Gilda Tempest saw Raife’s form in the distance, and the old spirit of dread and unrest returned to her with an added fury.
Where should she go? How could she leave Bordighera without being discovered by Raife or his mother? Where also was the dreaded H of S Y? Turning in the beautiful pathway, she hastened, with drooping form, back over the cliffs, and sought the seclusion of her obscure lodgings in the back part of the quaint and quiet old town.
Long she schemed and planned for a way out of the difficulty. All the soothing reflections of the afternoon had gone, and in place was the renewal of trouble, unrest and danger.
The darkest hours of night and trouble precede the dawn.
Gilda, in the throes of her anxiety, gazed into space. She was awakened from her half-dazed thoughts by a discreet tap at the door. Her buxom, beaming-faced landlady entered and asked the young ‘mees’ the signorina, “Would she like an automobile ride in the beautiful evening time? The signorina looked pale and tired and it might do her good. The chauffeur of the Count Lyonesse had invited her and her husband for a ride, and if the young ‘mees’ would accompany them all would be well. The Count had gone away for a week and all was safe.”
This was the streak of dawn which rapidly became daylight, as Gilda saw her chance to escape from Bordighera in the guise of a peasant and accompanied, nay, safely chaperoned, by these good, simple folk, who saw no harm in a joy-ride in the automobile of the absent count. She must persuade them to take the route by the Col di Tenda through the long tunnel north into Italy, then to Cuneo. If she could induce them to “fetch” Cuneo, how should she give them the slip? She had left the bulk of her trunks at Nice. She must dispose of papers; but folks who live like Doctor Malsano and Gilda Tempest don’t preserve incriminating documents. How could she give them the slip at Cuneo? “H of S Y” would not follow her. He would follow her uncle—if he could.