Ordered myself to be idle, I found all busy round me, busy with a stealthy diligence. Master Lindstrom was packing his plate. Dymphna, pale, but with soft, happy eyes--for had she not cause to be proud?--was preparing food and thick clothing. The Duchess had fetched her child and was dressing it for the journey. Master Bertie was collecting small matters, and looking to our arms. In one or other of these occupations--I can guess in which--Van Tree was giving his aid. And so, since the Duchess would not let me do anything, it chanced that presently I found myself left alone for a few minutes with Anne.
I was not watching her. I was gnawing my nails in a fit of despondency, reflecting that I was nothing but a hindrance and a drawback to my friends, since whenever a move had to be made I was sure to be invalided, when I became aware, through some mysterious sense, that my companion, who was kneeling on the floor behind me, packing, had desisted from her work and was gazing fixedly at me. I turned. Yes, she was looking at me; her eyes, in which a smoldering fire seemed to burn, contrasting vividly with her pale face and contracted brows. When she saw that I had turned--of which at first she did not seem aware--she rose and came to me, and laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned over me. A feeling that was very like fright fell upon me, her manner was so strange. "What is it?" I stammered, as she still pored on me in silence, still maintained her attitude. "What is the matter, Anne?"
"Are you quite a fool?" she whispered, her voice almost a hiss, her hot breath on my cheek. "Have you no sense left, that you trust that man?"
For a moment I failed to understand her. "What man?" I said. "Oh, Van Tree!"
"Ay, Van Tree! Who else? Will you go straight into the trap he has laid for you?" She moistened her lips with her tongue, as though they were parched. "You are all mad! Mad, I think! Don't you see," she continued, stooping over me again and whispering hurriedly, her wild eyes close to mine, "that he is jealous of you?"
"He was," I said uneasily. "That is all right now."
"He was? He is!" she retorted. "He went away wild with you. He comes back smiling and holding out his hand. Do you trust him? Don't you see--don't you see," she cried, rocking me to and fro with her hand in her excitement, "that he is fooling you? He is leading us all into a trap that has been laid carefully enough. What is this tale of an English envoy on his way to Germany? Rubbish! Rubbish, I tell you."
"But Clarence----"
"Bah! It was all your fancy!" she cried fiercely, her eyes for the moment flitting to the door, then returning to my face. "How should he find us here? Or what has Clarence to do with an English envoy?"
"I do not know," I said. She had not in the least persuaded me. In a rare moment I had seen into Van Tree's soul and trusted him implicitly. "Please take care," I added, wincing under her hand. "You hurt me!"