Pauline was not so easily to be trapped. She remembered breathing her prayer almost at his ear but she hoped in the excitement he had not heard.
"You are dreaming Michæl," she exclaimed. "Why should I say that?"
"Another thing," the count went on. "This man would hardly have escaped if the electric lights had not gone out." Abruptly the count turned to Hentzi. "Tell me, did you see the engineer about this?"
"Yes, Excellency," Hentzi assured him, "He tells me in technical terms which I do not comprehend that sometimes the light goes off for a few moments. It was the thunder storm or some atmospherical condition. I do not remember."
"Heaven seems to fight for him," Count Michæl commented. "First the lights extinguished and then someone in this house of mine who gives him keys and aids his escape. The garage door opens itself to him and lo, he disappears."
"He has an accomplice you think, Excellency?" Hentzi stammered. He was fearful that his master had learned of his carrying the book to the prisoner. Out of this slender fact the wrathful count might be weaving plot enough to engulf his faithful secretary. "I assure your Excellency," Hentzi cried, "that I am entirely loyal."
Pauline was still not to be frightened by this changed mood of the count and the agitation expressed on his secretary's face. She had been victor over him in a hundred violent scenes and Pauline loved violence and the raising of voices.
"A curious thing," said the count meditatively, "is that the lights went out only in my room. A well trained thunder storm Hentzi, eh?"
"Your excellence means that someone turned them off. I was on guard at the window as you remember."
"I know that you were. Ferencz was at the north door, Peter at the other. The thief could not be suspected and I was a dozen feet distant sitting in my chair. And yet, Hentzi, when I pressed the button light again flooded the room."