“You could not have known,” she answered in a gentle voice.  “I was too eager to get back, to delay to send a line.  As for the noise, another time it might not matter, but I came here by an early morning train and I had no rest before I started.  I am very fatigued and nervous, and the shot so sudden, surprised me.  For a little while to come, I should like you to repeat your experiments with firearms at a distance from the house.  Is—­is that the new kind of rifle?” she inquired, with the timidity of a child introduced to the new watchdog.

“Yes, madame!” and his eyes blazing with pride, he proceeded, as he crossed the room and returned with the firearm, “it is altogether a new invention.  Master is an innovator, indeed!”

“Do you object to showing it to me?” continued Cesarine, pleased that the enthusiasm gave an excuse for her not entering into an explanation of her absence which, even if more plausible than that Hedwig had doubtingly received, would require all of Antonino’s affectionate faith in her to win credence.  “I do not object.  Even those experienced in the old weapons can inspect it and not learn much,” he went on, with the same pride; “but I thought it frightened you!”

“It did—­it does, but I ought to overcome such a ridiculous feeling!  I, above all women, being a gun-inventor’s wife!  Is it loaded?” she asked, while hesitatingly holding out her hand to take it.

Hedwig had prudently backed over to the window which she held a little open to make a leap out for escape in case of accident.  Her mistress took the rifle and turned it over and over; certainly, it resembled no gun she had ever handled before.  Its simplicity daunted her and irritated her.

“It seems to have two barrels,” she remarked, “although one is closed as if not to be used.  Is it double-barrelled?”

“There are two barrels, or, more accurately speaking, a barrel for discharge of the projectile and a chamber for the explosive substance, which is the secret.”

“Then you load by the muzzle, like the old-fashioned guns?”

“Oh, no; there is no load, no cartridge, as you understand it; only the missiles, and they are inserted by the quantity in the breach.”

“And there is no trigger or hammer!” exclaimed Cesarine, not yet at the end of her wonder.

“Obsolete contrivances, always catching in the clothes or in the brambles, and causing the death or maiming of many an excellent man.  We have changed all that by doing away with appendages altogether.  This disc, when pressed, allows so much of the explosive matter to enter the barrel and it expels the missile by repeated expansions.”

“How very, very curious!” exclaimed Madame Clemenceau, returning the piece to Antonino with the vexed air of one reluctantly giving up a puzzle to the solution of which a prize was attached.  “I should like you to make it clear to me—­”

“The government forbids!” said the Italian, smiling, and assuming a look of preternatural solemnity to make the lady smile and Hedwig laugh respectfully.  “And, then, the company we are getting up, lays a farther prohibition on us.  However, you are in the arcana—­you are one of the privileged, I suppose, and if M. Clemenceau does not expressly bar my lessons, you shall learn how to knock over sparrows for your cat.”