"Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?" I asked. "Have you friends there?"
She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would.
"No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you."
"Yet there is some one in the cottage up there," I observed. "It belongs to Constantine, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does," she answered, defiantly. "Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?"
"As long as we are only four against a hundred I dare only skulk," I answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. "But do you think he's there?"
"There! No, he's in the town--and he'll come from the town to kill you to-morrow."
"You're wrong," said I. "I saw somebody there to-day."
"Well, the dress didn't look like it. Do you really want to go there now?"
"Haven't you mocked me enough?" she burst out. "Take me back to my prison."
Her tragedy air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up to something which I thought she ought to know.
"There's a woman in that cottage," said I. "Not a peasant--a woman in some dark-colored dress, who uses opera glasses."
I saw her draw back with a start of surprise.
"It's false," she cried. "There's no one there. Constantine told me no one went there except Vlacho, and sometimes Demetri."
"Do you believe all Constantine tells you?" I asked.
"Since you ask, I will answer. Yes; I have promised my uncle I would."
"Good God!" said I, for I was very sorry for her.
The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning.
"Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?" I demanded.
"No," she murmured. "He told me what she said."
"That I told him he was his uncle's murderer?"
"Did you tell her to say that?" she asked, with a sudden inclination of her body toward me.
She made no answer. I pressed my advantage.
"On my honor I saw what I have told you at the cottage," I said. "I know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come with him. Did any lady come with him?"
"Are you mad?" she asked; but I could hear her breathing quickly, and I knew that her scorn was assumed. I drew suddenly away from her, and put my hands behind my back.