Mistress Anne's sleeve as she turned had swept from the table a Florentine jug, one of Master Lindstrom's greatest treasures, and it lay in a dozen fragments on the floor. We stood and looked at it, the Duchess in anger, Master Bertie and I in comic dismay. The girl's lip trembled, and she turned quite white as she contemplated the ruin she had caused.
"Well, you have done it now!" the Duchess said pitilessly. What woman could ever overlook clumsiness in another woman! "It only remains to pick up the pieces, miss. If a man had done it--but there, pick up the pieces. You will have to make your tale good to Master Lindstrom afterward."
I went down on my knees and helped Anne, the annoyance her incredulity had caused me forgotten. She was so shaken that I heard the bits of ware in her hand clatter together. When we had picked up all, even to the smallest piece, I rose, and the Duchess returned to the former subject. "You will open this letter, then?" she said; "I see you will. Then the sooner the better. Have you got it about you?"
"No, it is in my bedroom," I answered. "I hid it away there, and I must fetch it. But do you think," I continued, pausing as I opened the door for Mistress Anne to go out with her double handful of fragments, "it is absolutely necessary to read it, my lady?"
"Most certainly," she answered, gravely nodding with each syllable, "I think so. I will be responsible." And Master Bertie nodded also.
"So be it," I said reluctantly. And I was about to leave the room to fetch the letter--my bedroom being in a different part of the house, only connected with the main building by a covered passage--when our host returned. He told us that he had removed a boat, and I stayed a while to hear if he had anything more to report, and then, finding he had not, went out to go to my room, shutting the door behind me.
The passage I have mentioned, which was merely formed of rough planks, was very dark. At the nearer end was the foot of the staircase leading to the upper rooms. Farther along was a door in the side opening into the garden. Going straight out of the lighted room, I had almost to grope my way, feeling the walls with my hands. When I had about reached the middle I paused. It struck me that the door into the garden must be open, for I felt a cold draught of air strike my brow, and saw, or fancied I saw, a slice of night sky and the branch of a tree waving against it. I took a step forward, slightly shivering in the night air as I did so, and had stretched out my hand with the intention of closing the door, when a dark form rose suddenly close to me, I saw a knife gleam in the starlight, and the next moment I reeled back into the darknesss of the passage, a sharp pain in my breast.
I knew at once what had happened to me, and leaned a moment against the planking with a sick, faint feeling, saying to myself, "I have it this time!" The attack had been so sudden and unexpected, I had been taken so completely off my guard, that I had made no attempt either to strike or to clutch my assailant, and I suppose only the darkness of the passage saved me from another blow. But was one needed? The hand which I had raised instinctively to shield my throat was wet with the warm blood trickling fast down my breast. I staggered back to the door of the parlor, groped blindly for the latch, seemed to be an age finding it, found it at last, and walked in.
The Duchess sprang up at sight of me. "What," she cried, backing from me, "what has happened?"
"I have been stabbed," I said, and I sat down.