The Countess was, I knew, "hipped" and embittered. Her husband, a good-looking good-for-nothing fellow, who spent his days idling in the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence, and his nights gambling at the Florence club, possessed a large estate with a fine old castle, away in the Cresentino, but every metre of the land was mortgaged, and in order to redeem the place had married Mary Plant, of Boston, Mass., the daughter of a rich coal-owner. Within three years they had been separated, and now only at rare intervals they met, sometimes finding themselves at the same entertainment in one or other of the palaces in Rome or Florence and greeting each other as comparative strangers. Like thousands of other similar cases in Italy, she had bought her title very dearly, and now bitterly regretted that she had ever been attracted by a handsome face and elegant manner, that she had been entrapped by a man who had never entertained one single spark of affection for her, and who had, in his heart, despised her on account of her readiness to sacrifice herself and her money for the sake of becoming a Countess. We continued to chat, for it was delightful there, with the clear blue waves lapping close to our feet. In the course of conversation she and her daughter told me several other interesting facts concerning the Millers. They had lived in Rome for two successive winter seasons, the Countess said, in a little furnished flat in the Via Grottino, one of those narrow streets that lead off the Corso. Was it while there, I wondered, that Lucie had become acquainted with the great politician, Nardini--the man who had died refusing to give her her liberty? I longed to approach the subject, yet there were matters upon which I could not touch while Gemma was present. So I sat there idling, laughing and chatting, and recalling the last occasion we had met, up in the pine woods of Camaldoli in the previous August, when I was staying at their hotel, where we had many mutual friends. I had known the Countess fully ten years, when Gemma was but a child in the nursery, and when she was still a very pretty young woman. Somehow I saw that she was anxious that I should not know the Milners. Why, I could not discern. "If I were you," she said, in a low, confidential tone, when she had sent her daughter along to the kiosque for a newspaper, "I shouldn't call upon that man. I haven't told Gemma, but I've dropped the girl. After she called upon me the last time I sent her a letter hinting that I should prefer that she did not call again." "Why?" I asked, much surprised. "Well, I have a reason," was her response. "Quite lately I've discovered something that requires a good deal of explaining away. To tell you the truth, I believe Milner is sailing under entirely false colours, and besides I have no intention that Gemma should associate with his daughter any further. Take my advice, Godfrey, and don't go near them." "Then what have you heard?"