Leaving his horse, he walked stealthily to the edge of the clearing just beyond where they stood. She followed him with her eyes, her mind full of dark anxious thoughts. He turned and beckoned, holding up his hand to warn her to come cautiously. When she joined him he, without a word, leaned forward and pointed. Above, on the brow of the rising ground, on the outskirts of the wood, in almost the very place where he had been accosted by Von Tressen and Galabin, stood D’Alquen, gun in hand, like a sentry, watching the farm. After a glance at him Philippa drew back, and her companion’s face said plainly, “Did I not tell you so?”
For the moment her indignation got the better of her fear. “What right has he to stand there watching?” she exclaimed.
“None,” Zarka replied. “He is the very genius of suspicion. He watches to make sure.” His tone was more curt and determined now. The preamble was finished; the real business that he had come about was to begin.
“To make sure?” Philippa returned. “Then let him make sure—that I am entirely innocent of Prince Roel’s fate, whatever it may be.”
Zarka’s eyes, contradicting the smile, had the look of a snake’s that is about to strike.
“Does he know the story of the roses, I wonder?” he observed significantly.
“If he does,” she returned, “he knows what, so far as I am concerned, is false.”
“Unhappily it is a story which is much more easily shown to be true than proved false. But,” he added, as his smile deepened, “I fancy we may be sure he does not know it—yet.”
If she recognized the threat in the pause before the last word she chose to ignore it. “Why,” she asked simply, “how is he likely to know it, then? Hardly from you, Count?”
The boldness of her direct question for a moment turned the point of his threat. “I think,” he said, “that there is only one sure way of escaping that fellow’s intention, whatever it may be.”