Miss Nevil squeezed her arm, and answered nothing.

“Doesn’t my brother deserve to be loved?” whispered Colomba in her ear.  “Don’t you love him a little?”

“Oh, Colomba!” answered Miss Nevil, smiling in spite of her blushes, “you’ve betrayed me!  And I trusted you so!”

Colomba slipped her arm round her, and kissed her forehead.

“Little sister,” she whispered very low, “will you forgive me?”

“Why, I suppose I must, my masterful sister,” answered Lydia, as she kissed her back.

The prefect and the public prosecutor were staying with the deputy-mayor, and the colonel, who was very uneasy about his daughter, was paying them his twentieth call, to ask if they had heard of her, when a rifleman, whom the sergeant had sent on in advance, arrived with the full story of the great fight with the brigands—­a fight in which nobody had been either killed or wounded, but which had resulted in the capture of a cooking-pot, a pilone, and two girls, whom the man described as the mistresses, or the spies, of the two bandits.

Thus heralded, the two prisoners appeared, surrounded by their armed escort.

My readers will imagine Colomba’s radiant face, her companion’s confusion, the prefect’s surprise, the colonel’s astonishment and joy.  The public prosecutor permitted himself the mischievous entertainment of obliging poor Lydia to undergo a kind of cross-examination, which did not conclude until he had quite put her out of countenance.

“It seems to me,” said the prefect, “that we may release everybody.  These young ladies went out for a walk—­nothing is more natural in fine weather.  They happened to meet a charming young man, who has been lately wounded—­nothing could be more natural, again.”  Then, taking Colomba aside—­

“Signorina,” he said, “you can send word to your brother that this business promises to turn out better than I had expected.  The post-mortem examination and the colonel’s deposition both prove that he only defended himself, and that he was alone when the fight took place.  Everything will be settled—­only he must leave the maquis and give himself up to the authorities.”

It was almost eleven o’clock when the colonel, his daughter, and Colomba sat down at last to their supper, which had grown cold.  Colomba ate heartily, and made great fun of the prefect, the public prosecutor, and the soldiers.  The colonel ate too, but never said a word, and gazed steadily at his daughter, who would not lift her eyes from her plate.  At last, gently but seriously, he said in English: 

“Lydia, I suppose you are engaged to della Rebbia?”

“Yes, father, to-day,” she answered, steadily, though she blushed.  Then she raised her eyes, and reading no sign of anger in her father’s face, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him, as all well-brought-up young ladies do on such occasions.

“With all my heart!” said the colonel.  “He’s a fine fellow.  But, by G—­d, we won’t live in this d—–­d country of his, or I’ll refuse my consent.”