"The day before yesterday. I wanted there to be no mistake from the very first. That's the best way to prevent any unpleasantness."

"Possibly." Stillford sounded doubtful. "Going to have a notice-board, Marchesa?"

"He will hardly make that necessary, will he?"

"Well, I told you that in my judgment your right to shut it against him is very doubtful."

"You told me a lot of things I didn't understand," she retorted rather pettishly.

He shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. No good lay in anticipating trouble. Lord Lynborough might take no notice.[Pg 29]

[Pg 29]

In the afternoon the Marchesa's guests played golf on a rather makeshift nine-hole course laid out in the meadows. Miss Gilletson slept. The Marchesa herself mounted the top of Sandy Nab, and reviewed her situation. The Colonel would doubtless have liked to accompany her, but he was not thereto invited.

Helena Vittoria Maria Antonia, Marchesa di San Servolo, was now in her twenty-fourth year. Born of an Italian father and an English mother, she had bestowed her hand on her paternal country, but her heart remained in her mother's. The Marchese took her as his second wife and his last pecuniary resource; in both capacities she soothed his declining years. Happily for her—and not unhappily for the world at large—these were few. He had not time to absorb her youth or to spend more than a small[Pg 30] portion of her inheritance. She was left a widow—stepmother of adult Italian offspring—owner for life of an Apennine fortress. She liked the fortress much, but disliked the stepchildren (the youngest was of her own age) more. England—her mother's home—presented itself in the light of a refuge. In short, she had grave doubts about ever returning to Italy.

[Pg 30]

Nab Grange was in the market. Ancestrally a possession of the Caverlys (for centuries a noble but unennobled family in those parts), it had served for the family's dower-house, till a bad race-meeting had induced the squire of the day to sell it to a Mr. Cross of Leeds. The Crosses held it for seventy years. Then the executors of the last Cross sold it to the Marchesa. This final transaction happened a year before Lynborough came home. The "Beach Path"[Pg 31] had, as above recorded, been closed only for two days.

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