I was silent a few seconds. His eagerness was sufficient admission of a guilty conscience.
“Yes,” I said. “What matter the affairs of others, so long as the wife I love is innocent and at my side? She is the victim of a plot from which I must rescue her.”
The Italian gazed again away across the roofs of the Eternal City, now growing more indistinct in the gathering mists.
“I fear, Signor Holford,” he at last exclaimed with a sigh, “that you have a very difficult task before you. You are evidently in ignorance of certain curious facts.”
“Concerning what?”
“Concerning your wife.”
“You would cast a slur upon her good name?” I cried excitedly, my anger rising.
“Not at all,” was his calm, polite response, his lips parted in a pleasant smile. “You asked me to assist you, and I was about to give you advice—that is, provided that you have told me the truth.”
“About what?”
“About Miss Ethelwynn—that she still lives.”