Hochwald hesitated a moment.
"I seek to do you no harm. Nor could I if I wished. I am at your mercy as you are at mine----"
"I beg your pardon, Herr Hochwald," broke in Markov's deep voice. "The Fräulein is at no man's mercy while she is in my charge."
"A figure of speech," said the other with a smile, "but I do not like to drive the Fräulein forth into the rain. Of course rather than that, I shall go at once--or sleep here with this good donkey in the stable."
Herr Markov and Tanya exchanged quick glances which each read through the gloom. Herr Hochwald asleep within a few yards of the twenty-five millions of Nemi, hidden beneath the blankets in the bottom of the "machine of torture!" It was Tanya who first realized that short of immediate flight nothing but a change in her uncompromising attitude toward Hochwald was possible.
"It--it does not matter. I--I do not fear you, Gregory Hochwald--not now. If you will go to the house I will follow you. Herr Markov can join us when the donkey is fed."
And with a quick glance at Markov she moved toward the door and out into the raining night. Hochwald joined her at once and together they walked toward the lights of the farm-house, leaving Markov alone to attend to the needs of Fra Umberto and hide until the morning the packages of bank notes in the straw of the stable.
Hochwald questioned and she answered frankly, telling him of the manner of her escape which was obvious enough, concealing from him only the secret of the hurdy-gurdy. As to Herr Rowland he was still there in Munich--in great danger.
There were no reproaches on her part--her injury was too deeply seated for that, his venality too surely proven. Nor did Herr Hochwald speak of the events at the Villa Monteori; but Tanya felt that since he had found her and that they must travel on for a way in company, some grounds of mutual agreement or understanding must be found which would disarm her enemy as to the precious freight in the piano-organ. And so when they reached the protection of the portico:
"This situation is none of my choosing, Herr Hochwald," she said. "We are both fugitives from a common enemy--if I denounce you, I denounce myself. But if we are both arrested it is you who will suffer the full extremity----"