The moon, which had previously shone into the room almost in a level bar, now slanted its beams, so that the Countess was bathed in them from head to foot, while I, being nearer to the window, lay half in shadow, half on the edge of the light.
She sat with her chin propped upon her hands, and her eyes steadily fixed upon mine, but she betrayed no resentment in her looks nor, indeed, feeling of any kind. Then, in a low, absent voice, she began to croon over to herself that odd, wailing elegy which I had once heard her sing in London. The tune had often haunted me since that day from its native melancholy, but now, as Ilga sang it in the moonlight, her eyes very big and dark, and fastened quietly upon mine, it gained a weird and eerie quality from her manner, and I felt my flesh begin to creep.
I stirred uneasily upon the settle, and Ilga stopped. I must think she mistook the reason of my restlessness, for a slow smile came upon her face, and, reaching out a hand, she tried the knots wherewith I was bound.
"It may well be," she suggested, "that you are better inclined to speak the truth, since now you know to what falsehood has brought you."
"Madame," I replied wearily, "I know not what you believe nor what you would have me say. It matters little to me, nor can I see, since you have reached the end for which you worked, that it need greatly concern you. This only I know, that I have already told you the truth."
"And the miniature you left behind you?" she asked, with an ironic smile. "Am I to understand it has no bearing on the duel?"
"Nay, madame," said I; "'tis the key to the cause of our encounter."
"Ah!" she interrupted, with a satisfaction which I did not comprehend. "You have drawn some profit from the reflection of these last hours."
"For," I continued, "it contained the likeness of my friend, Sir Julian Harnwood, as, indeed, Otto must needs have told you. 'Twas in his cause that I came to Lukstein."
"'Twas the likeness of a woman," she replied patiently.