He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the
signorina was up,--the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting
himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift
strides towards London.




CHAPTER X.

Harley had not long reached his hotel, and was still seated before his
untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Leslie was announced. Randal, who
was in the firm belief that Violante was now on the wide seas with
Peschiera, entered, looking the very personation of anxiety and fatigue.
For like the great Cardinal Richelieu, Randal had learned the art how to
make good use of his own delicate and somewhat sickly aspect. The
cardinal, when intent on some sanguinary scheme requiring unusual
vitality and vigour, contrived to make himself look a harmless sufferer
at death's door. And Randal, whose nervous energies could at that moment
have whirled him from one end of this huge metropolis to the other, with
a speed that would have outstripped a prize pedestrian, now sank into a
chair with a jaded weariness that no mother could have seen without
compassion. He seemed since the last night to have galloped towards the
last stage of consumption.

"Have you discovered no trace, my Lord? Speak, speak!"

"Speak! certainly. I am too happy to relieve your mind, Mr. Leslie.
What fools we were! Ha, ha!"