you could be to me."

"Did I say as much as that? And when I was Countess of Fieramondi!
Oh!"

"Yes, and you let me do something--even when you were Countess of
Fieramondi, too!"

"That was not playing the part well."

The Captain looked just a little doubtful, and Lucia laughed.

"Anyhow," said he, "you 're not Countess of Fieramondi now."

She looked up at him.

"You 're a very devout young lady," he continued, "who goes all the way
to Rome to consult the Bishop of Mesopotamia. Now, that"--the Captain
took both her hands in his--"is exactly the sort of wife for me."

"Monsieur le Capitaine, I have always thought you a courageous man, and
now I am sure of it. You have seen--and aided--all my deceit; and now
you want to marry me!"

"A man can't know his wife too well," observed the Captain. "Come, let
me go and communicate my wishes to Count Andrea."

"What? Why, you only met me for the first time last night!"

"Oh, but I can explain--"

"That you had previously fallen in love with the Countess of
Fieramondi? For your own sake and ours too--"

"That's very true," admitted the Captain. "I must wait a little, I
suppose."

"You must wait to tell Andrea that you love me, but--"

"Precisely!" cried the Captain. "There is no reason in the world why
I should wait to tell you."

And then and there he told her again in happiness the story which had
seemed so tragic when it was wrung from him in the shepherd's hut.

"Undoubtedly, I am a very fortunate fellow," he cried, with his arm
round Lucia's waist. "I come to this village by chance. By chance I
am welcomed here instead of having to go to the inn. By chance I am
the means of rescuing a charming lady from a sad embarrassment. I am
enabled to send a rascal to the right-about. I succeed in preserving
my papers. I inflict a most complete and ludicrous defeat on that
crafty old fellow, Guillaume Sevier! And, by heaven! when I do what
seems the unluckiest thing of all, when, against my will, I fall in
love with my dear friend's wife, when my honour is opposed to my
happiness, when I am reduced to the saddest plight--why, I say, by
heaven, she turns out not to be his wife at all! Lucia, am I not born
under a lucky star?"

"I think I should be very foolish not to--to do my best to share your
luck," said she.

"I am the happiest fellow in the world," he declared. "And that," he
added, as though it were a rare and precious coincidence, "with