On the morning train from Catania arrived Silas Watson and his young ward Kenneth Forbes, the boy who had so unexpectedly inherited Aunt Jane’s fine estate of Elmhurst on her death.  The discovery of a will which gave to Kenneth all the property their aunt had intended for her nieces had not caused the slightest estrangement between the young folks, then or afterward.  On the contrary, the girls were all glad that the gloomy, neglected boy, with his artistic, high-strung temperament, would be so well provided for.  Without the inheritance he would have been an outcast; now he was able to travel with his guardian, the kindly old Elmhurst lawyer, and fit himself for his future important position in the world.  More than all this, however, Kenneth had resolved to be a great landscape painter, and Italy and Sicily had done much, in the past year, to prepare him for this career.

The boy greeted his old friends with eager delight, not noticing for the moment their anxious faces and perturbed demeanor.  But the lawyer’s sharp eyes saw at once that something was wrong.

“Where is John Merrick?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” cried Patsy, clinging to his hand.

“We are in sore straits, indeed, Mr. Watson,” said Louise.

“Uncle John is lost,” explained Beth, “and we’re afraid he is in the hands of brigands.”

Then she related as calmly as she could all that had happened.  The relation was clear and concise.  She told of their meeting with Valdi on the ship, of Count Ferralti’s persistence in attaching himself to their party, and of Uncle John’s discovery that the young man was posing under an assumed name.  She did not fail to mention Ferralti’s timely assistance on the Amalfi drive, or his subsequent devoted attentions to Louise; but the latter Beth considered merely as an excuse for following them around.

“In my opinion,” said she, “we have been watched ever since we left America, by these two spies, who had resolved to get Uncle John into some unfrequented place and then rob him.  If they succeed in their vile plot, Mr. Watson, we shall be humiliated and disgraced forever.”

“Tut-tut,” said he; “don’t think of that.  Let us consider John Merrick, and nothing else.”

Louise protested that Beth had not been fair in her conclusions.  The Count was an honorable man; she would vouch for his character herself.

But Mr. Watson did not heed this defense.  The matter was very serious—­how serious he alone realized—­and his face was grave indeed as he listened to the descriptions of that terrible Il Duca whom the natives all shrank from and refused to discuss.

When he had learned all the nieces had to tell he hastened into the town and telegraphed the American consul at Messina.  Then he found the questura, or police office, and was assured by the officer in attendance that the disappearance of Mr. Merrick was already known to the authorities and every effort was being made to find him.