"Your sneer does not hide the effect of my news, Count Gustav. You know there is no mystery in that for you—and there is none for me. Put your second question."
"What do you mean? I don't understand you."
"That is not true. You want to ask me where your brother is."
"I'll ask that or any other if you wish," he replied, attempting a jaunty, indifferent air. "Where is he?"
"God have more mercy on you than you had on him. You have already seen the answer to your question in the drawn blinds of the room where you last saw him alive."
Strive as he would he could not but shrink under my words and tone. His fingers strained on the chair back, his breath laboured, his colour fled, and his eyes—those hardy, laughing, dare-devil eyes—fell before my gaze. He had to pause and moisten his lips before he could reply.
"If you mean that any harm has come to him," he said, speaking at first with difficulty and hesitation, but gathering firmness as he proceeded; "there will be a heavy reckoning for some one. Who is in the house beside you?" He did not dare to look up yet.
"You coward!" I cried, with all the contempt I felt.
This stung him to fury. "If you have had a hand in this and seek to shield yourself by abusing me, it will not help you. I tell you that."
"Seek to shield myself! I should not stoop to seek so paltry a shield as you could be, whether you were white with fear or flushed with selfish purpose. I do not need a shield. I know the truth, Count Gustav. I know all your part in it, from your motive to the final consummation of your treacherous plan. And what I know to-day, all Austria, all the world, shall know to-morrow."