“No; but God sees. Perhaps He will pull you out. I am sorry for you, dear. I have no patience with Edith, and that Dick, I hate him now and always.”
“Tell me a little about things,” he said; “we may not have another chance.”
So she told him all she knew. Dick and Edith had vanished back through the side door; the audience for the most part had melted away, only a few of them remaining at the far end of the hall. As she spoke rapidly, mixing German and English words together, although his intelligence followed her, Rupert’s mind wandered, as was its ancient fashion. He recalled, for instance, how Tabitha and he had once sat together upon another dais in a very different hall far away in England.
“You remember,” he said suddenly, “that New Year’s Eve at Devene, the night I got engaged, and what you told me then?”
She nodded.
“You said she would breed trouble,” he went on; “you said she was very dangerous. Well, it is so, and now—what am I to do?”
“Nothing at all, just wait,” she answered. “You have a month, and during that time you need only see her in public. In a month many things may happen. Indeed, I do think that things will happen,” and once again that fateful look crept over the strong, solid face and into the quiet eyes, the same look that he had noted years ago when she sat with him on the dais in the hall at Devene. “God He does not desert men like you, Rupert, who have suffered so cruelly and behaved so well,” she murmured, gently pressing his hand. “Look! Dick has come back and is calling me. When shall we meet again?”
“To-morrow,” he said, “I cannot see her to-night. I will not see her privately at all till the month is up. You must make her understand.”
“Oh! she understands well enough, and so does Dick, and so do I. But are they safe here?”
“Safer than in London, only they must not speak ill of the lady Tama. Good-night!”