Within twenty minutes their one-horse vehicle had reached Mr. Redmayne’s modest home and they found three persons just about to take an evening meal.  Simultaneously there appeared Mr. Redmayne, his niece, and Giuseppe Doria; and while Albert, Italian fashion, embraced Mr. Ganns and planted a kiss upon his cheek, Jenny greeted Mark Brendon and he looked once more into her eyes.

There had come new experiences to her and they did not fail of the man’s observation.  She smiled indeed and flushed and proclaimed her wonder and admiration at the speed which had brought him across Europe to her uncle’s succour; but even in her animation and excitement the new expression persisted.  It set Mark’s heart throbbing vigorously and told him that perchance he might yet be useful to her.  For there hung a shadow of melancholy on Jenny’s face her smiles could not dispel.

Doria held back a little while his wife welcomed her uncle’s friend; then he came forward, declared his pleasure at meeting Mark again and his belief that time would soon reveal the truth and set a period to the sinister story of the wanderer.

Mr. Redmayne was overjoyed at seeing Ganns and quite forgot the object of his visit in the pleasure of receiving him.

“It has been my last and abiding ambition to introduce you to Virgilio Poggi, dear Peter, so that you, he and I may sit together, hear each other’s voices and look into each other’s eyes.  And now this will happen.  Thus the unhappy spirit who wanders upon the hills has unconsciously accomplished a beautiful thing.”

Jenny and Assunta, had hastily prepared for the visitors and now all sat at supper and Brendon learned how rooms were already taken for him and Mr. Ganns at the Hotel Victoria.

“That’s as may be,” he declared to Doria’s wife.  “You will find, I think, that Mr. Ganns is going to stop here.  He takes the lead in this affair.  Indeed there was no great reason why I should have intruded again, where I have failed so often.”

Jenny looked at him softly.

“I am very thankful you have come,” she said—­in a whisper for his ear alone.

“Then I am very thankful too,” he replied.

After a cheerful meal Peter absolutely declined to cross Como and visit Signor Poggi on the instant.

“I’ve had enough of your lakes for one day, Albert,” he announced, “and I want to talk business and get a rough, general idea of what more is known than Mark and I already know.  Now what has happened since you wrote, Mrs. Doria?”

“Tell them, Giuseppe,” directed Mr. Redmayne.

“Your gift—­the gold box—­take a pinch,” said Peter holding out his snuff to the old bookworm; but the master of Villa Pianezzo refused and lighted a cigar.

“I will have smoke rather than dust, my precious Peter,” he said.

“The man has been seen twice since you heard from my wife,” began Doria.  “Once I met him face to face on the hill, where I walked alone to reflect on my own affairs; and once—­the night before last—­he came here.  Happily Mr. Redmayne’s room overlooks the lake and the garden walls are high, so he could not reach it; but the bedroom of Mr. Redmayne’s man, Ernesto, is upon the side that stands up to the road.