ithout
her knowledge--because I guessed her to be walking into peril."

"Excuse me. Without her knowledge, you say?" The Commandant turned
to the Princess, who bowed her head but continued to gaze at me from
under her lowered brows. "Absolutely, sir."

"And without knowledge of her errand? Again excuse me, but does it
not occur to you that you may be intruding at this moment upon a
family affair?"

Here the Prince broke in with a scornful laugh. For a minute or so
his brow had been clearing, but, though he sneered, he could not as
yet meet his sister's eye. I noted this as his laugh drew my gaze
upon him, and it seemed that my contempt gave me a sudden clear
insight; for I found myself answering the Commandant very
deliberately--

"The Princess, sir, until a moment ago, perhaps knew not whether I
was alive or dead, and certainly knew not that I was within a hundred
miles of this place. Had she known it, she would as certainly not
have confided her errand to me, mixed up as it is with her brother's
shame. She would, I dare rather wager, have taken great pains to
hide it from me. And yet I will not pretend that I am quite ignorant
of it, as neither will I allow--family affair though it be--that I
have no interest in it, seeing that it concerns the crown of
Corsica."

The Commandant glanced at the Prince, then at the priest, who stood
passive, listening, with his back to the wall, his loose-lidded eyes
studying me from the lantern's penumbra.

"What possible interest--" begun the Commandant.

"By the crown of Corsica," I interrupted, "I mean the material crown
of the late King Theodore, at this moment concealed (if I mistake
not) somewhere in this cottage. In it I may claim a certain
interest, seeing that I brought it from England to this island, and
that the Prince Camillo here--whose father gave it to me--is trading
it to you by fraud. Yes, _messere_, he may claim that it belongs to
him by right; but he obtained it from me by fraud, as neither he nor
his sister can deny. That perhaps might pass: but when he--he a son
of Corsica--goes on to sell it to Genoa, I reassert my claim."

Again the Commandant shrugged his shoulders. It consoled me to note
that his glance at the Prince was by no means an admiring one.

"I am a soldier," he said curtly. "I do not deal in sentiment; nor
is it my business, when a bargain comes to me--a bargain in which I
can serve my country--to inquire into how's and why's.