"I counseled it," said Stampoff, folding his arms defiantly, and apparently careless whether or not the King sprang at his throat the next instant.
"Ah! At last! Thank God for one man who is honest, though he seems to have acted like a fiend! To whom did you counsel it? To Joan herself?"
"No."
"Tell me, then, to whom?"
"I refuse."
"Stampoff, I shall draw a confession from you even though you die under my hands."
"I have faced death many times for the King of Kosnovia," said the harsh Serbian voice, "and I shall not shrink from it now, whether at the hands of the King or his foes. Send your mother away; then, perhaps, I may tell you what you want to know. The thing is done, and I, for one, shall not shirk the consequences."
"My mother again! Must she be spared though you have sacrificed her son?"
With a quick movement that sent tremors through Julius and the Greek, since he was compelled to pass close to both, he strode to the quaking Princess and caught her almost roughly by the shoulder.
"I feared this from the outset," he cried. "Did Stampoff make you the agent of his hellish work? Joan would trust you. Speak to me, mother! Was it you who wrought this evil?"