The room was almost dark, and through the window, with its heavy stone frame, I saw the last glow of a stormy sunset. Anne and Loris stood there, looking out, and as I moved and spoke she broke off her sentence and came towards me.
“You have slept long, Maurice; that is well,” she said, also in English, with the pretty, deliberate accent I had always thought so charming. “There is no need for apologies; we should have roused you if necessary, but all is quiet so far. Will you come to my boudoir presently? I will give you tea there. We have scarcely had one word together as yet,—and there is so much to say! I will send lights now; some of the servants have returned and will get you all you need.”
Loris opened the door for her, and crossed back to his former post by the window, while I scrambled up, as a scared-looking, shamefaced man servant entered with a lamp, and slunk out again.
“Those wretches! They deserve the knout!” Loris said grimly, when we were alone. “They were all well armed, and yet, at the first hint of danger, they took themselves into hiding, leaving those two women defenceless here. Well, they will have to take care of themselves in future, the curs! The countess is dead,” he added abruptly.
“Dead!” I exclaimed.
“Yes. Always, even in her madness, she remembered all she had suffered, and her terror of being arrested again killed her. It is God’s mercy for her that she is at peace,—and for us, too, for we could not have taken her with us, nor have left her in charge of Natalya and these hounds, as we had intended. We shall bury her out in the courtyard yonder. It is the only way, and later, if nothing prevents, we start for the railroad.”
“Where is Pendennis?” I asked. “Is he not here?”
“No; he may join us later; I cannot say,” he answered, staring out of the window. I felt that he was embarrassed in some way; that there was something he wished to say, but hesitated at saying it. That wasn’t a bit like him, for he had always been the personification of frankness.
“I wonder if there’s a bath to be had in the house,” I said inanely, looking at my grimy hands.