“I will tell him,” Von Tressen said.
A look of fear crossed her face. “No, please, Osbert, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“And yet there is no mystery. How did you hurt your throat, Philippa?”
She felt her happiness was slipping away from her, yet somehow she could not grasp and stay it.
“By a piece of stupidity too absurd to mention,” she answered. “You need not look suspicious, sir; the Count had no hand in it.”
“He was not the cause?” he asked searchingly.
“No, I tell you.”
“Philippa,” he said suddenly, “for Heaven’s sake tell me what this man is to you. It is not fair to let me imagine things. You must—ah! What is the matter?”