A scornful gesture of refusal was his only reply, and, with a dark glance, he was preparing to depart when a motion from Daphne stopped him. "Angelo," she said in a plaintive, supplicating voice, and using the Christian name of the artist--she was loth to ask the question of him, and yet felt that she must--"Angelo, answer me truly. If you know anything of Captain Willard--and your words just now seemed to imply that you do--tell me, I implore you, and I will be--your--your best friend," she added, as if sorry she could not offer him the highest place in her regard. "Do you know where he is?" "Do I know where he is?" repeated the Italian with a peculiar laugh. He turned back, took a step nearer to Daphne, and said: "You are nearer to him now than you have been for months." He seemed on the point of saying more, but, suddenly turning on his heel, he left her. "O Angelo, what do you mean?" she called out after him. But the artist was now plunging down the mountain side, and if he heard her words, did not at any rate reply to them. Daphne watched him sadly for a few moments, and then, turning away, began to ascend the zigzag path which led to the châlet. Not wishing to let her know that I had been a spectator of the interview, I remained where I was, and gazed after the retreating figure of Angelo, who was springing down from crag to crag in a manner that augured very little care for his own safety, his dark locks and long cloak swaying on the breeze. I, Frank Willard, sitting there on that calm summer day amid the loveliest scenery of Switzerland, rich in youth and health, endowed by my uncle with a competent fortune, and with nothing much to trouble my conscience, will seem to many an object of envy; and yet there I was, bewailing what I called my sad destiny, and sentimentally thinking myself the most unhappy of mankind. Daphne's avowal of her continued love for George had cast a gloom over me. Was I again to tread the Via Dolorosa of hopeless love, and, as the melancholy student of Heidelberg, to outwatch the stars once more on the solitary crags of the Odenwald? "Living or dead, I will remain faithful to his memory." "You are nearer to him now than you have been for months." These two sentences continued to haunt my mind all the way to the châlet. The artist's parting words seemed to imply that George was living at Rivoli--an idea that had previously occurred to me. What would become of my love-dream if, on hearing that Daphne was at Rivoli, George should emerge from his seclusion with some strange but justifiable reason for his past conduct? Would he do this, I wondered, or would he remain hidden in obscurity? A shadow fell across my path. I looked up, and the porch of the châlet fronted me with its legend, ominous, so it seemed to me, of some coming tragedy: "_He shall return!_" CHAPTER X GHOST OR MORTAL?