"Not only my cousin, but my friend."
"There is yet much to do," I said gently.
"But we shall do it together. I am no longer alone with all against me, even my dear father. Tell me what is first to be done. I know that you will be successful, for you have given me hope. Will you tell the Count von Nauheim that the marriage project is at an end, or shall I? I will, if you wish, though I have been afraid of him; but no longer, for you are on my side."
Sweet as these renewed protestations of trust were to my ears and senses, they were not without embarrassment.
"If you trust me, you will have to do so wholly," I said; "and you must do as I wish, even if it is altogether distasteful to you."
"I will do whatever you tell me," she assented readily.
"Then in the first place we must act as if this conversation had altered nothing."
"Do you mean...?" she began, with a frown of repugnance, and then stopped.
"I mean that for the present your relations with the count must remain as they have been. Do not ask all my reasons. But for the present it is necessary that no one, you understand, no one shall have any thought that we are not going on with your father's scheme." I told her then of von Nauheim's visit to Munich and its result, and that before we settled anything we must know more. "I should be deceiving you," I added, "if I did not tell you that grave risks have yet to be run in this matter, and the danger to some of us may prove greater than we can avert. I cannot tell you all my thoughts, but I am going to Munich——"
"Ah, no, not there, cousin. That is where Gustav was killed."