Here we exchanged into a very cold and very slow train which, winding its way in the moonlight through the beautiful Arno valley all the night, halted at the Florence terminus early in the glorious Italian morning. "_Fi-renze! Fi-renze_!" cried the sleepy porters; and we alighted with only about half a dozen other passengers who had travelled by that _treno lumaca_--or snail-train, as the Tuscans justly call it. Then, taking one of those little open cabs so beloved by the Florentines, we drove at once to the well-known hotel which faces the Arno, close to the Ponte Vecchio. Florence, in the silence of early morning, looked delightful, her old churches and ponderous palaces standing out sharply against the clear, blue sky, while, as we passed a side street we caught sight, at the end of the vista, of the wonderful black-and-white facade of the Duomo, of Giotto's Campanile, and Brunelleschi's wondrous red-tiled dome. A few moments later we stepped from the cab and entered the wide, marble-floored hall of the hotel. "You have a Mrs. Holford staying here?" I asked in English of the manager, who was already in his bureau. "Hol-ford," he repeated, consulting the big frame of names and numbers before him. "Ah, yes, sir; I remember! But--" He hesitated, and then inquired, "Will you pardon me if I ask who you may be?" "I'm Henry Holford, madame's husband," I replied promptly. And then the man told us something which caused us to stare at each other in speechless amazement. The man was a liar--and I told him so openly to his face. His astounding words rendered the remarkable enigma more complex than ever! CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A MAN DECEIVES A WOMAN. The story told me by the bald-headed Italian hotel-keeper was that another man had usurped my place! He said that Mrs. Holford, accompanied by her husband, had arrived at about seven o'clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, remained there the day, and had left by the express for Rome at five o'clock that same evening. "You don't believe it, sir!" the man exclaimed with some warmth. "Well, here is the gentleman's signature!" And he showed me upon a printed slip, whereon hotel visitors in Italy write their names according to the police regulations, boldly inscribed in a firm hand, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Holford. Profession, automobile engineer. Domicile, London. British subject." I stared at the words utterly confounded. Somebody had assumed my identity! Yet how was that possible with Mabel present? "What kind of man was madame's husband?" I inquired, while my sister-in-law stood by astounded. "He was slightly older than yourself, sir, with a moustache turning grey." Surely it could not be that arch-scoundrel Kershaw Kirk! "Was he about fifty, and rather thin?" "Yes," replied the _hotelier_. "He spoke Italian very well; indeed, with scarcely any accent."