At this Dacres said nothing; it appeared to dispel his project from his mind.  He relapsed into a sullen sort of gloom, and remained so for some time.  At last he spoke: 

“Hawbury!”

“Well?”

“Have you found out who that fellow is?”

“What fellow?”

“Why that yellow Italian that goes prowling around after my wife.”

“Oh yes; I heard something or other today.”

“What was it?”

“Well, it seems that he saved her life, or something of that sort.”

“Saved her life!” Dacres started.  “How? where?  Cool, too!”

“Oh, on the Alps somewhere.”

“On the Alps! saved her life!  Come now, I like that,” said Dacres, with bitter intonation.  Aha! don’t I know her?  I warrant you she contrived all that.  Oh, she’s deep!  But how did it happen?  Did you hear?”

“Well, I didn’t hear any thing very definite.  It was something about a precipice.  It was Lady Dalrymple that told me.  It seems she was knocked over a precipice by an avalanche.”

“Was what?  Knocked where?  Over a precipice?  By a what—­an avalanche?  Good Lord!  I don’t believe it.  I swear I don’t.  She invented it all.  It’s some of her infernal humbug.  She slid off over the snow, so as to get him to go after her.  Oh, don’t I know her and her ways!”

“Well, come now, old man, you shouldn’t be too hard on her.  You never said that flirtation was one of her faults.”

“Well, neither it was; but, as she is a demon, she’s capable of any thing; and now she has sobered down, and all her vices have taken this turn.  Oh yes.  I know her.  No more storms now—­no rage, no fury—–­all quiet and sly.  Flirtation!  Ha, ha!  That’s the word.  And my wife!  And going about the country, tumbling over precipices, with devilish handsome Italians going down to save her life!  Ha, ha, ha!  I like that!”

“See here, old boy, I swear you’re too suspicious.  Come now.  You’re going too far.  If she chooses, she may trump up the same charge against you and the child-angel at Vesuvius.  Come now, old boy, be just.  You can afford to.  Your wife may be a fiend in human form; and if you insist upon it, I’ve nothing to say.  But this last notion of yours is nothing but the most wretched absurdity.  It’s worse.  It’s lunacy.”

“Well, well,” said Dacres, in a milder tone; “perhaps she didn’t contrive it.  But then, you know,” he added, “it’s just as good for her.  She gets the Italian.  Ha, ha, ha!”

His laugh was forced, feverish, and unnatural.  Hawbury didn’t like it, and tried to change the subject.

“Oh, by-the-way,” said he, “you needn’t have any further trouble about any of them.  You don’t seem inclined to take any definite action, so the action will be taken for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that they are all going to leave Naples.”

“To leave Naples!”

Dacres uttered this in a voice of grief and surprise which astonished Hawbury and touched him.