The Count laughed. “So this is where you keep your love-letters, is it?”
“Oh, no, sir,” exclaimed Elise, blushing till her eyes were filled with tears.
“What? Is this satchel not yours?”
“Oh, no, sir!—I mean—yes, sir,” stuttered Elise.
Kamarowsky looked at her, and then at me. Seeing the expression of our faces the laughter faded from his lips.
“Come, Elise; tell me whose it is, and what it contains.”
I attempted to make a sign to her, but the tall, broad figure of Count Kamarowsky stood between us.
I rose with a sigh of despair, acquiescing in my fate. Now—let happen what may.
“What letters are they?” insisted Kamarowsky.
I heard the hapless Elise floundering in the quicksands of falsehood; finally she let herself drift—a helpless wreck on the rock of truth.