I had searched thoroughly each drawer, raked every pigeonhole.
Either she had destroyed the letter, or carried it upon her.
Baffled, frustrated, I turned again to Louise.
“It is not here,” I said.
“Have you looked through the blotter?” she asked, in doubt.
Like a fool, I had laid it on the chair, never thinking that so obvious a place could hide a secret letter.
I took it up, and there, in the center, between two clean white sheets, fell out the envelope from Plymouth.
The letter was still inside.
I pulled it from its cover, and gave it to Louise.
“This is it,” I said, “see if you can decipher it.”
She looked down at the piece of paper, then gave it back to me.
“But it isn’t in Italian,” she said to me.
“Read it yourself.”
I read the note.
There were only a few, brief lines.
He had dispensed with formality, as I had thought he might; but not in the manner I had pictured.
The time was eleven of the evening, but there was no beginning.
“Since you have become more English than Italian, I write to you in your language of adoption.
It is after eleven, and we weigh anchor at midnight.
I will do all you ask of me in Florence, and perhaps more beside, though I am not sure you deserve any of it.
At least, the villa will be waiting for you, and the servants, when you at last decide to tear yourself away.
Do not delay too long.
I have never had great faith in those impulses of your heart, and your emotions.
If, in the end, you cannot bring yourself to leave that boy behind, then bring him with you.
I warn you though, against my better judgment.
Have a care to yourself, and believe me, your friend, Rainaldi.”
I read it once, then twice.
I gave it to Louise.
“Does it give you the proof you wanted?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
Something must be missing.
Some postscript, on a further scrap of paper, that she had thrust into another sheet of the blotter.
I looked once more, but there was nothing. The blotter was clean, save for one folded packet lying on the top.
I seized it, and tore away the wrapping.
This time it was not a letter, nor a list of herbs or plants.
It was a drawing of Ambrose.
The initials in the corner were indistinct, but I supposed it was by some Italian friend, or artist, for Florence was scribbled after the initials, and the date was the month of June, of the year he died.
As I stared at it, I realized it must be the last likeness ever taken.
He had aged much, then, after leaving home.
There were lines about his mouth I did not know, and at the corners of his eyes.
The eyes themselves had a haunted look about them, as though some shadow stood close to his shoulder and he feared to look behind.
There was something lost about the face, and lonely too.
He seemed to know disaster was in store.
Though the eyes asked for devotion, they pleaded for pity too.
Underneath the drawing, Ambrose himself had scribbled some quotation in Italian.
“To Rachel.
Non ramentare che le ore felici.
Ambrose.”
I gave the drawing to Louise.
“There is only this,” I said.