False Evidence by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

It was one of those evenings which, to any one acquainted only with our English climate, seem like a foretaste of paradise. I sat before a tiny marble table at one of the open-air _cafés_ at the head of the Marina, listening idly to the music of the band only a few yards off, and gazing over the peaceful, glistening sea which stretched away in front. There were many people passing backwards and forwards, but my thoughts were far away, and I took notice of none of them. With my head resting upon my arm, and my arm upon the low balustrade, I had fallen into a semi-somnolent slumber of thought, and the faces of the people who lounged by chattering and laughing I saw only as figures in a dream. My cigarette even had burnt out between my lips, and the coffee which stood by my side I had not tasted.

The roadway was completely blocked with the carriages of the Palermitan nobility and elite, and the promenade was thronged with a heterogeneous stream of fishermen and natives and visitors. All Palermo flocks on to the Marina at nightfall -- as who would not? -- to hear the band and breathe in the freshness of the sea, and with other objects very similar to those which attract promenaders on to the esplanades of English watering-places at a similar hour. Often I had amused myself by watching them, and looking out for English visitors; but to-night, early in the evening, I had seen a Sicilian countess who reminded me slightly of Maud, and my thoughts had flashed back to Devereux, and remained there, heedless of my efforts to recall them, hovering around one fair face, which sometimes I feared was more to me than anything else in the world.