There was no reason why two of the hotel visitors should or should not be walking in the monastery grounds at the same time; but, as the descent by the hotel gate was very abrupt and much tangled by interlacing roots of pine-trees, there was every reason why Mr. Mosson, even if, instead of being a benefactor to his species, he had been a misanthrope (and from the grim set of his jaw and hard eyes, and thin, tight-drawn mouth, Ermengarde was inclined to think him that), should hand Miss Somers carefully over the snaky roots and crumbling ledges, as he did with the greatest politeness and deference, standing aside with raised hat to let her pass into the grounds before him, and on perceiving Ermengarde's approach from the opposite direction, extending the same courtesy to her. And yet the juxtaposition of these two seemed to confirm her suspicions concerning Agatha and stamp her with double intrigue. Was Mr. Mosson a suppositious uncle of Agatha's?--an aunt he clearly could not be--so she debated, walking by necessity at this suspicious young woman's side through the garden paths. "Have you been up the ridge?" asked Agatha, with cheeks flushed and eyes over bright. "I came back through the olives, so pleasant and peaceful," replied Ermengarde, observing a tremor in her companion's voice, and wondering what had been the last experience of the necklace. "And you?" "I have been up by the monastery," she said. "Bordighera is very beautiful to-day: an indescribable peacock blue bloom upon it." "Velvety, and yet with the clear brilliance of a jewel," Ermengarde commented pensively. "By the way, Miss Somers," as if struck by a sudden thought, "_did_ you ever succeed in selling that lovely necklace of yours?" "Oh yes. I disposed of it quite satisfactorily," she returned in the half-bored way in which people refer to things long over and done with. "It cost me a pang." "I wonder what it cost _him_?" Ermengarde mused, as they were merged in a stream of sun-burnt, sun-hatted people flocking in to luncheon in the cool shadow of the house. For all his reputed benevolence and ascetic cast of face there was a curious feline quality in Mr. Mosson, Ermengarde observed. He sat at his solitary table in a corner, quietly intent on what was put before him, yet all the time stealthily watching people from under drooped eyelids, with an occasional hungry flash in his eyes when suddenly bent upon some individual, as, for instance, to-day upon Agatha, and slightly crouching in his chair like some great creature of the cat tribe, gathering itself together to spring on its prey.