Mezzoni the Brigand — page 162: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

154 MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. mystery ; first a pure love of justice and attachment to his peculiar calling, and secondly, he hoped that he might in some way, through the countess, once more get upon the track of Alberto Corrello to whom he felt that he owed a small debt for the wound in his side. This memento of the daring and most des- perate man, had been just troublesome enough to keep the cause of it pretty constantly in the officer’s mind. ~The English detective now visited the palace of the Amadeo family in a very quiet manner, and in his own persuasive way, requested and secured an interview with the signora. Of course this was not willingly granted, but finally conceded, as it were, upon compulsion. The countess was a singular combination of courage and cowardice, of pride and humility. | Guilt had rendered her very timid just now, and the detective read this in her face the instant they met. Indeed the signora did not know but that he had come upon the matter of her husband’s death to arrest her, and it was this suspicion that caused her expression of fear. The detective was very quiet and undemonstrative. ‘Signora,’’? he said, ‘“‘you have received a com- munication from Alberto Corrello since his escape.’’ “You say so.”’ ; ‘‘Of course you know where he is.”’ ‘I do not.”’ “You are quite sure?”’ ‘TI do not know where he is, and if I did I would not tell you,”’ she answered, stoutly. ‘Possibly,’ said the officer. He had not known, but had suspected, that she had comicboo ‘S:COr el