“What is the reward to be, madam? Name it,” said he, boldly.
“The same candor on your part, Count; I ask for no more.”
“But what have I to reveal; what mystery is there that your omniscience has not penetrated?”
“There may be some that your frankness has not avowed, my dear Count.”
“If you refer to what you have called Ida's secret—”
“No,” broke she in. “I was now alluding to what might be called your secret.”
“Mine! my secret!” exclaimed he. But though the tone was meant to convey great astonishment, the confusion of his manner was far more apparent.
“Your secret, Count,” she repeated slowly, “which has been just as safe in my keeping as if it had been confided to me on honor.”
“I was not aware how much I owed to your discretion, madam,” said he, scoffingly.
“I am but too happy when any services of mine can rescue the fame of a great family from reproach, sir,” replied she, proudly; for all the control she had heretofore imposed upon her temper seemed at last to have yielded to offended dignity. “Happily for that illustrious house—happily for you, too—I am one of a very few who know of Count Wahnsdorf's doings. To have suffered your antagonist in a duel to be tracked, arrested, and imprisoned in an Austrian fortress, when a word from you had either warned him of his peril or averted the danger, was bad enough; but to have stigmatized his name with cowardice, and to have defamed him because he was your rival, was far worse.”