“Come, then. I will obey you. We will go another way. The room where she lies is far from here.”
He threw the door wide open. Within was a stiffly furnished anteroom lined with bookcases, and containing simply a large round table with a jade top, and a dozen high-backed chairs.
“This is the shortest way,” he said, crossing the room and opening at the farther end a door masked by book-backs. “Here we are in the picture gallery.”
Philippa passed through the second door somewhat reassured. The same subdued light was over the great gallery, which seemed dreary and ghostly in its vast dimensions and semi-darkness. Zarka walked on towards the dimly-seen farthermost end, Philippa following as in a dream.
He unlocked a door, and they passed out of the gallery first into a smaller one fitted with sculpture and bas-reliefs, then across a marble pillared vestibule and through one of its many doors, not into the open air as Philippa expected, but into an apartment hung with pictures of sacred subjects. The decoration of this room was decidedly ecclesiastical; a Pieta occupied a prominent place, and a great Scripture tapestry, projected on a rod, evidently covered another door.
“Philippa, you must marry me!”
The words, breaking the silence between them which had lasted for some time, startled Philippa out of her apathy.
“Count! No, never!”
Then shrinking back and noticing her surroundings, it flashed upon her whither he had brought her.
Zarka went to the tapestry and glanced behind it as though to see that they were alone.