"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.
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!