‘Then listen to me, and don’t interrupt,’ said I brusquely. ‘Time’s valuable to me, and even more, I fear, to you.’
Her eyes were alarmed now, but she listened in silence as I bade her. I told her briefly what had happened to me, and then I set before her more fully the conversation between Constantine and Vlacho which I had overheard. She clutched the cushions of the sofa in her clenched hand; her breathing came quick and fast; her eyes gleamed at me even in the gloom of the curtained room. I do not believe that in her heart she was surprised at what she heard. She had mistrusted the man; her manner, even on our first encounter, had gone far to prove that. She received my story rather as a confirmation of her own suspicions than as a new or startling revelation. She was fearful, excited, strung to a high pitch; but astonished she was not, if I read her right. And when I ended, it was not astonishment that clenched her lips and brought to her eyes a look which I think Constantine himself would have shrunk from meeting. I had paused at the end of my narrative, but I recollected one thing more. I must warn her about the secret passage; for that offered her husband too ready and easy a way of relieving himself of his burden. But now she interrupted me.
‘This girl?’ she said. ‘I have not seen her. What is she like?’
‘She is very beautiful,’ said I simply. ‘She knows what I have told you, and she is on her guard. You need fear nothing from her. It is your husband whom you have to fear.’
‘He would kill me?’ she asked, with a questioning glance.
‘You’ve heard what he said,’ I returned. ‘Put your own meaning on it.’
She sprang to her feet.
‘I can’t stay here; I can’t stay here. Merciful heaven, they may come any moment! Where are you going? How are you going to escape? You are in as much danger as I am.’
‘I believe in even greater,’ said I. ‘I was going straight from here down to the sea. If I can find my friends, we’ll go through with the thing together. If I don’t find them, I shall hunt for a boat. If I don’t find a boat—well, I’m a good swimmer, and I shall live as long in the water as in Neopalia, and die easier, I fancy.’