Doom looked a trifle uneasy. “Hush!” said he, with half a glance behind him to the door. “Not so loud. If she should hear!” he stammered: he stopped, then smiled awkwardly. “Have ye any dread of an Evil Eye?” said he.
“I have no dread of the devil himself, who is something more tangible,” replied Count Victor. “You do not suggest that malevolent influence in Mistress Annapla, do you?”
“We are very civil to her in these parts,” said Doom, “and I'm not keen to put her powers to the test. I have seen and heard some droll things of her.”
“That has been my own experience,” said Count Victor. “Are you sure her honesty is on more substantial grounds than her reputation for witchcraft? I demand your pardon for expressing these suspicions, but I have reasons. I cannot imagine that the attack of the Macfarlanes was connived at by your servants, though that was my notion for a little when Mungo locked me up, for they suffered more alarm at the attack than I did, and the reason for the attack seems obvious enough. But are you aware that this woman who commands your confidence is in the practice of signalling to the shore when she wishes to communicate with some one there?”
“I think you must be mistaken,” said Doom, uneasily.
“I could swear I saw something of the kind,” said Count Victor. He described the signal he had seen twice at her window. “Not having met her at the time, I laid it down to some gay gillian's affair with a lover on the mainland, but since I have seen her that idea seem—seems—”
“Just so, I should think it did,” said the Baron: but though his words were light, his aspect was disturbed. He paced once or twice up and down the floor, muttered something to himself in Gaelic, and finally went to the door, which he opened. “Mungo, Mungo!” he cried into the darkness, and the servant appeared with the gaudy nightcap of his slumber already on.
“Tell Annapla to come here,” said the Baron.
The servant hesitated, his lip trembled upon some objection that he did not, however, express, and he went on his errand.
In a little the woman entered. It was not surprising that when Count Victor, prepared by all that had gone before to meet a bright young creature when he had gone into his chamber where she was repelling the escalade of the enemy, had been astounded to find what he found there, for Mistress Annapla was in truth not the stuff for amorous intrigues. She had doubtless been handsome enough in her day, but that was long distant; now there were but the relics of her good looks, with only her eyes, dark, lambent, piercing, to tell of passions unconsumed. She had eyes only for her master; Count Victor had no existence for her, and he was all the freer to watch how she received the Baron's examination.