Bonapartes changed their name to a French one that your great-grandfather
Gallicized ours. We are not to be frightened away by the Peruccas."

"But since he is dead--" said Lory, with an effort to be patient.

He was beginning to realize now that it was all real and not a dream,
that this was the Chateau de Vasselot, and this was his father--this
little, vague, quiet man, who seemed to exist and speak as if he were
only half alive.

"He may be," was the answer; "but that will make no difference, since for
one adherent that we have the Peruccas have twenty. There are a thousand
men between Cap Corse and Balagna who, if I went outside this door and
was recognized, would shoot me like a rat."

"But why?"

"Because they are of Perucca's clan, my friend," replied the count, with
a shrug of the shoulder.

"But still I ask why?" persisted Lory.

And the count spread out his thin white hands with a gesture of patient
indifference.

"Well, of course I shot Andrei Perucca--the brother--thirty years ago. We
all know that. That is ancient history."

Lory looked at the little white-haired, placid man, and said no word. It
was perhaps the wisest thing to do. When you have nothing to say, say