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still my home. No one had taken it from me.
    Then, in the winter, the tone of his letters changed. Imperceptible at first, I scarcely noticed it, yet on rereading his words I became aware of a sense of strain in all he said, some underlying note of anxiety creeping in upon him. Nostalgia for home in part, I could see that. A longing for his own country and his own possessions, but above all a kind of loneliness that struck me as strange in a man but ten months married. He admitted that the long summer and autumn had been very trying, and now the winter was unusually close. Although the villa was high, there was no air in it; he said he used to move about from room to room like a dog before a thunderstorm, but no thunder came. There was no clearing of the air, and he would have given his soul for drenching rain, even if it crippled him. “I was never one for headaches,” he said, “but now I have them frequently. Almost blinding at times. I am sick of the sight of the sun. I miss you more than I can say. So much to talk about, difficult in a letter. My wife is in town today, hence my opportunity to write.” It was the first time that he had used the words “my wife.” Always before he had said Rachel or “your cousin Rachel,” and the words “my wife” looked formal to me, and cold.
    In these winter letters there was no talk of coming home, but always a passionate desire to know the news, and he would comment upon any little trifle I had told him in my letters, as though he held no other interest.
    Nothing came at Easter, or at Whitsun, and I grew worried. I told my godfather, who said no doubt the weather was holding up the mails. Late snow was reported in Europe, and I could not expect to hear from Florence before the end of May. It was over a year now since Ambrose had been married, eighteen months since he had been home. My first relief at his absence, after his marriage, turned to anxiety that he would not return at all. One summer had obviously tried his health. What would a second do? At last, in July, a letter came, short and incoherent, totally unlike himself. Even his writing, usually so clear, sprawled across the page as if he had had difficulty in holding his pen.
    “All is not well with me,” he said, “you must have seen that when I wrote you last. Better keep silent though. She watches me all the time. I have written to you several times, but there is no one I can trust, and unless I can get out myself to mail the letters they may not reach you. Since my illness I have not been able to go far. As for the doctors, I have no belief in any of them. They are liars, the whole bunch. The new one, recommended by Rainaldi, is a cutthroat, but then he would be, coming from that quarter. However, they have taken on a dangerous proposition with me, and I will beat them yet.” Then there was a gap, and something scratched out which I could not decipher, followed by his signature.
    I had the groom saddle my horse and rode over to my godfather to show him the letter. He was as much concerned as I was myself. “Sounds like a mental breakdown,” he said at once. “I don’t like it at all. That’s not the letter of a man in his right senses. I hope to heaven…” He broke off, and pursed his lips.
    “Hope what?” I asked.
    “Your uncle Philip, Ambrose’s father, died of a tumor on the brain. You know that, don’t you?” he said shortly.
    I had never heard it before, and told him so.
    “Before you were born, of course,” he said. “It was never a matter much discussed in the family. Whether these things are hereditary or not I can’t say, nor can the doctors. Medical science isn’t far enough advanced.” He read the letter again, putting on his spectacles to do so. “There is, of course, another possibility, extremely unlikely, but which I would prefer,” he said.
    “And that is?”
    “That Ambrose was drunk when he wrote the letter.”
    If he had not been over sixty years, and my godfather, I