“There you are wrong,” cried Vivienne, and her voice, which up to this time had been subdued, now became strong and impassioned. “I have a sad memory and, as what I have said to you may cause you to misunderstand my true feeling, I will tell you all. The very day that I was born my father became the victim of an assassin. My brothers tell me that my father had no quarrel with the man who murdered him and he must have been hired by some one to do the cruel deed. He was a coward, for that very night he took his only child, a little boy six years old, and fled from the country, so that my brothers are deprived of the opportunity of avenging the death of our father. There are none who dare to say Rimbecco to my brothers, but many think it in their hearts.”
“Rimbecco!” cried Helen. “What does that mean?”
“Rimbecco,” explained Vivienne, “is a reproachful word spoken to a member of a Corsican family by another member of the family, or one of its adherents, because the assassination of a relative has not been followed, within a reasonable time, by the killing of the assassin or some member of his family. Rimbecco is the worst taunt that can be thrown in the face of a Corsican, for it is considered as declaring him to be even baser than a coward. If Manuel Della Coscia, who murdered my father, and his son Vandemar, who must now be twenty-four years of age, are still living, they must remain exiles or return to Corsica and answer with their lives for the great crime which has been committed.”
“But you who are so kind to the unfortunate, so good to all, can you not avert the doom which threatens an innocent victim? Young Vandemar, the last of his race, is surely guiltless. Is it just that he should suffer death for no fault of his own?”
“Men are killed in war for no fault of their own,” said Vivienne.
“Alas, yes,” replied Helen, “but that is unavoidable. Suppose that, instead of your father becoming the victim, he had killed his assailant?”
Vivienne responded quickly: “It would then rest with his son, now that he has grown to manhood, to avenge his father by killing my brothers.”
“Oh, tell me,” cried Helen, “that you do not favour this cruel, wicked custom! Tell me, dear friend, that you abhor it as I do!”
“I regret the necessity,” Vivienne replied.
“And according to the custom of your country, your elder brother must commit this terrible deed?”