Just at this moment the servant, having seen nothing of Countess Lucia on the road, decided, as a last resort, to search the garden for her Ladyship.
It is easy to say that the Captain should not have been so shocked, and that it would have been becoming in him to remember his own transgression committed in the little hut in the hollow of the hill. But human nature is not, as a rule at least, so constituted that the immediate or chief effect of the sight of another's wrong-doing is to recall our own. The scene before him outraged all the Captain's ideas of how his neighbours ought to conduct themselves, and (perhaps a more serious thing) swept away all memory of the caution contained in the Countess's letter.
The Count rose with a smile, still holding the Countess by the hand.
"My dear friend," he cried, "we 're delighted to see you. But what? You 've been in the wars!"
Dieppe made no answer. His stare attracted his host's attention.
"Ah," he pursued, with a laugh, "you wonder to see us like this? We are treating you too much _en famille_! But indeed you ought to be glad to see it. We owe it almost all to you. No, she would n't be here but for you, my friend. Would you, dear?"
Did they refer to Dieppe's assisting her across the ford? If he had but known--
"Come," urged the Count, "give me your hand, and let my wife and me--"
"What?" cried the Captain, loudly, in unmistakable surprise.
The Count looked from him to the Countess. The Countess began to laugh. Her husband seemed as bewildered as Dieppe.
"Oh, dear," laughed the Countess, "I believe Captain Dieppe did n't know me!"'
"He 's only seen me once, and then in the dark, you know. Oh, what did you suspect? But you recognise me now? You will believe that I really am Andrea's wife?"
The Captain could not catch the cue. It meant to him so complete a reversal of what he had so unhesitatingly believed, such an utter upsetting of all his notions. For if this were in truth the Countess of Fieramondi, why, who was the other lady? His want of quickness threatened at last to ruin the scheme which he had, although unconsciously, done so much to help; for the Count was growing puzzled.
"I--I--Of course I know the Countess of Fieramondi," stammered Dieppe.