“I am grieved,” said the prefect, “to find Mademoiselle Colomba so unreasonable.  You will convince her, I am sure.”

He opened the door and paused, seeming to expect Orso to follow him.

“I can not leave her now,” said Orso.  “To-morrow, if——­”

“I shall be starting very early,” said the prefect.

“Brother,” cried Colomba, clasping her hands, “wait till to-morrow morning, in any case.  Let me look over my father’s papers.  You can not refuse me that!”

“Well, you shall look them over to-night.  But at all events you shall not torment me afterward with your violent hatreds.  A thousand pardons, monsieur!  I am so upset myself to-night—­it had better be to-morrow.”

“The night brings counsel,” said the prefect, as he went out.  “I hope all your uncertainty will have disappeared by to-morrow.”

“Saveria,” Colomba called, “take the lantern and attend the Signor Prefetto.  He will give you a letter to bring back to my brother.”

She added a few words which reached Saveria’s ear alone.

“Colomba,” said Orso, when the prefect was gone, “you have distressed me very much.  Will no evidence convince you?”

“You have given me till to-morrow,” she replied.  “I have very little time; but I still have some hope.”

Then she took a bunch of keys and ran up to a room on the upper story.  There he could hear her pulling open drawers, and rummaging in the writing-desk in which Colonel della Rebbia had kept his business papers.

CHAPTER XIV

Saveria was a long time away, and when she at last reappeared, carrying a letter, and followed by little Chilina, rubbing her eyes, and evidently just waked out of her beauty sleep, Orso was wound up to the highest possible pitch of impatience.

“Chili,” said Orso, “what are you doing here at this hour?”

“The signorina sent for me,” replied Chilina.

“What the devil does she want with her?” thought Orso to himself.  But he was in a hurry to open Miss Lydia’s letter, and while he was reading it Chilina went upstairs to his sister’s room.

“My father, dear sir, has not been well,” Miss Nevil wrote, “and he is so indolent, besides, that I am obliged to act as his secretary.  You remember that, instead of admiring the landscape with you and me the other day, he got his feet wet on the sea-shore—­and in your delightful island, that is quite enough to give one a fever!  I can see the face you are making!  No doubt you are feeling for your dagger.  But I will hope you have none now.  Well, my father had a little fever, and I had a great fright.  The prefect, whom I persist in thinking very pleasant, sent us a doctor, also a very pleasant man, who got us over our trouble in two days.  There has been no return of the attack, and my father would like to begin to shoot again.  But I have forbidden that.  How did