She had made her rounds with Schnetterling, a prudent German, and in process of time had come to England, where, at Avoncester, both had been attacked by influenza; he died, and she only recovered with a total loss of voice; but he had been prudent and frugal enough to save a sufficient sum to set her up at Rockquay with the tobacco-shop.  She had chosen that place on account of American trading-vessels putting in there, as well as those of various foreign nations, with whom her knowledge of languages was available, and no doubt there were some opportunities of dealing in smuggled goods.  Just, however, as the smuggling was beginning to be suspected, the circus of O’Leary came in her way, and the old instincts were renewed.  Then came the detection and prosecution, and the need of raising the fine.  She had recourse to O’Leary, who had before been Schnetterling’s underling, and now was a partner in Jellicoe’s circus, who knew her capabilities as a manager and actress, and perceived the probabilities of poor little Lida’s powers.  The discovery that the deserted baby that she had left at Chicago was a young handsome squire, well connected, and, in her eyes, of unlimited means, had of course incited both to make the utmost profit of him.  That he should not wish to hush the suspicion up, but should go straight to his uncles, was to them a quite unexpected contingency.

All this was not exactly told to Lancelot, but he extracted it, or gathered it before he was able to arrive at what was really important, the name of Zoraya’s first husband, where she was married, and by whom, and where she had parted from him.  She was so unwilling to give particulars that he began almost to hope to make her confess that the whole was a myth, but at last she owned that the man’s name was Giovanni Benista, and that the marriage had taken place at Messina; she knew not in what church, nor in what year, only it was before the end of the old regime, for she recollected the uniforms of the Bomba soldiers, though she could not remember the name of the priest.  Benista was old, very old—-the tyrant and assassin that he was, no doubt he was dead.  She often thought he would have killed her—-and the history of his ill-treatment had to be gone through before it appeared that she had fled from him at Trieste with her brother, in an English trading-vessel, where their dexterity and brilliancy gained them concealment and a passage.  This was certainly in the summer of 1865.  Of Benista she knew nothing since, but she believed him to have come from Piedmont.

Lance found Gerald walking up and down anxiously watching for him, and receiving him with a “Well!” that had in it volumes of suspense.

“Well, Gerald, I do not think there can be any blame attached to your father, whatever comes of it.  He was deceived as much as any one else, and his attachment to you seems to have been his great offence.”

“Thank Heaven!  Then he was deceived?”