has something to explain."

"Oh, what is to be done?" repeated Harriet, as she
followed her mother to the house. She was helpless before
such effrontery. What awful thing--what awful person had
come to Lilia? "Some one in the hotel." The letter only
said that. What kind of person? A gentleman? An
Englishman? The letter did not say.

"Wire reason of stay at Monteriano. Strange rumours,"
read Mrs. Herriton, and addressed the telegram to Abbott,
Stella d'Italia, Monteriano, Italy. "If there is an office
there," she added, "we might get an answer this evening.
Since Philip is back at seven, and the eight-fifteen catches
the midnight boat at Dover--Harriet, when you go with this,
get 100 pounds in 5 pound notes at the bank."

"Go, dear, at once; do not talk. I see Irma coming back;
go quickly.... Well, Irma dear, and whose team are you in
this afternoon--Miss Edith's or Miss May's?"

But as soon as she had behaved as usual to her
grand-daughter, she went to the library and took out the
large atlas, for she wanted to know about Monteriano. The
name was in the smallest print, in the midst of a
woolly-brown tangle of hills which were called the
"Sub-Apennines." It was not so very far from Siena, which
she had learnt at school. Past it there wandered a thin
black line, notched at intervals like a saw, and she knew
that this was a railway. But the map left a good deal to