"I came to ask a question of him, lady. I came that he shall tell me whether my own father is a free man or a prisoner. He will not answer that question willingly. But until it is answered, I remain the guest of your house. Silence, if you please. This also is my secret and to-day is not the time to speak of it."
He raised a hand warningly and Evelyn turned about to find Dr. Philips at her side. The little man seemed more amused than ever. His idea that this was a lover's meeting, brought about by the laborious device of a bolting horse and a smashed carriage, could not be put aside.
"Doing capitally, I perceive," he remarked in that professional tone of voice which no human ill, whatever it may be, appears able to modulate or alter. "Out in a bath-chair to-morrow and steeplechasing the next day. Well, well, if we could only put youth into our bottles, what magicians we should be! Now, sir, if I had been in the carriage, the Lady Evelyn, here, would have been asking herself what she would wear at the funeral to-morrow. But I am an old man and you are a young one, and there is nothing like youth in all the world."
"A most excellent sentiment," said the Count, "and one I take to mean that I may return to London before the end of the week if the Lady Evelyn will graciously permit me to go."
Dr. Philips looked at both of them and smiled.
"You must speak to the Earl about that," he exclaimed. "Why, there is his carriage. I must go and break the news to him."
CHAPTER XIII
THE INTERVIEW
Premonition is an odd thing enough and no distant relative of that sister art of prophecy which the ancients so justly esteemed. Evelyn knew no reason whatever why her father should be offended by the presence of Count Odin at the Manor, but none the less premonition warned her that the meeting would not be unattended by consequences of some import. In this fear she had quitted the Count's room directly Dr. Philips warned her that the Earl's carriage was in the courtyard; and going out to the head of that short flight of stairs by which you reach the banqueting hall, she waited there in no little expectation, afraid she knew not of what, and yet quite sure that she had good reason to be afraid. Down below, in the great hall itself, she heard a sound of voices—for the Doctor had already begun his tale—and she tried to catch the sense of it, listening particularly for any mention of Count Odin's name, which must, she believed, be the key to this strange riddle of her adventure. When her father approached her, smiling and not ill-pleased, she was quite sure that the Count's name had not been mentioned; nor was her surmise in any way incorrect.