“Will you never know now?” she asked fearfully. “But he shall avenge you—he loves me! Oh, Perseus, cannot the wonder of it make you rise and speak to me?”
A moment she listened with stilled breath, then slowly she shrank back from the still and stiffened figure on the floor.
“Andrew—” she whispered pitifully, then her gaze fell on his cloak and she caught it up to her breast for comfort. Suddenly Jerome Caryl entered; a little paper showed in his hand; his face was strongly moved.
“It is explained!” he cried passionately, “that damned devil has undone us utterly—see what has come from the man Hunt—in prison in Romney—he contrived to send this. Look at it—fated fools we are!” He held out to her a soiled scrap of crumpled paper; her wild eyes fell to it and she read in scrawling characters:
“Mr. Andrew Wedderburn is the Master of Stair.”
She made no movement, spoke no word; Jerome Caryl thought that, in her grief, she was careless as to what this could mean.
“He has those papers,” he said fiercely. “He must have those papers—Perseus died defending them—”
“Perseus—died?” she said. “He—killed—Perseus?”
“What else?” cried Jerome Caryl. “For what was he here? It all proves it—Argyll’s warning—Hunt’s message—and that—”
He pointed to Perseus and her eyes followed his gesture; she was standing very stiffly, her hand resting on the table edge.