And I was forced at last to allow her to walk back to the hotel, and to follow her alone.
What was the nature of her secret?
If ever a man’s heart sank to the depths of despair mine sank at that moment. She had been all the world to me, and, cosmopolitan adventurer that I had now become, I met a thousand bright-eyed chic and attractive women, yet I revered her memory as the one woman who was pure and perfect.
I watched her disappear into the green-carpeted hotel-lounge, where an orchestra of mandolinists were playing an air from La Bohème. Then I turned away, full of my own sad thoughts, and strolled in the falling twilight beside the grey sea.
Just before dinner, after re-entering the hotel, I wrote a note and gave it to the hall-porter to send to the Signorina.
“The Signorina and the Signora have left, Signore. They went down to the boat for Naples half an hour ago.”
I tore up the note, and next day left Palermo.
Next night I was in Naples, but could find no trace of them. So I went on to Rome, where I was equally unsuccessful. From the Eternal City I took the express to Calais, and on to London, where I learnt that the Viscount her father had died six months before, and that she was travelling on the Continent with her aunt.
Nearly a year passed without any news of my love.