“Excellency, it was a wise answer, putting off at once the burden of his reproaches. He replied to me with your English word.
“‘Verdammt!’ said he, bringing his fist heavily upon the table, ‘she shall go to no convent! You hear that, old man? Then speak no more of it.’
“‘Herr Count,’ said I, ‘your wish is a command to me. Yet there is one by whom it might not be so regarded. I speak of Christine’s husband, Ugo Klun.’
“‘Her husband, Signor Andrea!’ he cried with a start of surprise. ‘But he was shot in the mountains five months ago!’
“‘So the word goes,’ I answered; ‘but there is another story. Few know the hills like Ugo, Herr Count.’
“It was plain that this suggestion came very ill to him. He got up from his chair and paced the room twice before he spoke again.
“‘Pshaw!’ he exclaimed at last; ‘this is all nonsense. I have read the corporal’s report with my own eyes. He killed the fellow himself, and helped to bury him. Your tongue wags too fast, my friend; see that you keep it still when the girl comes back.’
“I bowed my head, excellency, being careful to lose nothing of my dignity before him. But when Christine came running back again, and I observed the restlessness of his hands and the flush upon his face, the whole of his secret was mine, and no longer was anything hid from me.
“And in my heart I said: ‘God help them both if Ugo Klun is living still in the cave above the Verbas.’”