"Why did you come here?" the Countess said. "How did you manage to find me out? I thought you were dead."
"I thought you were dead, too, till the other night," Maria said. "I was told that twenty years ago. I should not be here at all but for an amazing chance. You will remember that you were staying at the Grand Hotel some time in the spring, and it so happens that my rooms are on the same floor as yours, and that the same chambermaid is still there. When she welcomed me as an old customer I guessed by instinct that you were still alive. And if you only knew it, there is a providence behind this thing."
Countess Flavio appeared to be listening in a dull, mechanical kind of way. There was no disguising the fact that she was both distressed and disconcerted to find herself face to face with her long-lost sister again. "You know nothing of my history?" she asked. "Not till tonight," Maria said. "I have recently been listening to it. I knew nothing. How could I know anything? When our dream of happiness came so suddenly to an end I became practically a prisoner in that dreadful old house of ours near Naples. I was told that you were dead, and I believed the story. I knew nothing of your existence till a day or two ago. I was utterly ignorant of the fact that you had had such a dreadful time. Not that I would believe anything they say, Carlotta, because I know what you were in the old days. But however dreadful your experiences have been, you, at any rate, snatched a brief happiness. You married the man of your choice. How did you manage to escape?"
"Oh, don't ask me," Carlotta Flavio said bitterly. "If you only knew everything you would see that you were far better off in your prison than I was with my liberty. Do you know that I was five times tried for my life? Do you know that for four years I was the most execrated woman in South Italy? But I am not going into that now. I want to know what brings you here this evening. Why you should come at such an inconvenient time?"
"But why inconvenient?" Mrs. Delahay protested. "We were fond of one another in the old times. And what more natural than I should seek out my sister at the first opportunity? But you are changed. Doubtless your misfortunes have soured you. I have had my misfortunes, too. Of course you have heard lately a good deal about Mr. Louis Delahay--I mean the unfortunate artist who was found murdered in his studio the other night?"