“Go home,” she said then; “keep close. There is danger—danger. You will hear.”
She suddenly caught my hand, kissed it, and was gone. I stood awhile bewildered, astonished, staring, hardly able to grasp the meaning of what had passed, for this last scene in the drama of my life had been acted hurriedly and was full of mysterious significance. Then, unobtrusively, I sought the shelter of my own inn, resolving to obey to the letter the injunctions laid upon me; but fate had willed it otherwise.
Determined not to interfere with the course of fortune by any least indocility, I retired into the seclusion of my chambers, and pretexting a slight indisposition, to rouse no undue suspicion by an air of mystery, gave orders for my dinner to be served there.
A stout red-cheeked wench with rough bare arms had just, grinning, clattered the first greasy dish before me, when I heard János’s foot upon the stairs. I had learnt to know the sound of his step pretty well in my recent weeks of sickness, but I had not been wont to hear it come so laggingly, and the fact that it halted altogether outside the door for a second or two, as if its owner hesitated to enter, filled me with such a furious impatience that I got up and flung it open to wrest his news from him. Not even when he had held up my poor great-uncle in his arms to let him draw his last breath on earth, had I seen the fellow wear a countenance of such discomposure.
“In Heaven’s name, János,” cried I, and the sturdy house-wench turned and stared at him more agoggle and agrin than before.
“Get out of that, you ——” cried my servitor, snapping at her with such sourness, and so forgetful of the decorum he usually displayed in my presence, that it was clear he was mightily moved.
She fled as if some savage old watch-dog had nipped at her heel, and we were alone.
I had returned from my own exploration full of hope, and at the same time of wonder, so that I was at once ill and well prepared for any tidings, however extraordinary. But János’s tidings seemed difficult of telling.
“Let us go home, honoured sir” he stammered again and again, surveying me with a compassion and an anxiety he had not vouchsafed upon me at the worst of my illness. I had to drag the words from him piecemeal, as the torturer forces out the unwilling confession.