“I am confident, and have even more reason for it than you at present dream. You may prepare yourself for great news.”
“I am not good at riddles. What news do you mean?”
“That I do not consider your help so necessary as I once thought.”
That there was some new danger beneath her words I was certain, but what it was I could not guess.
“I do not understand you,” I said shortly.
“A child could see that. I like the look of perplexity and fear on your face;” and she laughed in a hard, sneering tone. “You have been very useful to me, after all, though you do not know it. What you showed me yesterday gave me the clue; and I have been merciful—in a way, very merciful. Death is ever sweetest to a woman when it comes, or seems to, from the hand of one she loves.”
“You have a pleasant wit, and your laugh fits it well,” I said drily.
“A jibe moves you more quickly than a threat, my friend. And this is a jibe in which you have had unwittingly a big share;” and her bitter tone was in full harmony with the hard, confident glance which she levelled at me. “Did you think I could be merciful even to those I hate?”
“Have you come to do no more than discuss your own qualities?”
“I have not come to be your dupe,” she retorted fiercely. “You have discovered my spy, I find, and I congratulate you on the clever stroke with which you have blinded his eyes. But it is too late, Count.”