"That is your first mistake, Count Gustav. You must keep your temper better than that, or it will betray you."
He affected to laugh; but there was no laughter in his eyes.
"Well, if Madame was only fooling me with her letter I suppose I may as well go again," he said lightly.
"You know that you have no thought of going. Why are you afraid to put the questions which are so close to your lips?"
I was getting my thrusts well home each time, and was goading him to anger, as well as starting his fears of me.
"Yes, that is one of the questions. I can tell you." I paused and added slowly: "The man you sent here came to do the work you planned."
He bit his lip hard, and his hands gripped the back of the chair behind which he stood. "You delight in mysteries, I know," he sneered.
"Your sneer does not hide the effect of my news, Count Gustav. You know there is no mystery in that for you--and there is none for me. Put your second question."
"What do you mean? I don't understand you."
"That is not true. You want to ask me where your brother is."
"I'll ask that or any other if you wish," he replied, attempting a jaunty, indifferent air. "Where is he?"
"God have more mercy on you than you had on him. You have already seen the answer to your question in the drawn blinds of the room where you last saw him alive."
Strive as he would he could not but shrink under my words and tone. His fingers strained on the chair back, his breath laboured, his colour fled, and his eyes--those hardy, laughing, dare-devil eyes--fell before my gaze. He had to pause and moisten his lips before he could reply.
"If you mean that any harm has come to him," he said, speaking at first with difficulty and hesitation, but gathering firmness as he proceeded; "there will be a heavy reckoning for some one. Who is in the house beside you?" He did not dare to look up yet.
"You coward!" I cried, with all the contempt I felt.
This stung him to fury. "If you have had a hand in this and seek to shield yourself by abusing me, it will not help you. I tell you that."
"Seek to shield myself! I should not stoop to seek so paltry a shield as you could be, whether you were white with fear or flushed with selfish purpose. I do not need a shield. I know the truth, Count Gustav. I know all your part in it, from your motive to the final consummation of your treacherous plan. And what I know to-day, all Austria, all the world, shall know to-morrow."