A mournful spectacle appeared, drawn by the sound of well-known voices, and the old spaniel, Prince, crept to Mary’s feet.  He offered feeble homage, and she made much of him, but the dog had sunk to a shadow.

“He must be put away, poor old beggar; it’s cruel to keep him alive.  Only Masters said he was determined he should not go while Uncle Walter was abroad.  Masters has been a mother to him.”

“Tell father that; he may blame Masters for letting him linger on like this.  He rather hoped, I know, that poor Prince would be painlessly destroyed, or die, before he came back.”

“Masters would never have let him die unless directed to do so.”

“And I’m sure father could never have written the words down and posted them.  You know father.”

Letters awaited the returned travellers, one from Colonel Vane, who described his meeting with Signor Mannetti, and hoped something might come of it; and another from the stranger himself.  He expressed satisfaction at his invitation, and proposed arriving at Chadlands on the following Monday, unless directions reached him to the contrary.

When the time came, Sir Walter himself went into Exeter to meet his guest and bring him back by motor-car.  At first sight of the signor, his host experienced a slight shock of astonishment to mark the Italian’s age.  For Vergilio Mannetti was an ancient man.  He had been tall, but now stooped, and, though not decrepit, yet he needed assistance, and was accompanied and attended by a middle-aged Italian.  The traveller displayed a distinguished bearing.  He had a brown, clean-shaved face, the skin of which appeared to have shrunk rather than wrinkled, yet no suggestion of a mummy accompanied this physical accident.  His hair was still plentiful, and white as snow; his dark eyes were undimmed, and proved not only brilliant but wonderfully keen.  He told them more than once, and indeed proved, that behind large glasses, that lent an owl-like expression to his face, his long sight was unimpaired.  His rather round face sparkled with intelligence and humor.

He owned to eighty years, yet presented an amazing vitality and a keen interest in life and its fulness.  The old man had played the looker-on at human existence, and seemed to know as much, if not more, of the game than the players.  He confessed to this attitude and blamed himself for it.

“I have never done a stroke of honest work in my life,” he said.  “I was born with the silver spoon in my mouth.  Alas, I have been amazingly lazy; it was my metier to look on.  I ought, at least, to have written a book; but then all the things I wanted to say have been so exquisitely said by Count Gobineau in his immortal volumes, that I should only have been an echo.  The world is too full of echoes as it is.  Believe me, if I had been called to work for my living, I should have cut a respectable figure, for I have an excellent brain.”