The portiere answered his hell with alacrity.  The Americans were liberal guests.

The young lady?  Ah, she had driven away soon after they had themselves gone.  A thin-faced, dark-eyed man had called for her and taken her away, placing her baggage on the box of the carriage.  Yes, she had paid her bill and tipped the servants liberally.

“Just as I suspected!” cried Patsy.  “That horrid duke has forced her to leave us.  Perhaps he was jealous, and feared we would want to keep her always.  Was she weeping and miserable, porter?”

“No, signorina.  She laughed and was very merry.  And—­but I had forgotten!  There is a letter which she left for the Signorina D’Oyle.”

“Where?”

“In the office.  I will bring it at once.”

He ran away and quickly returned, placing a rather bulky parcel in the girl’s hands.

“You read it, Uncle John,” she said.  “There can’t be anything private in Tato’s letter, and perhaps she has explained everything.”

He put on his glasses and then took the missive and deliberately opened it.  Tato wrote a fine, delicate hand, and although the English words were badly spelled she expressed herself quite well in the foreign tongue.  With the spelling and lack of punctuation corrected, her letter was as follows: 

“Dear, innocent, foolish Patsy:  How astonished you will be to find I have vanished from your life forever; and what angry and indignant words you will hurl after poor Tato!  But they will not reach me, because you will not know in which direction to send them, and I will not care whether you are angry or not.

“You have been good to me, Patsy, and I really love you—­fully as much as I have fear of that shrewd and pretty cousin of yours, whose cold eyes have made me tremble more than once.  But tell Beth I forgive her, because she is the only clever one of the lot of you.  Louise thinks she is clever, but her actions remind me of the juggler who explained his tricks before he did them, so that the audience would know how skillful he was.”

“But oh, Patsy, what simpletons you all are!  And because you have been too stupid to guess the truth I must bother to write it all down.  For it would spoil much of my satisfaction and enjoyment if you did not know how completely I have fooled you.

“You tricked us that day in the mountain glen, and for the first time an Alcanta brigand lost his prisoners and his ransom money through being outwitted.  But did you think that was the end?  If so you failed to appreciate us.

“Look you, my dear, we could have done without the money, for our family has been robbing and accumulating for ages, with little need to expend much from year to year.  It is all in the Bank of Italy, too, and drawing the interest, for my father is a wise man of business.  That four hundred thousand lira was to have been our last ransom, and after we had fairly earned it you tricked us and did not pay.