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Updated: June 16, 2025
While Denise sat stiller and more silent than either, for her thoughts were at once as wide as the whole world, and as narrow as the human heart. At a turn in the road she looked up, and saw the sharp outline of the Casa Perucca, black and sombre against a sky now lighted by a rising moon, necked and broken by heavy clouds, with deep lurking shadows and mountains of snowy whiteness.
"No," he said, pausing in answer to a gesture made by his father, "not that one. It is of too old a make." And he went out of the room, leaving his father holding in his hand the gun with which he had shot Andrei Perucca thirty years before. He stood looking at the closed door with dim, reflective eyes. Then he looked at the gun, which he set slowly back in its corner.
He does not dare to come more often than once in three months four times a year. Mattei Perucca dead!" He shook his head with the odd, upward jerk and the weary smile. "I should like to see his carcass," he said. Then, after a pause, he went back to his original train of thought. "We are different," he said. "We are Corsicans.
But it is serious enough. It is a romance inside a blue envelope that is all." She gave a joyous laugh, and threw the letter down on Mademoiselle Brun's knees. "It is my father's cousin, Mattei Perucca, who has died suddenly, and has left me an estate in Corsica," she continued, impatiently opening the letter, which Mademoiselle Brun fingered with pessimistic distrust.
Their eyes met for an instant, and both alike had that questioning look which had shone in Denise's eyes as she came downstairs. They seemed to know each other now better than they had done when they last parted at the Casa Perucca. There was a chair near to his, and Denise sat down there as if it had been placed on purpose as perhaps it had by Fate.
I will not trouble you with details, but it is an impossibility. I understand that Mattei Perucca and his agent were the two strongest men in the northern district, and they only attempted to hold their own, nothing more. With the result that you know." "But there are many ways of attempting to hold one's own," persisted Denise; and she shook her head with a wisdom which only belongs to youth.
"I heard that you had returned," he said, "and hastened to pay my respects." "We were looking at the plans," added Denise, hurriedly. "I have agreed to sell Perucca to Colonel Gilbert as you have always wished me to do." "Yes; I have always wished you do it," returned Mademoiselle Brun, slowly. She was very cool and collected, and in that had the advantage over her companions.
"Of course," said the notary in a judicial voice, "we are aware that the conveyance of the Perucca estate by the late Count de Vasselot to the late Mattei Perucca lacked formality; many conveyances in Corsica lacked formality in the beginning of the century. In many cases possession is the only title-deed.
"I am returning to Olmeta," said the peasant, as they neared the sign-post, "and will send that letter up to the Casa Perucca by one of my children. I wonder" he paused, and, taking the letter from his jacket pocket, turned it curiously in his hand "I wonder what is in it?" The colonel shrugged his shoulders and turned his horse's head.
She meekly set to work to make the Casa Perucca comfortable, and took up her horticultural labours where she had dropped them. "One misses the Chateau de Vasselot," she said one morning, standing by the open window that gave so wide a view of the valley. "Yes," answered Denise; and that was all. Mademoiselle went into the garden with her leather gloves and a small basket.
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