nothing.

"But he has had his revenge--that Mattel Perucca," said the count at
length, in a tone of careless reminiscence--"by living in that house all
these years, and, so they tell me, by making a small fortune out of the
vines. The house is not his, the land is not his. They are mine. Only he
and I knew it, and to prove it I should have to come to life. Besides,
what is land in this country, unless you till it with a spade in one hand
and a gun in the other?"

Lory de Vasselot leant forward in his chair.

"But now is the time to act," he said. "I can act if you will not.
I can make use of the law." "The law," answered his father, calmly. "Do
you think that you could get a jury in Bastia to give you a verdict? Do
you think you could find a witness who would dare to appear in your
favour? No, my friend. There is no law in this country, except that;"
and he pointed to a gun in the corner of the room, an old-fashioned
muzzle-loader, with which he had had the law of Andrei Perucca thirty
years before.

"But now that there is no Perucca left the clan will cease to exist,"
said Lory.

"Not at all," replied the father. "The inheritor of the estate, whoever
it is, will become the head of the clan, and things will be as they were
before. They tell me it is a woman named Denise Lange."

Lory gave a start. He had forgotten Denise Lange, and all that world of
Paris fad and fashion.