"I do not intrude?" he inquired suavely.
Without waiting for a reply, he mounted the steps of the chapel, glancing about him with the affable air of an afternoon caller.
"I see," he remarked with a smile, "that you know the hour at which our saint should be visited."
Wyant agreed that the hour was indeed felicitous.
The stranger stood beamingly before the picture.
"What grace! What poetry!" he murmured, apostrophizing the St. Catherine, but letting his glance slip rapidly about the chapel as he spoke.
Wyant, detecting the manoeuvre, murmured a brief assent.
"But it is cold here -- mortally cold; you do not find it so?" The intruder put on his hat. "It is permitted at this hour -- when the church is empty. And you, my dear sir -- do you not feel the dampness? You are an artist, are you not? And to artists it is permitted to cover the head when they are engaged in the study of the paintings."
He darted suddenly toward the steps and bent over Wyant's hat.
"Permit me -- cover yourself!" he said a moment later, holding out the hat with an ingratiating gesture.
A light flashed on Wyant.
"Perhaps," he said, looking straight at the young man, "you will tell me your name. My own is Wyant."
The stranger, surprised, but not disconcerted, drew forth a coroneted card, which he offered with a low bow. On the card was engraved: --
Il Conte Ottaviano Celsi.
"I am much obliged to you," said Wyant; "and I may as well tell you that the letter which you apparently expected to find in the lining of my hat is not there, but in my pocket."
He drew it out and handed it to its owner, who had grown very pale.
