With odd, slow movements he opened the shutter and window, and, turning, invited Lory by a jerk of the head to come and look. The moon, which must have been at the full, was behind the château, and therefore invisible. Before them, in a framework of giant pines that have no match in Europe, lay a panorama of rolling plain and gleaming river. Far away towards Calvi and the south, range after range of rugged mountain melted into a distance, where the snow-clad summits of Cinto and Grosso stood majestically against the sky. The clouds had vanished. It was almost twilight under the southern moon. To the right the sea lay shimmering.
“I did not know that there was anything like it in Europe,” said Lory, after a long pause.
“There is nothing like it,” answered his father, gravely, “in the world.”
Father and son were still standing at the open window, when Jean came hurriedly into the room.
“It is the abbé,” he said, and went out again. The count stepped down from the raised window recess, and turned up the lamp, which he had lowered. Lory paused to close the shutter, and as he did so the Abbé Susini came into the room without looking towards the window, which was near the door by which he entered, without, therefore, seeing Lory. He hurried into the room, and stopped dead, facing the count. He threw out one finger, and pointed at his interlocutor as he spoke, in his quick dramatic way.
“I have just seen a man from Calvi. One landed there this morning whom he recognized. It could only have been your son. If one recognizes him, another may. Is the boy mad to return thus—”
He broke off, and made a step nearer, peering into the count's face.
“You know something. I see it in your face. You know where he is.”
“He is there,” said the count, pointing over the priest's shoulder.
“Then God bless him,” said the Abbé Susini, turning on his heel.