'It is true!'
Both men looked around. Valerie had entered.
'Father, you must hear me before you—before you——'
She glanced at Rallywood and stopped.
'Go, Valerie; you have nothing to do with these things.'
Selpdorf met her as she came towards him.
'You must hear me to-night, father. You are mistaken; I have had a great deal to do with them. I know all that Captain Rallywood has said to you—yes, I had a right to know. For it was I who brought Major Counsellor to the Duke's apartments at the Castle, because I knew there was a plot against his Highness. But I did not know it was a German plot in which Baron von Elmur was using Count Sagan. Oh, you must be on your guard against them!'
'Who has been frightening you with all this nonsense?' asked Selpdorf with cold suspicion.
'You don't understand me! Father, I know how Captain Colendorp died. I saw it—the struggle and his fall over the cliff. Then I guessed his Highness was in danger, and I went to warn him. Captain Rallywood, tell my father of Count Sagan's visit to the Duke's rooms in the middle of the night with Baron von Elmur. I—we, Isolde and I—heard the shots. You do not know it, but there is a plot. Your life is not safe! Captain Rallywood is right; no life that stands in Count Sagan's way is safe! And you on whom the State depends—you who alone can uphold her liberty—you are the first they will try to destroy! He hates you, else why should he try to kill me?'
She was clinging to his arm.