Sobs were my only answer.
"Solonika," I said, "there is no need for all this show of feeling. I am not here to harm you or yours. Your secret is safe with me."
Her weeping continued, but I knew that she was listening.
"If I meant to escape, it is in my power to do so. I need but thrust you aside and leap through the panel. You could not stop me before I reached my friends. To prove to you that I mean you no ill, I will release you and permit you to do as you will with me."
I set her upon her feet as I spoke, but I was careful to pick up the knife and put it in my pocket. Dazed, she stood looking at me through her tears.
"You know; oh, my God, you know!" she cried.
There was the same look in her eyes which I noticed when she first detected my presence. But, seeing that I made no move, her old courage returned. She ran to the wall and pressed an electric button that rang a bell somewhere in the castle out of hearing. Then she possessed herself of a silver-mounted revolver which she took from her wardrobe.
Although I knew that, never as long as I lived and she reigned upon her throne, could she feel that her secret was safe; that at the least I might be imprisoned for life in the family dungeon, and at the most condemned to death by her angry father, I made no move to stop her. I pinned my faith to the hope that I would be able to convince her, and if necessary, her father, that I would not betray them even to my friends.
"Stand in the centre of the room," she ordered, and I promptly obeyed. She took up her position against the panel and we faced each other, waiting. My ready compliance with her curt commands aroused her suspicions instead of allaying them as I wished. She thought I must have good reason not to fear her.
"Your friend Nicholas no doubt is waiting you in the Prince's room?" she flung out. "He too has seen, and you wish to give him time to escape."