“I did not wish my coming to be known. What is to be done must be done with promptitude and in secrecy. We are playing a part, do you understand, and the actors in it must not appear on the stage until the eventful moment? Else, suspecting the plot, those antagonistic to it may cause its miscarriage.”
Hearing a little gasp come from her, he bent as if to look searchingly in her face, and put a hand towards her shoulder; but she repulsed him.
“Why should I be dragged into it?” she said.
“Dragged!” He drew himself up, as if realising timely what he had to encounter. “Were you not the first to volunteer?”
“I told you he had returned, that was all.”
“Was that all?”
“That he was in hiding in the neighbourhood.”
“Yes: go on.”
“There is no more.”
“Not that they met in the gardens of Aquaviva: not that last night you let him in and out of the wicket in the eastern wall: not that he will come again this night—with what purpose—but it will never be fulfilled?”