“Will you explain?” she asked, still coldly.
“With pleasure,” he replied. “Since I must admit that if ever a man’s position stood in need of explanation mine does at the present moment. The lieutenant got me, a stranger, out of a tight corner once. It was not his fault that I got squeezed into it again, and then, unknown to us both, he gave me a chance of slipping out a second time. Then came the part I might all my life have regretted playing, but happily that is spared me. You see, gracious Countess, I did not know who it was I was set to catch, nor did the Chancellor who set me to catch him. But for an opportune moonbeam last night, I might now have been mourning a friend, and Princess Ruperta a lover. But now we are allies; I have gone over, driven at the point of a rascal’s dastardly stiletto. Pfui! I am at least a gentleman, and, as such, claim to consort with men of honour—and here is my credential.”
With a bow, he held out a sealed note. “I am fortunate to have encountered you, noble Countess.”
She took the note, looking at him curiously. “You lay in wait for me,” she suggested suspiciously.
“Indeed I did,” he answered frankly. “How else should I have hoped to get that all-important message to the Princess? And my lying in ambush had another reason. His Excellency the Chancellor and Captain von Ompertz have fallen out. I am in his black books—thick volumes, I guess; there should be a price on my head; but to repair a wrong against friendship I am content to run the risk.”
Minna seemed to be debating a question with herself. Presently she said: “I, in turn, have a letter for the Lieutenant.”
He bowed, but, perhaps from innate delicacy, forebore to offer himself as messenger. “It is of great importance,” she pursued.
“Yes? Ah!” he laughed. “You were doubtless on your way to the old sun-dial.”
She flushed, and the suspicion returned to her face in full force.
“The sun-dial,” she repeated. “You know—ah! and I, too, know now how and by whom we have been betrayed.”