"I quite agree with that, and quarrel with nought but the method of the doing. I will go further and say that your message to the villagers giving them liberty to make the best terms they could for themselves, had in it traces of nobleness that left me entirely unprepared for the madness which followed. To every rule there are exceptions. Are you prepared to order the return of Hilda, the handmaiden of your niece?"
"Such will be my first order on leaving this room."
"You will perhaps promise there are to be no more murders by that cowardly assassin, Steinmetz."
"I shall punish him for what he has done. It was not my intention that any should be beheaded."
"You cannot punish him, richly as he deserves it, for you are the real culprit, giving first the order and then approving the deed when it was done. You promise then, that there shall be no more of such sanguinary commands?"
"I promise."
"The archer will hereafter be my bodyguard, and where I go, he goes. He is to be under no orders but mine. I shall choose my lodgings in this castle where it best pleases me, and none shall enter therein without my invitation. It may be well to remember, that if it come to such a pass, the archer and myself are prepared to stand out against you and your whole garrison."
"I had hoped that so brave a man as you, would have been willing to accept the word of an equally brave, if less youthful and less skilful, antagonist."
"My confidence in mankind has not undergone improvement during my brief stay at Thuron. Some of your favourites I most thoroughly distrust, Steinmetz for example. It will do no harm if you intimate to him that your severest displeasure will rest on whoever molests us. As for Conrad, when he recovers——"
But this sentence was never finished, and its lack of completion came near to costing Conrad his life, but that was through no fault of Count Heinrich. The conference was interrupted by a vigourous knocking at the closed doors. The Count looked at Rodolph, and it was the latter who ordered the archer to withdraw the bolts and raise the bar. Captain Steinmetz entered, and seemed amazed at finding the door shut against him, but he saw the two men seated at a table as if they were merely in friendly converse together, and so thought no more of the unusual shutting in.