Zoya slowly raised herself on one elbow while Tanya looked at Rowland uncomprehendingly, the nature of the sacrifice Markov was making slowly dawning on her.
"Who else?" said Markov quietly. "It would be suicide for Herr Rowland. I have my papers. It is simplicity itself. In four days I shall be at Lindenhof. It is a mile from Lindau, on the Bodensee--Lake Constance. The Fräulein and the money shall cross into Switzerland from there at night in a boat. It is a village I know well. It can be arranged. Then I shall return by train to Munich."
Tanya had said nothing and her lips were tightly compressed with a meaning that Rowland had learned to understand.
"And you, Philippe?" she asked quietly.
"What I have done once before," he murmured soberly, "shall be accomplished again."
His look silenced the protest that was rising to her lips. She only clasped her hands nervously a moment, but said nothing.
"And you will stay here--mon ami, for a few days--until I am better," questioned Zoya eagerly.
"There's nothing else," he said with a shrug.
Pain clutched at the hearts of at least three persons in that room, but Matthias Markov suffered the most. Rowland could see it in the lines of his eyes, which had suddenly made him seem quite old again. The years that had parted Markov and the woman who bore his name had only served to widen the breach between them--a breach that all the love and tenderness in the world from such a man as he could never hope to fill. Even on her bed of pain Zoya remained the mondaine while Matthias Markov, to her at least, was only the hurdy-gurdy man. She had repudiated him, had forbidden him to use her name. It was piteous. But Herr Markov shrugged his lean shoulders and managed a smile for Rowland and Tanya, in which they both read a new meaning of abnegation and sacrifice.
Zoya had sunk back upon her pillow, so Herr Markov gave her another opiate and presently she slept. Then while Frau Nisko went down stairs to reassure herself that all was well below, Rowland and Tanya listened to Markov's itinerary between Munich and Lindau. Fra Umberto could travel thirty miles a day if he had to. It was nothing--if the Fräulein would not get tired within the instrument of torture--Landsberg tomorrow night, Memmingen the night after, then Weingarten and Lindenhof--four days at the most. He, Markov, had been over the road often and knew it well. At Lindenhof he had a great friend, a fisherman and a vine-grower named Gratz who lived with his poverty like a prince in the ruined schloss of Kempelstein. There they would go. And there take boat from the very walls of the schloss to Switzerland and freedom.