“If we doubt,” he protested gently, “it is, as you say, but natural, for we have some experience, unhappily, of the Count’s methods and cunning. My comrade is fearful but for me; for himself he has as little fear in trusting you as I for myself. I accept your offer gratefully.”
It was the vivid recollection of her face the night before that decided him. It might be a trap, he told himself, but the chances, as he saw them, were against it.
The lady met his look with eyes that had in them a softer expression than he had seen there before; a memory, perhaps it was, of what her character had once been.
“I can scarcely blame you,” she, replied, as the more sympathetic expression passed away in a hard laugh, “for mistrusting me. After all, it matters very little, since the venture on which you seem determined is such desperate folly. But I will say this for your comfort that, could I trust myself to tell you what I have suffered at the hands of Karl Irromar, you would wish you might be as sure of my ability as of my willingness to help you. The man can be a very fiend when he chooses; I think some of his familiar devils must have raised the storm which drove you here.”
She spoke with an intense, despairing bitterness that carried conviction with it. Her story, in all but its details, was plain enough. It was written on her face in those evil lines which surely a splendid misery, rather than nature, had branded there.
“You will help us, then?” Ludovic said.
“Yes,” she answered. “But not now. It must be to-night. Be here, at the top of this path, half an hour after night-fall, that is, if reflection allows you to keep your foolhardy intention.”
“It can only strengthen it,” he replied.
She gave a smile of curiosity. “I think I understand,” she murmured.
“You have surprised me into forgetting how grateful I should be,” Ludovic said, with gallant earnestness, taking the hand she held towards him and raising it to his lips.