“It was my fault,” Philippa replied, “in not daring to explain. Low as my opinion was of Count Zarka, I never suspected him of such a monstrous thing as this, that all this time he was keeping prisoner the man whose death he persisted at laying at my door.”
“And the duel? That was one of his lies?”
“No,” she answered quietly. “It was the truth.”
He looked at her in blank astonishment.
“The truth? But how——?” He stopped, as unable to see the light of a happy explanation.
“It is quite true,” she continued, “that Fräulein d’Ivady and I fought—she for the Count—I for my liberty. It was forced upon me.”
“But how came you there, Philippa?” he asked, hating himself for the question, yet forced to put it.
“I lost my way in the forest,” she explained. “I was coming to warn you against the Count, who had let fall evil threats against you, and I was frightened by Herr D’Alquen and driven by his presence and the storm under the walls of Rozsnyo.” Then in a few words she related the story of her encounter with Royda d’Ivady. “I had a terrible dread of being caught there by the Count,” she concluded, “and preferred to fight that almost mad girl for a chance of escape. Ah, Osbert, if you had only known the strange fear with which the Count inspired me you would see how I must have hated him to have had the courage to refuse to be his wife.”
“That is all over now,” he said caressingly.
She gave a little shudder.