"That's always the way," he muttered, "when you let a woman into a secret!"
They soothed and caressed him, but only laughed the more as they did so.
"I wish you to understand that this is no trifling matter," he declared, "and that I had good reason to send those stones after that prying spy."
This allusion checked the young women's merriment at once, and a shudder ran over them at the remembrance of what had passed. "Did we both have the same thought?" whispered Blanka to Anna.
"Yes," returned the latter, with a sigh.
That night, before she lay down to sleep, Anna veiled the little portrait that hung in her room, as if to prevent her seeing it in her dreams.
[2] Rumanian for "brother."