I ate my dinner at Bonciani's, near the station, a place little patronized by foreigners, but where one obtains the best Tuscan cooking--and after an hour or so over coffee at the Bottegone, I took a taxi up to Fiesole. The night was cold but dry and moonlit. As we ascended the steep hill a glorious panorama spread before us, for below lay the valley of the Arno with the twinkling lights of the ancient city, and the great pale moon upon the shimmering river rendering it like a scene from fairyland. And as we went up beyond San Domenico, through those lands which in spring and summer are so fruitful with their vines and olives, two peasant swains passed, chanting one of the old _stornelli_, those quaint love-songs of the Tuscan _contadini_--the same which have been sung for centuries in and about old Firenze: Acqua di rio. Teco sarò di luglio e di gennaio Dove tu muori te, morirò anch'io. Tuscany is essentially a land of love, where the fierce flame of affection burns in the hearts of all the people, and where a hot word is quickly followed by a knife-thrust, and jealousy is ever cruel and unrelenting. Arriving at last in the little piazza, at Fiesole, where a number of people were awaiting the last tram to take them back into Florence, I alighted, paid the man, and continued my journey on foot, still climbing the high road which led through the chestnut woods of Ricorbico, until at last I found myself at the corner of the grounds of the Villa Clementini, close to a pair of gates of mediæval wrought-iron which closed the south entrance to the magnificent domain. On either side of the road were high walls with tall cypresses behind which cast their deep shadows over the highway, rendering it dark around the entrance. I glanced at my luminous wristwatch--a relic of my war service--and found that it still wanted ten minutes to eleven. Therefore I drew back beneath the wall, and in the black shadow awaited the millionaire's visitor to pass on to the main entrance. I suppose I had been there ten minutes or so when I detected approaching footsteps in the darkness, and presently the doctor's familiar figure appeared in the patch of moonlight, only to be swallowed up in the black shadows a moment later. Approaching the great iron gates which were a side entrance to the grounds, he drew a key from his pocket, unlocked them easily, and passed in without, however, re-locking them after him. His visit there was undoubtedly a secret one, or De Gex would not have given him the key of the entrance he used himself, nor would he have sent away his butler, Robertson.