Count Hannibal

Chapter 26

TEMPER.

It was his gaiety, that strange unusual gaiety, still continuing, which

on the following day began by perplexing and ended by terrifying the

Countess. She could not doubt that he had missed the packet on which so

much hung and of which he had indicated the importance. But if he had

missed it, why, she asked herself, did he not speak? Why did he not cry

the alarm, search and question and pursue? Why did he not give her that

opening to tell the truth, without which even her courage failed, her

resolution died within her?

Above all, what was the secret of his strange merriment? Of the snatches

of song which broke from him, only to be hushed by her look of

astonishment? Of the parades which his horse, catching the infection,

made under him, as he tossed his riding-cane high