"It is very strange what can have become of the desk!" repeated Kenyon,

looking the woman in the face.

"Very strange, indeed, Signore," she replied meekly, without turning

away her eyes in the least, but checking his insight of them at about

half an inch below the surface. "I think the signorina must have taken

it with her."

It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon therefore departed,

after making an arrangement with the woman, by the terms of which she

was to allow the apartments to remain in their present state, on his

assuming the responsibility for the rent.

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He spent the day in making such further search and investigation as he

found practicable; and, though at first trammelled by an unwillingness

to draw public attention to Hilda's affairs, the urgency of the

circumstances soon compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the

course of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of fathoming the

mystery, not merely by his personal efforts and those of his brother

artists and friends, but through the police, who readily undertook the

task, and expressed strong confidence of success. But the Roman police

has very little efficiency, except in the interest of the despotism of

which it is a tool. With their cocked hats, shoulder belts, and swords,

they wear a sufficiently imposing aspect, and doubtless keep their eyes

open wide enough to track a political offender, but are too often blind

to private outrage, be it murder or any lesser crime. Kenyon counted

little upon their assistance, and profited by it not at all.

Remembering the mystic words which Miriam had addressed to him, he

was anxious to meet her, but knew not whither she had gone, nor how

to obtain an interview either with herself or Donatello. The days wore

away, and still there were no tidings of the lost one; no lamp rekindled

before the Virgin's shrine; no light shining into the lover's heart;

no star of Hope--he was ready to say, as he turned his eyes almost

reproachfully upward--in heaven itself!




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