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He threw open the door, announcing "Captain Dieppe!" and then withdrawing with dexterous quickness. Captain Dieppe had expected nothing good. The reality was worse than his imagining The Count sat on a sofa, and by him, with her arms round his neck, was the lady whom Dieppe had escorted across the ford on the road from Sasellano. The Captain stood still just within the doorway, frowning heavily.

The deuce, I reward effort as well as success I am more liberal than your Government." The gesture with which he held out the notes was magnificent. Guillaume stared at him in amazement, but his hand went out towards the notes. "I am free to do what I can at Sasellano?" "Yes, free to do anything except bother me. But I think your bird will have flown."

Guillaume took the notes and hid them in his pocket; then he walked straight up to the driver, crying, "How much to take me with you to Sasellano?" The driver looked at him, at Dieppe, and then down towards the river. "Come, the flood will be less by now; the river will be falling," said Dieppe. "Fifty francs," said the driver, and Guillaume got in. "Good!" said the Captain to himself.

As he was so engaged, the sound of wheels slowly climbing the hill became audible from the direction of the village. "You see," he went on, "you can't return to the village you are on too good terms with the police. Let me advise you to go to Sasellano; the flood will be falling by now, and I should n't wonder if we could find you a means of conveyance."

"The carriage! What carriage?" she cried with eagerness. "Oddly enough, I found a lady travelling from Sasellano, I understood; and I had the privilege of aiding her to cross the ford." Dieppe spoke with a calculated lightness. "A lady a lady from Sasellano? What sort of a lady? What was she like?" The Captain was watching her closely. Her agitation was unmistakable.

It was the heavy, swishing noise of a deep body of water in rapid movement. His eyes flew down to the river. "By God!" he muttered under his breath; and from the river his glance darted to Paul de Roustache. The landlord of the inn at Sasellano had not spoken without warrant. The stream ran high in flood, and Paul de Roustache stood motionless in fear and doubt on the threshold of the ford.

And not less ignorant of these possible incidents was a lady who this same evening stood in the courtyard of the only inn of the little town of Sasellano, where the railway ended, and whence the traveller to the Count of Fieramondi's Castle must take a carriage and post-horses. The lady demanded horses, protested, raged; most urgent business called her to pursue her journey, she said.

He escaped me and made off in the direction of Sasellano." "And the first one this Guillaume?" "When I got back he was gone," said the Captain. "But I bear marks of a scratch which he gave me, you perceive." He looked at the Count. The Count appeared excellently well satisfied with the story. He looked at the ladies; they were smiling and nodding approval.

"Only you must understand that that the mine is worked out, my friend. I think your way lies there." He pointed towards the road that led up from the ford to Sasellano. Still Paul lingered, seeming to wish to say something that he found difficult to phrase. "I was devilish hard up," he muttered at last. "That is always a temptation," said the Captain, gravely.

The driver mounted his perch; the lady leant out of the window to take farewell of her ally. "Every hour was of value to me," she said, with a plain touch of emotion in her voice, "and but for you I should have been taken back to Sasellano. We shall meet again, I hope." "I shall live in the hope," said he, with a somewhat excessive gallantry a trick of which he could not cure himself.