Kitty snatched it away, trembling under his look. She began the answer she had devised while he was crossing the flagged quay towards her. But Cliffe paid no heed. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and she sank back powerless into her chair as he bent over her.
"Cruel—cruel child, to play with me so! Did you mean to put me to a last test?—or did your hard little heart misgive you at the last moment? I cross-examined your landlady—I bribed the servants—the gondoliers. Not a word! They were loyal—or you had paid them better. I went back to my hotel in black despair. Oh, you artist!—you plotter! Kitty—you shall pay me this some day! And there—there on my table—all the time—lay your little crumpled note!"
"What note?" she gasped—"what note?"
"Actress!" he said, with an amused laugh.
And cautiously, playfully, lest she should snatch it from him, he unfolded it before her.
Without signature and without date, the soiled half-sheet contained this message, written in Italian and in a disguised handwriting:
"Too many spectators. Come to Verona to-night.
"K."
Kitty looked at it, and then at the face beside her—infused with a triumphant power and passion. She seemed to shrink upon herself, and her head fell back against one of the supports of the pergola. One of the blue lights from above fell with ghastly effect upon the delicate tilted face and closed eyes. Cliffe bent over her in a sharp alarm, and saw that she had fainted away.