as he had reason to anticipate
from his host. But he did not expect anything so disconcerting as the
proposal which the Count actually laid before him when he unwillingly
entered his presence.

"Go to her--go to her on your behalf?" he exclaimed in a consternation
which luckily passed for a modest distrust of his qualifications for
the task. "But, my dear friend, what am I to say?"

"Say that I love her," said the Count in his low, musical tones. "Say
that beneath all differences, all estrangements, lies my deep, abiding,
unchanging love."

Statements of this sort the Captain preferred to make, when occasion
arose, on his own behalf.

"Say that I know I have been hard to her, that I recede from my demand,
that I will be content with her simple word that she will not, without
my knowledge, hold any communication with the person she knows of."

The Captain now guessed--or at least very shrewdly suspected--the
position of affairs. But he showed no signs of understanding.

"Tell her," pursued the Count, laying his hand on Dieppe's shoulder and
speaking almost as ardently as though he were addressing his wife
herself, "that I never suspected her of more than a little levity, and
that I never will or could."

Dieppe found himself speculating how much the Count's love and trust
might induce him to include in the phrase "a little levity."

"That she should listen--I will not say to love-making--but even to
gallantry, to a hint of admiration, to the least attempt at flirtation,
has never entered my head about my Emilia."

The Captain, amid all his distress, marked the name.

"I trust her--I trust her!" cried the Count, raising his hands in an
obvious stress of emotion, "as I trust myself, as I would trust my
brother, my bosom friend. Yes, my dear friend, as I now trust you
yourself. Go to her and say, 'I am Andrea's friend, his trusted
friend. I am the messenger of love. Give me your love--'"

"What?" cried the Captain. The words sounded wonderfully attractive.

"'Give me your love to carry back to him.'"

"Oh, exactly," murmured the Captain, relapsing into altruistic gloom.

"Then all will be forgiven between us. Only our love will be
remembered. And you, my friend, will have the happiness of seeing us
reunited, and of knowing that two grateful hearts thank you. I can
imagine no greater joy."

"It would certainly be--er--intensely gratifying," murmured Dieppe.

"You would remember it all your lif