master?"

"No, Doria--no news, worse luck; but I was this way--down at
Plymouth again--and thought I'd look up Mrs. Pendean and her uncle.
Why d'you call me 'sleuth'?"

"I read story-books of crime in which the detectives are 'sleuths.'
It is American. Italians say 'sbirro,' England says 'police
officer.'"

"How is everybody?"

"Everybody very well. Time passes; tears dry; Providence watches."

"And you are still looking for the rich woman to restore the last of
the Dorias to his castle?"

Giuseppe laughed, then he shut his eyes and sucked his evil-smelling
cigar.

"We shall see as to that. Man proposes, God disposes. There is a god
called Cupid, Mr. Brendon, who overturns our plans as yonder
plough-share overturns the secret homes of beetle and worm."

Mark's pulses quickened. He guessed to what Doria possibly referred
and felt concern but no surprise. The other continued.

"Ambition may succumb before beauty. Ancestral castles may crumble
before the tide of love, as a child's sand building before the sea.
Too true!"