'I am of common earth like any other woman,' she answered with a forlorn little smile; 'I can be afraid and—I can love!'
'Afraid? In your own Castle, among your own people?'
'Yes, Jack. Don't think I am silly! It is quite true. You say you have not changed, that you are still my friend. You are my only one then! I must look to you for protection; I have no one else in the whole world.' She was very near him, her little cold hand had caught his in her vehemence; she looked apprehensively behind her, and then spoke low in his ear. 'I am afraid of my husband. He wishes to be rid of me—I have seen it in his eyes. Sagan will kill me! Do you remember the night of the ball, when I gave you the firefly? Have you kept it, I wonder? I said mine would be a short life. It is true. Sagan is tired of me, and I—Jack, I—loathe him!'
'But——' Rallywood began.
'You don't believe me? See this!' she pushed back a band of black velvet from her arm, and held it out to him. This touched him more than all; the slender blue-veined wrist with the marks of those cruel fingers clasped about it moved him far more than the temptations of her delicate beauty. With an almost involuntary desire to comfort her as one might comfort and please a child, he bent above her hand and kissed the bruises.
Isolde clung to him with a quick sob of relief.
'Promise me, Jack, that you will save me! When danger threatens me I will send for you. You will come? You promise?'
But Rallywood was not in the least in love with Madame de Sagan for all his pity. He was again master of himself, and an odd suspicion flashed across him.
'I feel certain you are mistaken,' he repeated; 'but you have another friend who can be of more service than I just now, Mademoiselle Selpdorf.'
The Countess sank back into her chair.