"And what is it you are going to do with me, Mr. Sydney?" the girl laughed across the table.
"I—I hardly know, Miss Baxendale; the matter rests more with you, I think, than with me. I'm merely here if I'm wanted, as it were." He turned to the elder lady. "There is, I suppose, no two questions on the matter—I mean on the matter of our journey?"
For a moment there was silence between the three. When Miranda spoke, a suggestion of sadness had come into her voice. She rose and put her arms round her foster-mother's neck.
"You want to go to San Pietro, Anna," she said, "for all these years you have been away from your native land. There must be many things that you pine for over there, many friends you will want to see."
Anna Paluda raised her fine eyes to the girl's face.
"Yes, Galva, my dear, there are many things I want to see."
She spoke sadly, and Edward turned in his chair and gazed out over the wild waste of heath aglow with its tints of cinnamon and mauve. A kestrel wheeled slowly across his vision uttering its dismal cry.
His thoughts were of the sad-voiced, white-haired lady—and again a unit in the adventure took individuality.
For the first time he thought of what the enterprise meant for Anna Paluda. Away in the vaulted splendour of the cathedral at Corbo, her baby had been sleeping unavenged for fifteen years, sleeping on a royal breast in a tomb emblazoned with the arms of the Estratos. What had been the anguish of this mother's heart, who, for the sake of her secret, had been forced to nurse her grief alone? What a cruel scourging of the old wound the return would mean to her.
When Edward turned again, Galva had resumed her seat. He drew up to the table and took from his pocket the things that Mr. Nixon had given him, a few articles of jewellery, and a letter. The girl opened the letter. It was addressed to