"I exact your word of honor to remain under my orders, to make no attempt to escape, to speak no word as to my identity or your own——"
"Have I not told you that my own fate is unimportant if I succeed in reaching the Duchess of Hohenberg?"
"And after that?" he asked keenly.
"What do you mean?"
"Merely that the same conditions as to yourself shall continue to exist."
Marishka hesitated. What lay before her? It was incredible that harm could come to one of her condition at the hands of the servants of a great and Christian nation like Germany. She glanced at Captain Goritz. He was still examining her gravely, impersonally. There seemed little doubt as to the genuineness of his intentions.
"And the alternative?" she asked.
His expression changed and he looked slowly away from her at the flying landscape. "I regret that you are still oblivious to your danger. You and one other person in Europe were the witnesses to the meeting at Konopisht. His Majesty's government does not deem it expedient at this time that you should be at liberty to discuss the matter——"
"But I have already spoken——"
"That matters nothing if the witnesses are eliminated."