In the end she returned and once more brought the breakfast tray to the bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture, and took the thing upon his knees, but his hands were shaking.
"If I were not as helpless as a dead man, mademoiselle," said he, "you should not have done that. If I could have stopped you, you should not have done it, mademoiselle." A wave of colour spread up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but she did not speak. She stood by for a moment to see if he was supplied with everything he needed, and when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude for her pains she only bowed her head. Then presently she turned away and left the room.
Outside the door she met some one who was approaching. Ste. Marie heard her break into rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's voice in answer. The voice expressed astonishment and indignation and a sort of gruff horror, but the man who listened could hear only the tones not the words that were spoken.
The Irishman came quickly into the room. He glanced once towards the bed where Ste. Marie sat eating his breakfast with apparent unconcern (there may have been a little bravado in this), and then bent over the thing which lay moving feebly beside a chair. When he rose again his face was hard and tense, and his blue eyes glittered in a fashion that boded trouble for somebody.
"This looks very bad for us," he said gruffly. "I should—I should like to have you believe that neither my daughter nor I had any part in it. When I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison. Not even with spies."
"Oh, that's all right!" said Ste. Marie, taking an ostentatious sip of coffee. "That's understood. I know well enough who tried to poison me. If you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the kitchen, I shan't worry about my food."
The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick flush, and he dropped his eyes. But in an instant he raised them again, and looked full into the eyes of the man who sat in bed.
"You seem," said he, "to be labouring under a curious misapprehension. There is no Stewart here, and I don't know any man of that name."
Ste. Marie laughed.
"Oh, don't you?" he said. "That's my mistake then. Well, if you don't know him, you ought to. You have interests in common."