"Do you know the scoundrel who has done this?"
"Don't ask me. Don't ask me. I dare not say a word."
"You must," he cried, literally with terrifying earnestness.
"No, no. I dare not. I see it all now. Oh, poor Gareth. Poor, dear Gareth."
"You must tell me. You shall. I am her father, and as God is in heaven, I will have his life if he have wronged her."
I did not answer but sat on with my face still covered, thinking. I had stirred a veritable whirlwind of wrath in his heart and had to contrive to calm it now so as to use it afterwards for my own ends.
CHAPTER VIII
COUNT KARL
Colonel Katona's impatience mounted fast; and when he again insisted in an even more violent tone that I should tell him all I knew, I had to fall back upon a woman's second line of defence. I became hysterical.