I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count was announced and shown in. “Excuse me, Count,” said I, “for receiving you so informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to England, and no time to spare.”
“I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as it is,” said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never observed in him before.
“Well, sir,” said I, stiffly; “I am at your orders.”
It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to own that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper to relate what took place. I can but give the substance of our conversation. It is not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this purport:—The Count had come to inform me that, without any intention or endeavour on his part, he had gained Mrs O’Dowd’s affections and won her heart! Yes, much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting opposite to me at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was apologising for having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, he was most circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one side, and that he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself as became a Gran’ Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that might mean.
My amazement—I might almost call it my stupefaction—at the unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to him without an effort at interruption.
“I have come to you, therefore, to-day,” said he, “to give up her letters.”
“Her letters!” exclaimed I; “and she has written to you!”
“Twenty-three times in all,” said he, calmly, as he drew a large black pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. “The earlier ones are less interesting,” said he, turning them over. “It is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she commences to call me ‘Caro Animale’—she meant to say Annibale, but, poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger—‘Animale Mio’—the same error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, ‘Diletto del mio cuore, quando non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il mio Tiranno’—that was you.”
I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. I saw that Gioberti’s friend had his wits about him, and resumed the conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in my wife’s handwriting.
“Very true,” said he; “these, as you will perceive by the official stamp, are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura—the originals are safe.”