She strikes me as being deceitful.

She certainly did try to prevent my carrying the girls off and, had not their dresses given way in her hands, she would have done so.

Anyhow, it strikes me that Ruggiero must have had some accomplice in the house.

How else could he have known of the exact time at which they would be passing along the Grand Canal?
For, that the gondola was in waiting to dash out and surprise them, there is no doubt.
"I was asking Signora Giulia, the other day, how it was they were so late, for she says that her father never liked their being out after dusk in Venice, though at Corfu he did not care how late they were upon the water.

She replied that she did not quite know how it happened.