gilmore, face still haggard, his eyes bloodshot, entered the room with tumbling words of apology. "Can you forgive my discourtesy, Victor?" he exclaimed. "I should have been here to receive you. A fine host you must think me when----" "Poof! That for your discourtesy, my good friend!" broke in Sarbella with a laugh and a snap of the fingers. "We are artists, you and I; you are an artist of the pen, and I an artist of the brush. So we understand each other. I think nothing of it. But, my friend, what has happened to you? Your face is that of a man who is ill."