s a little cracked. . . . The lady found him
troublesome--for she sees a great deal of company. So she sent him out
here. He's very gentle--no worry at all. He doesn't speak three words
the whole day long. In fact, his brain's quite gone. The doctor comes to
see him every week. He says he won't live long."

"There's no hope for him, then!" said Colomba. "In such a case, death
will be a mercy."

"You might say a word to him in Corsican, signorina. Perhaps it would
cheer him up to hear the speech of his own country."

"I'll see!" said Colomba, and her smile was mysterious.

She drew nearer to the old man, till her shadow fell across his chair.
Then the poor idiot lifted his head and stared at Colomba, while she
looked at him, smiling still. After a moment, the old man passed his
hand across his forehead, and closed his eyes, as though he would have
shut out the sight of Colomba. He opened them again, desperately wide
this time. His lips began to work, he tried to stretch out his hands,
but, fascinated by Colomba's glance, he sat, nailed, as it were, to his
chair, unable to move or utter a word. At last great tears dropped from
his eyes, and a few sobs escaped from his heaving chest.

"'Tis the first time I've seen him like this," said the good woman.
"This signorina belongs to your own country; she has come to see you,"
said she to the old man.

"Mercy!" he cried in a hoarse voice. "Mercy! Are you not content? The
leaf I burned. How did you read it? But why did you take them both?
Orlanduccio! You can't have read anything against him! You should have
left me one, only one! Orlanduccio--you didn't read _his_ name!"

"I had to have them both!" answered Colomba, speaking low and in the
Corsican dialect. "The branches are topped off! If the stem had not been
rotten, I would have torn it up! Come! make no moan. You will not suffer
long! _I_ suffered for two years!"

The old man cried out, and then his head dropped on his breast. Colomba
turned her back on him, and went slowly into the house, humming some
meaningless lines out of a _ballata_:

"I must have the hand
that fired, the eye that aimed, the heart
that planned."

While the farmer's wife ran to attend on the old man, Colomba, with
blazing eyes and brilliant cheeks, sat down to luncheon opposite the
colonel.

"What's the matter with you?" he said. "You look just as you did that
day at Pietranera, when they fired at us while we were at dinner.