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Updated: June 16, 2025
Denise glanced at him, and said nothing. And de Vasselot's breath came rather quickly. "But the Casa Perucca is at your disposal so long as you may choose to live there," he continued. "My father is to be buried at Olmeta to-morrow, but I cannot even remain to attend the funeral. So I need not assure you that I do not want the Casa Perucca for myself."
"And Mattei Perucca?" asked Lory, thereby causing the colonel to trip suddenly over a stone. "Oh, Perucca," he answered, "that was different. He died a more or less natural death. He was a very stout man, and on receiving a letter, gave way to such ungovernable rage that he fell in a fit. True, it was a threatening letter; but such are common enough in this country.
There was somewhere in his fierce old heart a cord that vibrated to the touch of these rude mountain customs; for the man was a Corsican of long descent and pure blood. Of such the fighting nations have made good soldiers in the past, and even Rome could not make them slaves. "Or you could do it," went on Perucca, with a shrewd nod, looking at him beneath shaggy brows. "The velvet glove eh?
Do you think you could find a witness who would dare to appear in your favour? No, my friend. There is no law in this country, except that;" and he pointed to a gun in the corner of the room, an old-fashioned muzzle-loader, with which he had had the law of Andrei Perucca thirty years before. "But now that there is no Perucca left the clan will cease to exist," said Lory.
But there is our good Colonel Gilbert. You forget him." "He would have made a good priest," said mademoiselle, bluntly, and the abbe laughed aloud. "Ah! but you amuse me, mademoiselle. You amuse me enormously." And he leant back to laugh at his ease. "Yes, I came on purpose to amuse you. I came to tell you that Denise Lange has sold Perucca to Colonel Gilbert."
"You did not know it when I asked your advice in Paris?" "I learnt it two hours ago from the Abbe Susini; so I hastened here to claim the whole of it," answered Lory, with a laugh. But Denise was grave. "But you knew that Perucca was never mine," she persisted. "Yes, I knew that, but then Perucca was valueless. So soon as I knew its value, I reclaimed it."
It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the Casa Perucca, Denise asked the colonel to come in and rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time, and in a thinly populated country the great distances between neighbours are conducive to an easier hospitality than that which exists in closer quarters. The colonel naturally stayed to luncheon.
Denise dipped the pen into the ink again, but she did not sign. "Why not?" she asked without looking round, her hand still resting on the paper. "Because," answered Lory, addressing her directly, "Perucca is not yours to sell. It is mine." Denise turned and looked straight at Colonel Gilbert. She had never been quite sure of him. He had never appeared to her to be quite in earnest.
"Ah, yes," said Denise, returning his bow, and looking at him with frank eyes. "Thank you very much, monsieur, but we are going to live at Perucca ourselves." "By all means," laughed the colonel, "try it, mademoiselle; try it. It is an impossibility, I tell you frankly. And Corsica is not a country in which to attempt impossibilities. See here!
He looked upward with a soldier's eye at this spot, designed by nature as the site of a fort which could command the whole valley and the roads to Corte and Calvi. Far above, amid chestnut trees and some giant pines, De Vasselot could see the roof and the chimneys of a house it was the Casa Perucca.
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