Count Nobili was rushing forward, with some undefined purpose of chastising Guglielmi, when Fra Pacifico interposed.  A quiet smile parted his well-formed mouth; he shrugged his shoulders as he eyed the enraged lawyer.

“Allow me to judge of my duty as a priest.  Look to your own as a lawyer, or it may be the worse for you.  What says the motto?—­’Those who seek gold may find sand.’”

Guglielmi, greatly alarmed at what Fra Pacifico might reveal of their previous conversation, waited to hear no more; he hastily disappeared.  Fra Pacifico watched the manner of his exit with silence, the quiet smile of conscious power still on his lips.  When he turned and addressed Count Nobili, the smile had died out.

Before Fra Pacifico can speak, the whole pack of dogs, attracted by the loud voices, gather round the steps before the open window.  They are barking furiously.  The smooth-skinned, treacherous bull-dog is silent, but he stands foremost.  True to his breed, the bull-dog is silent.  He creeps in noiselessly—­his teeth gleam within an inch of Nobili.  Fra Pacifico spies him.  With a furious kick he flings him out far over the heads of the others.  The bull-dog’s howl of anguish rouses the rest to frenzy.  A moment more, and Fra Pacifico and Count Nobili would have been attacked within the very room, but again footsteps are heard passing in the shadow.  A shot is fired close at hand.  The dogs rush off, the bull-dog whining and limping in the rear.

Count Nobili and Fra Pacifico exchange glances.  There is a knock at the door.  Pipa enters carrying a lighted lamp which she places on the table.  Pipa does not even salute Fra Pacifico, but fixes her eyes, swollen with crying, upon Count Nobili.

“What is the matter?” asks the priest.

“Riverenza, I do not know.  Adamo and Angelo are out watching.”

“But, Pipa, it is very strange.  A shot was fired.  The dogs, too, are wilder than ever.”

“Riverenza, I know nothing.  Perhaps there are some deserters about.  We are used to the dogs.  I never hear them.  I am come from the signorina.”

At that name Count Nobili looks up and meets Pipa’s gaze.  If Pipa could have stabbed him then and there with the silver dagger in her black hair she would have done it, and counted it a righteous act.  But she must deliver her message.

“Signore Conte”—­Pipa flings her words at Nobili as if each word were a stone, with which she would have hit him—­“Signore Conte, the marchesa has sent me.  The marchesa bids me salute you.  She desired me to bring in this light.  I was to say supper is served in the great sala.  She eats in her own room with the cavaliere, and hopes you will excuse her.”

Before the count could answer, Pipa was gone.

“My son,” said Fra Pacifico, standing beside him in the dimly-lighted room, “you have now had time to reflect.  Do you accept the separation offered to you by your wife?”