CHAPTER TWO
TOLD IN THE NIGHT
Sylvia Pennington! The face, the name, those wistful, appealing eyes haunted me in my dreams that night.
Why? Even now I am at a loss to tell, unless—well, unless I had become fascinated by that strange, mysterious, indescribable expression; fascinated, perhaps, by her marvellous beauty, unequalled in all my experience.
Next morning, while my man Lorenzo was waiting for me, I told him to make discreet inquiry regarding the pair when in the steward’s room, where he ate his meals. Soon after noon he came to me, saying he had discovered that the young lady had been heard by the night-porter weeping alone in her room for hours, and that, as soon as it was dawn, she had gone out for a long walk alone along the lake-side. It was apparent that she and her father were not on the very best of terms.
“The servants believe they are French, sir,” my man added; “but it seems that they tell people they are English. The man speaks English like an Englishman. I heard him, half-an-hour ago, asking the hall-porter about a telegram.”
“Well, Lorenzo,” I said, “just keep your eyes and ears open. I want to learn all I can about Mr. Pennington and his daughter. She hasn’t a maid, I suppose?”
“Not with her, sir,” he replied. “If she had, I’d soon get to know all about them.”
I was well aware of that, for Lorenzo Merli, like all Italians, was a great gossip, and quite a lady-killer in the servants’ hall. He was a dark-haired, good-looking young man whose character was excellent, and who had served me most faithfully. His father was farm-bailiff to an Italian marquis I knew, and with whom I had stayed near Parma, while before entering my service he had been valet to the young Marchese di Viterbo, one of the beaux of Roman society.