I affected to take umbrage at this. "Oh, all right," I muttered and crossed to the door as if in a huff. A glance showed me that the servant had gone; so I shut the door and turned round.
She recognized me instantly. Her lips moved as if uttering my name, but no sound came. She flashed one rapid glance over my workman’s garb, and her eyes lighted angrily as they met mine in a long steady stare, while she was thinking what to do.
"I have come prepared to answer the charge Herr von Felsen has induced you to bring against me; but we must have a square talk first. Then you can send for the police if they are not already in the house."
She did not take her eyes from mine while I spoke, and made no reply. Her eyes were as hard as flints; and my task began to look hopeless.
"I see you have made up your mind; yet you might remember that I saved your life that night."
Her lip curled. The only comment; but more eloquent than many words.
"I know the whole truth about that night’s black work, and what brought those men to your house."
Her agitation and rage were mounting fast and after a pause she burst out bitterly: "Of course you do. The chief of them slept that night in your house and has been concealed there ever since. Do you dare to deny it?"
"Whom do you mean?" Her lip curled again and she shrugged her shoulders. "You mean Baron von Ringheim? Von Felsen has told you that?"
She gave an impatient gesture. "It is the truth that matters, not how I know it," she retorted.
"On the contrary his motive is everything. But he kept that to himself, of course. Did he tell you that he came here with these lies in order to get you to accuse me so that he should have time to force Baron von Ringheim’s daughter to marry him?"
"You lie," she cried fiercely. "You were seen to enter and leave this house shortly before I met you that night. The ring I saw on your finger was his and he had left it with my father that afternoon. And if that is not enough proof, one of your associates has shot himself, leaving behind him a confession that he and you together murdered my father in revenge for his supposed betrayal of you. Do you think I have forgotten your agitation when I recognized the ring?"
Von Felsen had told his story cunningly, and what she had termed my agitation at her recognition of the ring on the night of the murder lent colour to it. My conduct was quite open to such a misconstruction as she had placed upon it; but there was no time to attempt to shake her conviction by argument.