"Sh!" She put a finger to her lips. A man-servant was quietly crossing the hall just off the library. "He is a new man. I do not like his appearance."
"Do you think he heard us or observed anything? I can make short work of him if—" He paused significantly. She smiled up into his face.
"He did not hear anything. We've frightened him off, if he intended to play the eavesdropper." The servant had disappeared through a door at the end of the hall.
"Then there were the great sums of money that my husband sent off from time to time, and the strange boxes that came overland to the castle and later went away again as secretly as they came. Mr. Tullis, I am confident in my mind that those boxes contained firearms and ammunition. I have thought it all out. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that I can almost see those firearms stored away in the caves and cabins outside of Edelweiss, ready for instant use when the signal comes."
"God! An uprising? A plot so huge as that?" he gasped, amazed. It is fortunate that he was not facing the door; the same servant, passing once more, might have seen the tell-tale consternation in his eyes. "It cannot be possible! Why, Dangloss and his men would have scented it long ago."
"I have not said that I am sure of anything, remember that. I leave it to you to analyse. You have the foundation on which to work. I'd advise you to waste no time. Something tells me that the crisis is near at hand."
"Why should Josepha's father tell these things to you?"
"Because, if you will pardon my frankness, I have protected his daughter against Count Marlanx. He understands. And yet he would not betray a trust imposed upon him even by the Count. He has only told me what any one else might have seen with his own eyes. Wait! The new servant is in the hall again." She clapped her hands sharply and called out "Franz!"
The new man appeared in the doorway almost on the instant. "You may replenish the fire, Franz." The man, a sallow, precise fellow, crossed deliberately and poked the half dead fire; with scrupulous care he selected two great chunks of wood from the hopper near by and laid them on the coals, the others watching his movements with curious interest. There was nothing about the fellow to indicate that he was other than what he pretended to be.
"Isn't it strange that we should have fires in July?" she asked casually. "The mountain air and the night fogs make it absolutely necessary in these big old houses."