"Yes. What of her?"
"Thou dost love her?" she stammered, "and wilt abduct her to-night because of thy love for her?"
For a second or two he looked on her in blank amazement, marvelling if he had entrusted this vital business to a semi-imbecile. Then seeing that indeed she appeared in deadly earnest, and that her great, inquiring but perfectly lucid eyes were fixed upon him with mute insistence, he threw back his head and laughed till the very rafters of the low room shook with the echo of his merriment.
"Dondersteen!" he said as soon as he felt that he could speak again, "but thou truly art a strange wench. Whatever did put that idea into thy head?"
"Thou dost propose to abduct her, I know that," she said more firmly. "I am no fool, and I understand I am to be the decoy. The dark passage, the lonely spot, thy presence there ... and then the occurrence, as thou saidst, that might surprise or frighten me.... I am no fool," she repeated sullenly, "I understand."
"Apparently," he retorted dryly.
"Thou dost love her?" she insisted.
"What is it to thee?"
"No matter; only tell me this, dost thou love her?"
"If I said 'yes,'" he asked with his whimsical smile, "wouldst refuse to help me?"