It was late summer-time, and the perfume of flowers stole into the darkened room through the half-opened window.

The sunlight forced its way through a chink in the blind, and stretched across the floor in strange zigzag fashion.

From without came the pleasant murmur of bees and many lazier insects floating over the gorgeous flower beds, resting for a while on the clematis which had made the piazza a blaze of purple splendour.

And inside, in a high-backed chair, there sat a man, his arms folded, his eyes fixed steadily upon vacancy.

As he sat then, so had he sat for a whole day and a whole night.