And then mechanically he drew a chair to the table, and sat down and pulled the small package towards him; perhaps the contents might help to explain this extraordinary thing that had occurred.  But the moment that he took the lid off the pasteboard box he was more bewildered than ever; for the first glimpse told him that Nina had returned to him all the little presents he had made to her in careless moments.

“Nina!” he said, under his voice, in a tone of indignant reproach.

Yes, here was every one of them, from the enclasped loving-cup to the chance trinkets he had purchased for her just as they happened to attract his eye.  He took them all out; there was no letter, no message of any kind.  And then he asked himself, almost angrily, what sort of mad freak was this.  Had the wayward and petulant Nina—­forgetting all the suave and gracious demeanor she had been teaching herself since she came to England—­had she run away in a fit of temper, breaking her engagement at the theatre, and causing alarm and anxiety to her friends, all about nothing?  For he and she had not quarrelled in any way whatsoever, as far as he knew.  One fancy, at least, never occurred to him—­or, if it occurred to him, it was dismissed in a moment—­that Nina might have had a secret lover; that she had honestly wished to return these presents before making an elopement.  It was quite possible that Nicolo Ciana, if he had heard of Nina’s success in England, might have pursued her, and sought to marry so very eligible a helpmeet; but if the young man with the greasy hair and the sham jewelry and the falsetto voice had really come to England, Lionel knew who would have been the first to bid him return to his native shores and his zuccherelli.  Had not Nina indignantly denied that he had ever dared to address her as “Nenna mia,” or that his perpetual “Antoniella, Antonia,” in any way referred to her?  No; Lionel did not think that Nicolo Ciana had much to do with Nina’s disappearance.

And then, as he regarded this little box of useless jewelry, another wild guess flashed through his brain, leaving him somewhat breathless, almost frightened.  Was it possible that Nina had mistaken these gifts for love-gifts, had discovered her mistake, and, in a fit of wounded pride, had flung them back and fled forever from this England that had deceived her?  He was not vain enough to think there could be anything more serious, that Nina might be breaking her heart over what had happened to her; but it was quite enough if he had unconsciously led her to believe that he was paying her attentions.  He looked at that loving-cup with some pricking of conscience; he had to confess that such a gift was capable of misconstruction.  It had never occurred to him that she might regard it as some kind of mute declaration—­as a pledge of affection between him and her that necessitated no clearer understanding.  He had seen the two tiny goblets in a window; he had been taken by the