“I am sorry to hear it,” she replied. “I hope it is nothing dangerous?”
“Yes; a severe accident on which fever has supervened. Her condition is grave, but she is in good hands.”
“An accident?” Philippa was forced to show some curiosity, but it needed all her self-command to keep the right tone and avoid a suspicion of guilty knowledge; above all, to repress the sickening fear and self-reproach which had come over her.
“Well,” Zarka answered, fixing his piercing eyes on her face, “perhaps we ought not to call it an accident. It is altogether a mysterious business, but I feel sure accident is the wrong word to use. My cousin has received a severe wound in the shoulder; she has been stabbed—the arm run through with a sword.”
“Then where is the mystery, Count?” Philippa asked, boldly meeting the feline gaze. “Surely Fräulein d’Ivady can tell you how she came by the wound?”
“I have not asked her,” he replied significantly.
“You prefer to remain mystified?” she suggested, with a half smile.
For a moment he looked like a tiger on the spring, as though her manner and his guess at the cause of Royda’s wound were provocative beyond endurance, but he checked the impulse, merely replying: “It is, perhaps, not so much a mystery after all.” Then he added suddenly, shooting out the question like a dart: “You have a cold, Fräulein?”
For a moment she did not see what he was aiming at. “A cold?”
“Your throat is wrapped up,” he explained, pointing to the unusually high band of lace round her neck.