Whatever Morgana had confided to him--( and she had confided much)--he kept his own counsel.
Within forty-eight hours of Morgana's summons the famous specialist from Rome, Professor Marco Ardini, noted all over the world for his miraculous cures of those whom other physicians had given up as past curing, arrived.

He heard the story of the rescue of a man and woman from drowning with emotionless gravity, more taken for the moment by Morgana herself, whom he had never seen before, but with whom he had corresponded on current questions of scientific importance.

From the extremely learned and incisive tone of her letters he had judged her to be an elderly woman of profound scholarship who had spent the greater part of her life in study, and his astonishment at the sight of the small, dainty creature who received him in the library of the Palazzo d'Oro was beyond all verbal expression,--in fact, he took some minutes to recover from the magnetic "shock" of her blue eyes and wistful smile.
"I must be quite frank with you,"-- she said, after a preliminary conversation with the great man in his own Italian tongue--"These two people have suffered their injuries by drowning--but not altogether.
They are the victims of an earthquake,--and were thrown by the earth's upheaval into a deep chasm flooded by water--" The Professor interrupted her.
"Pardon, Signora! There has been no recent earthquake in Europe." She gave a little gesture of assent.
"Not in Europe--no! But in America--in California there has been a terrible one!" "In California!" he echoed amazedly-"Gran' Dio! You do not mean to say that you brought these people from California, across that vast extent of ocean ?" She smiled.
"By air-ship--yes! Really nothing so very remarkable! You will not ask for further details just now, Professor!" and she laid her pretty hand coaxingly on his arm--"You and I both know how advisable it is to say as little as possible of our own work or adventures, while any subject is awaiting treatment and every moment counts! I will answer any question you may ask when you have seen my patients.

The girl is a beautiful creature--she is beginning to regain consciousness--but the man I fear is past even YOUR skill.

Come!" She led the way and Professor Ardini followed, marvelling at her ethereal grace and beauty, and more than interested in the "case" on which his opinion was sought.