“In the great courtyard, lord.” Princess Theophanis was looking at her, and Danaë knew at once that she had been seen as she crouched in the darkness on the stairs. She held her breath and waited for the words of denunciation, but they did not come. Wylie was speaking again.
“Did you come up again at once when you did not find him?”
“I stayed and sought him a little while, lord; then I came up. The nursery looked just as it had done when I left it, and the children seemed to be sleeping. But when I straightened the clothes, the Lord Harold was not there.”
“And did you give the alarm at once?”
“Alas, lord! I fell to the floor in my terror, and lay there.”
“That is so, sir,” put in Linton, who had returned unsuccessful from her search. “I found her laying on the ground like a dead thing, crying out that Master Harold was gone.”
“Think,” said Wylie sharply. “Can you imagine no reason why Petros should have carried off the child?”
“None, lord. Except,” as a bright idea occurred to her, “that there was a reward offered for a little boy who was lost at Therma, and he may be hoping to gain it.”
“Ah, and how did you hear that, if you have not seen him?”
Danaë realised her danger. “I—I heard it, lord,” she murmured.