Half an hour later her maid came quietly out to ask whether she needed anything, and seeing that she was sleeping peacefully spread a light shawl over her feet, placed the silver handbell within easy reach on the table, and went away again.

Towards evening Folco came back and then the men, straggling in on their tired little horses, for they had ridden far and fast.  Marcello was not with them.

Corbario came in alone, and saw his wife lying in her chair in the evening light.  He stood still a moment, and then came over and bent near her, looking earnestly into her quiet face.

“Already,” he said aloud, but in a very low voice.

His hand shook as he laid it on her heart, bending low.  Then he started violently and stood bolt upright, as an unearthly howl rent the air.

Nino, Ercole’s queer dog, was close beside him, his forepaws planted on the upper step of the verandah, his head thrown up, his half-open jaws showing his jagged teeth, his rough coat bristling like spikes of bearded barley.

And Ercole, still a hundred yards away amongst the trees, shook his head and hurried forward as he heard the long-drawn note of brute terror.

“Somebody is dead,” he said to himself.

CHAPTER V

For a few weeks all Italy was profoundly interested in the story of Marcello Corbario’s disappearance and of his mother’s almost unaccountable death.  It was spoken of as the “double tragedy of the Campagna,” and the newspapers were full of it.

The gates of the beautiful villa on the Janiculum were constantly assailed by reporters; the servants who came out from time to time were bribed, flattered, and tempted away to eat sumptuous meals and drink the oldest wine in quiet gardens behind old inns in Trastevere, in the hope that they might have some information to sell.  But no one gained admittance to the villa except the agents of the police, who came daily to report the fruitless search; and the servants had nothing to tell beyond the bare truth.  The young gentleman had gone for a walk near the sea, down at the cottage by the Roman shore, and he had never been heard of again.  His mother had been suffering from a bad headache, had lain down to rest in a cane chair on the verandah, and had been found dead, with a smile on her face, by her husband, when he came back from his first attempt to find Marcello.  The groom who always went down with the carriage could describe with greatest accuracy the spot where the Signorina Aurora had last seen him; the house servants gave the most minute details about the cane chair, the verandah, and the position in which the poor lady had been found; but that was all, and it was not at all what the reporters wanted.  They had all been down to the cottage, each with his camera and note-book, and had photographed everything in sight, including Nino, Ercole’s dog.  What they wanted was a clue, a story, a scandal if possible, and they found nothing of the sort.