‘Where are you going to?’ I asked in a matter-of-fact tone, taking no notice of her hasty resort to the dagger. No doubt that was merely a national trait. Seeing that she was caught, she made no attempt to struggle. ‘I was trying to escape,’ she said. ‘Did you hear me?’ ‘Yes, I heard you. Where were you going to?’ ‘Why should I tell you? Shall you threaten me with the whip again?’ I loosed her hands. She gave a sudden glance up the hill. She seemed to measure the distance. ‘Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?’ I asked. ‘Have you friends there?’ She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would. ‘No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you.’ ‘Yet there’s some one in the cottage up there,’ I observed. ‘It belongs to Constantine, doesn’t it?’ ‘Yes, it does,’ she answered defiantly. ‘Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?’ ‘As long as we are four against a hundred I dare only skulk,’ I answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. ‘But do you think he’s there?’ ‘There! No; he’s in the town; and he’ll come from the town to kill you to-morrow.’ ‘Then is nobody there?’ I pursued. ‘Nobody,’ she answered. ‘You’re wrong,’ said I. ‘I saw somebody there to-day.’ ‘Oh, a peasant perhaps.’ ‘Well, the dress didn’t look like it. Do you really want to go there now?’ ‘Haven’t you mocked me enough?’ she burst out. ‘Take me back to my prison.’ Her tragedy-air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up to something which I thought she ought to know. ‘There’s a woman in that cottage,’ said I. ‘Not a peasant; a woman in some dark-coloured dress, who uses opera-glasses.’ I saw her draw back with a start of surprise. ‘It’s false,’ she cried. ‘There’s no one there. Constantine told me no one went there except Vlacho and sometimes Demetri.’ ‘Do you believe all Constantine tells you?’ I asked. ‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s my cousin, and--’ ‘And your suitor?’ She flung her head back proudly. ‘I have no shame in that,’ she answered. ‘You would accept his offer?’ ‘Since you ask, I will answer. Yes. I had promised my uncle that I would.’ ‘Good God!’ said I, for I was very sorry for her. The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning. ‘Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?’ I demanded. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘He told me what she said.’ ‘That I told him he was his uncle’s murderer?’ ‘Did you tell her to say that?’ she asked, with a sudden inclination of her body towards me. ‘I did. Did he give you the message?’ She made no answer. I pressed my advantage. ‘On my honour, I saw what I have told you at the cottage,’ I said. ‘I know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come with him. Did any lady come with him?’