"Don't stop to ask questions. I can explain all presently. Do as I wish--please. He thinks you are--are drugged----"
"Not drugged--drunk; but how do you know that?"
"Madame d'Artelle thought so at first." The horses were now so near that I could hear them through the closed window. "You can still pretend. Lie on the sofa there. For Heaven's sake be quick. There are but two or three minutes at most now."
I took this for assent, and hurried out of the room as the carriage stopped at the door. Calling James Perry I told him what do to and ran up again to the room where I had been before.
I would not have a light but sat first on the edge of the bed, wondering what would happen, whether I should be discovered, how long Count Gustav would stay, and how Karl would do as he had said.
The house was badly built, and I could hear the murmur of voices in the room below. I slipped to the floor and lay with my ear to the ground in my anxiety to learn what went on. I could hear nothing distinctly, however. The murmurs were louder, but I could not make out the words.
Then I remembered about Colonel Katona, and crossing to the window pulled the blind aside and looked out wondering whether he was still near the house.
The moonlight was brighter, but the shadows of the trees thicker and darker; and for a long time I could distinguish nothing. The carriage remained at the door; the jingling of the harness, the occasional pawing of the impatient horses, and the checking word of the coachman told me this.
If the Colonel was still there, the presence of the carriage no doubt made him keep concealed.
Presently other sounds reached me. Some one unfastened the windows of the room below and flung them wide open. A man went out and I heard his feet grate on the gravel.
"It's no use. He's dead drunk. We may as well----"
It was Gustav's voice, and the rest of the words were lost to me, for I shrank back nervously.
Then an instinctive impulse caused me to lay my ear to the ground and listen for the window to be shut. I heard it closed; but there was no sound of the bolt being shot.
Dark as it was and alone though I was in the room, I know that I turned deathly white at the possible reason for this which flashed upon me in that moment; and when I passed my hand across my forehead the beads of perspiration stood thick upon it. I felt sick and dazed with the horror that was born of that thought; and my limbs were heavy as I dragged them back across the room to the bed and sat there, listening intently for the sounds of Count Gustav's departure, and ready to rush downstairs the instant he had gone.