The Chequers Inn was just on the outskirts of Deswarth, and a comparatively short distance from Thornstream, so it did not take Mrs. Belswin long, at the rapid pace at which she was walking, to arrive there. It stood a short distance back from the road, and the night being hot, all the doors and windows were open, letting the yellow light within stream out on to the dark village street. On the benches outside a number of yokels were drinking and talking loudly together about some fortnight-old event which had just reached their out-of-the-way parish. Mrs. Belswin, not wishing to be recognised, flitted rapidly past them, and was standing in the passage hesitating whether to make herself known to the landlord or not, when luckily at that moment Ferrari came out of a side door with the intention of going into the taproom. Like a ghost the woman glided forward and laid her hand on his arm. "Stephano!" "You, cara mia." The passage was so dark that he was able to recognise her by her voice alone, and the noise from the taproom was so loud that only a quick ear like his could have distinguished her low tones. "Come into some room. I wish to speak to you." "Here, then!" he said, drawing her into the room from whence he had emerged, "what is wrong? Il marito! eh! Dio! By your face there is trouble." With a sigh of relief Mrs. Belswin flung herself wearily into a chair, while Ferrari carefully closed the door and took up his position on the hearthrug. Even in that moment of anxiety Mrs. Belswin, with that noting of trivial things common to a preoccupied mind, noticed the tawdry furnishing of the apartment--the gaudy wall-paper, on which hung brilliantly coloured portraits of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and General Gordon; the vivid red of the tablecloth, the dingy blue of the chairs, and the tarnished mirror over the fireplace swathed in fly spotted yellow gauze. Ferrari had evidently been smoking, for there yet lingered about the room the odour of a cigar, and the atmosphere was slightly hazy with smoke, while the smoky flame of a badly trimmed kerosene lamp faintly illumined the whole place. On a chair near the wall sat Mrs. Belswin, faint and weary, but with an angry light in her wonderful eyes; and standing on the hearthrug the Italian, his hands behind his back, and his body slightly bent forward, eager, anxious, and expectant. "II marito?" he repeated, inquiringly. The woman made a gesture of assent, upon which Ferrari rubbed his hands together with an air of satisfaction. "Bene!" he said, smiling and showing his white teeth; "it is as I said it would be. Il marito has said 'Depart,' and you, my Lucrezia, have come back to the faithful one. Ah, che gioja! We will now leave this fog land and go to my beautiful Italy--dolce Napoli. The waiting is over, cara mia. You are to me at last, ah felicita!"