“No,” replied Miss Mason. “It’s a queer ring.”
“Yes,” said Barnabas. But for some reason he still did not say where and when he had first seen it.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CRUELTY OF THE FATES
THE Duchessa di Corleone was on her way back from Italy. She had said good-bye with a little pang to the gallery, and to the courtyard with its golden oranges and marble statues, but once on her way to England the thought of Paul completely obliterated any trace of sorrow. She was joyfully ready to give up everything—the Casa di Corleone, her house on the Embankment, and her thousands a year for the man who had taken her heart into his keeping.
Throughout the journey her heart sang little songs of happiness, which had as their refrain the one word, “Paul.” The express train rushing across the country bathed in the July sun could hardly carry her with sufficient swiftness. When, at last, Calais was reached and she was on board the boat she felt happier.
With the cliffs of Dover in sight her heart was singing a Te Deum. Till that moment she had felt that some accident might happen to prevent her getting to him. Now, in less than four hours she would be in his studio.
She had written to tell him not to meet her at the station. She wanted their first meeting to be alone, without the eyes of curious porters upon them.
“Just you and I together, my darling,” she wrote. “I can see the room in my mind, and you coming forward to meet me. There has not been a moment day and night when you have been absent from my thoughts. Our love transfigures everything for me. Life has become a magic book on every page of which your name is written....”