Kitty stood enthralled, striving to pierce the ghastly meaning of the bust, when a sound—­a distant sound—­a shock through her.  She heard a step overhead, in the topmost apartment, or mansarde of the palace, a step that presently traversed the whole length of the floor immediately above her head and began to descend the stair.

Strange!  Federigo must have shut the great gates by this time—­as she had bade him?  He himself inhabited the smaller entresol on the farther side of the palace, far away.  Other inhabitants there were none; so Donna Laura had assured her.

The step approached, resonant in the silence.  Kitty, seized with nervous fright, turned and ran down the broad staircase by which she had come, through the series of deserted rooms in the piano nobile, till she reached the great hall.

There she paused, panting, curiosity and daring once more getting the upperhand.  The door she had just passed through, which gave access to the staircase, opened again and shut.  The stranger who had entered came leisurely towards the hall, lingering apparently now and then to look at objects on the way.  Presently a voice—­an exclamation.

Kitty retreated, caught at the arm of a chair for support, clung to it trembling.  A man entered, holding his hat in one hand and a small white glove in the other.

At sight of the lady in black, standing on the other side of the hall, he started violently—­and stopped.  Then, just as Kitty, who had so far made neither sound nor movement, took the first hurried step towards the staircase by which she had entered, Geoffrey Cliffe came forward.

“How do you do, Lady Kitty?  Do not, I beg of you, let me disturb you.  I had half an hour to spare, and I gave the old man down-stairs a franc or two, that he might let me wander over this magnificent old place by myself for a bit.  I have always had a fancy for deserted houses.  You, I gather, have it, too.  I will not interfere with you for a moment.  Before I go, however, let me return what I believe to be your property.”

He came nearer, with a studied, deliberate air, and held out the white glove.  She saw it was her own and accepted it.

“Thank you.”

She bowed with all the haughtiness she could muster, though her limbs shook under her.  Then as she walked quickly towards the door of exit, Cliffe, who was nearer to it than she, also moved towards it, and threw it open for her.  As she approached him he said, quietly: 

“This is not the first time we have met in Venice, Lady Kitty.”

She wavered, could not avoid looking at him, and stood arrested.  That almost white head!—­that furrowed brow!—­those haggard eyes!  A slight, involuntary cry broke from her lips.

Cliffe smiled.  Then he straightened his tall figure.

“You see, perhaps, that I have not grown younger.  You are quite right.  I have left my youth—­what remained of it—­among those splendid fellows whom the Turks have been harrying and torturing.  Well!—­they were worth it.  I would give it them again.”