The Broken Thread by William Le Queux — Read

The sunlit day that followed the breakfast at the little table laid for three, was full of happiness for Raife. He rapidly planned a motor-car ride. There were many details to be arranged. Lady Remington must be propitiated. The conventionalities of the South are less exacting than those of the North, but some of them must be observed. Lady Remington accepted the specious circumstances invented by Raife, and Doctor Malsano and his niece, Gilda Tempest, were duly introduced to her ladyship. The presentation was a characteristic presentment of difficulties overcome by an astuteness that youth can assume when love is the guide to the occasion. _Il dottore_ displayed a suavity that was charming to Lady Remington, and Raife snatched the opportunity for those small attentions that accompany a youthful courtship. All that had savoured of mystery disappeared when the car bounded over the white roads that clamber over the hill and mountain sides of the sunny Mediterranean shore.

To those two young hearts it was Elysium. A discreet Italian chauffeur paid those few attentions necessary to the well-ordered mechanism of a modern motor-car, and smiled once or twice when it occurred to him that so much happiness could not exist without a tragedy -- somewhere-sometime. A bend in the steep road, a precipitous declivity with a loose stone wall on either side, and a glorious prospect of blue sea, and rich coloured landscape, brought the happy party to one of those meeting grounds, where perfectly trained waiters and caterers for human comfort assort themselves.