“If you had been staying anywhere else, monsieur, my brother would have gone to pay his respects to you yesterday.”

Orso made endless apologies, vowing he had nothing to do with his sister’s absurd stratagem, by which he appeared deeply mortified.  The prefect and the elder Barricini appeared to believe in the sincerity of his regret, and indeed this belief was justified by his evident confusion and the reproaches he addressed to his sister.  But the mayor’s two sons did not seem satisfied.

“We are being made to look like fools,” said Orlanduccio audibly.

“If my sister were to play me such tricks,” said Vincentello, “I’d soon cure her fancy for beginning them again.”

The words, and the tone in which they were uttered, offended Orso, and diminished his good-will.  Glances that were anything but friendly were exchanged between him and the two young men.

Meanwhile, everybody being seated save Colomba, who remained standing close to the kitchen door, the prefect took up his parable, and after a few common-places as to local prejudices, he recalled the fact that the most inveterate enmities generally have their root in some mere misunderstanding.  Next, turning to the mayor, he told him that Signor della Rebbia had never believed the Barricini family had played any part, direct or indirect, in the deplorable event which had bereft him of his father; that he had, indeed, nursed some doubts as to one detail in the lawsuit between the two families; that Signor Orso’s long absence, and the nature of the information sent him, excused the doubt in question; that in the light of recent revelations he felt completely satisfied, and desired to re-open friendly and neighbourly relations with Signor Barricini and his sons.

Orso bowed stiffly.  Signor Barricini stammered a few words that nobody could hear, and his sons stared steadily at the ceiling rafters.  The prefect was about to continue his speech, and address the counterpart of the remarks he had made to Signor Barricini, to Orso, when Colomba stepped gravely forward between the contracting parties, at the same time drawing some papers from beneath her neckerchief.

“I should be happy indeed,” she said, “to see the quarrel between our two families brought to an end.  But if the reconciliation is to be sincere, there must be a full explanation, and nothing must be left in doubt.  Signor Prefetto, Tomaso Bianchi’s declaration, coming from a man of such vile report, seemed to me justly open to doubt.  I said your sons had possibly seen this man in the prison at Bastia.”

“It’s false!” interrupted Orlanduccio; “I didn’t see him!”

Colomba cast a scornful glance at him, and proceeded with great apparent composure.

“You explained Tomaso’s probable interest in threatening Signor Barricini, in the name of a dreaded bandit, by his desire to keep his brother Teodoro in possession of the mill which my father allowed him to hire at a very low rent.”