“Ay, if the king’s alive, I’m the king,” said Rudolf. I suppose he wanted to find out how much the old woman knew. She made no answer, but stared up at his face. In her bewilderment she forgot to ask how he had learnt the signal that gained him admission. “I’ve come to see the Count of Hentzau,” Rudolf continued. “Take me to him at once.” The old woman was across his path in a moment, all defiant, arms akimbo. “Nobody can see the count. He’s not here,” she blurted out. “What, can’t the king see him? Not even the king?” “King!” she cried, peering at him. “Are you the king?” Rosa burst out laughing. “Mother, you must have seen the king a hundred times,” she laughed. “The king, or his ghost--what does it matter?” said Rudolf lightly. The old woman drew back with an appearance of sudden alarm. “His ghost? Is he?” “His ghost!” rang out in the girl’s merry laugh. “Why, here’s the king himself, mother. You don’t look much like a ghost, sir.” Mother Holf’s face was livid now, and her eyes staring fixedly. Perhaps it shot into her brain that something had happened to the king, and that this man had come because of it--this man who was indeed the image, and might have been the spirit, of the king. She leant against the door post, her broad bosom heaving under her scanty stuff gown. Yet still--was it not the king? “God help us!” she muttered in fear and bewilderment. “He helps us, never fear,” said Rudolf Rassendyll. “Where is Count Rupert?” The girl had caught alarm from her mother’s agitation. “He’s upstairs in the attic at the top of the house, sir,” she whispered in frightened tones, with a glance that fled from her mother’s terrified face to Rudolf’s set eyes and steady smile. What she said was enough for him. He slipped by the old woman and began to mount the stairs.