"Who are you, child—how did you come here?"
"I am Zallony's daughter, excellency—my brother brought me across the sea from my own country."
"Yes, yes, you were in Derbyshire at my father's house. When did you leave there, child?"
"A month ago, excellency. My brother came to London. We had little money and were poor. The Count would follow us, he said. So we waited, but there was no message. Excellency, he should not have treated us so ill, for he was my lover and owes it to me. He should have come to us, excellency ... and then I would not have told them. God help him now, for my brother will kill him. Yes, I followed him here, but none knew of it. And to-night I told them the truth. Excellency, had you not come here I never would have told them ... but I have loved him and he has forgotten, and I must go back to my own country alone and ashamed."
She spoke in such a low tone, the childish eyes were so wide open, the heart beating so rapidly beneath the fine lace which covered her breast, that one who knew nothing of her Eastern birth or of all that the love of a man meant to her, might well have believed her story an hysterical fiction and turned from it with just impatience. To Evelyn, however, it spoke of danger as no other word of all that evil night had done. The peril of the house, the vengeance which might fall upon it—the price of the betrayal, her own silence when a word might save a man from the penalty of his sins—this all flashed through her troubled brain and left her with a new sense of helplessness and surpassing dismay.
"How did you come here; how did you enter this room?" she asked quickly.
"Molines, my uncle, who brought you here—he keeps the keys, excellency."
"Then he let you in—he knows of your being here?"
"He knows, excellency, and is afraid. We must save the English lady, he said. That is why he sent me to you."
"I must see your uncle at once, Djala.... I must tell the Count. What you speak of is a great crime. Let us make them hear us. Oh, my God, we cannot be silent."