"Thank you, Flossie," he said, taking the package from her, "God bless you for all you are to her. Write me at Venice, Hotel New York, and tell me how she is. We shall stay there a day or two before going on to Vienna and Berlin."
He wrung her hands and walked away down the broad flight of stairs, and Flossie saw him no more.
CHAPTER III.
DEAD.
That was what Adolph, a messenger boy from the Quirinal, said to Grey three days later, when the latter accidentally met him in Florence and inquired for the young English girl who was so sick with the fever. Adolph had left the Quirinal for Florence, his home, on the evening of the same day of Grey's departure from Rome. The next afternoon the two met accidentally on one of the bridges which cross the river Arno.
"Dead!" Grey repeated, turning white to his lips and staggering as if he had been smitten with a heavy blow. "How can she be dead? They told me she was better the morning I left. When did she die?"
"A little after twelve," the boy replied, and Grey continued:
"Did her cousin come—a young man from Naples?"
"Yes," the boy answered, "Some gentleman was there—a big swell, who swore awfully at the clerk about the bills; there was no end of a row."