"Have you told the people for whom you have to-night tricked me that you have decoyed the Duke Marx into the hands of those who, if need be, will take his life?"
I struck home with this thrust; and she glanced about her in manifest alarm.
"Don't speak like that," she cried in a hurried whisper. "There is no fear of anything of that kind."
"You mistake," I answered shortly and sternly. "If anything happens to the girl whom you have betrayed to-night, the man whom you lured away will pay for it with his life; and I myself will explain every detail of your share in the matter."
It was a little cowardly to play on her fears in this way; but it was not my own safety—it was Minna's—I was fighting for.
The woman's agitation increased with each word.
"It must not be. It shall not be. You dare not," she cried.
"There is no dare not in schemes like these," I answered grimly.
"But I was promised there should be no violence."
"You had not then played us false and worn that domino."