From California to Sicily is a long way. It used to be considered far longer than it is now but in these magical days of aerial and motor travelling, distance counts but little,--indeed as almost nothing to the mind of any man or woman brought up in America and therefore accustomed to "hustle." Morgana Royal had "hustled" the whole business, staying in Paris a few days only,--in Rome but two nights; and now here she was, as if she had been spirited over sea and land by supernatural power, seated in a perfect paradise-garden of flowers and looking out on the blue Mediterranean with dreamy eyes in which the lightning flash was nearly if not wholly subdued.

About quarter of a mile distant, and seen through the waving tops of pines and branching oleander, stood the house to which the garden belonged,--a "restored" palace of ancient days, built of rose-marble on the classic lines of Greek architecture. Its "restoration" was not quite finished; numbers of busy workmen were employed on the facade and surrounded loggia; and now and again she turned to watch them with a touch of invisible impatience in her movement. A slight smile sweetened her mouth as she presently perceived one figure approaching her,--a lithe, dark, handsome man, who, when he drew near enough, lifted his hat with a profoundly marked reverence, and, as she extended her hand, raised it to his lips.