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"Tregar," he said with an effort, "you told me to come when I needed you. I am here. I can not see my way " Tregar held out his hand in silence. Only he knew the sacrifice of insolent pride that had brought his guest so low. Ronador took his hand and reddened. "My father rightly counts upon your loyalty," he choked and walked away to the window. Suddenly he wheeled with blazing eyes of agony.
"There was always tradition " she reminded. Ronador's reply was sincere and gallant. Diane was lovelier than any princess, he said, and in Houdania, tradition had been replaced years back by a law which granted freedom. "Though to be sure," he added bitterly, "each generation seeks to break it. Tregar tried, urging me persistently for diplomatic reasons to take a wife of his choosing.
"God bless my soul!" she screamed hysterically, conscious that her indiscretion was rapidly weaving a web around her which might not find favor in her niece's eyes, "it's Baron Tregar! I know his beard." Now as it was manifestly impossible for the Baron and his beard to be secreted among the lilies which Aunt Agatha was wildly gathering up, Philip looked off in the wood to the north.
Themar moistened his dry lips and shuddered. "No," he whispered, "he did not know." "Why?" Themar fell to trembling. This at least he must keep locked from the grim, ironic man by the window. "You're playing double with Tregar and with me," said Carl hotly. "I thought so. Very well!" Smiling infernally, he drew from his pocket the finger-stretchers. "Excellency!" panted Themar.
"Names," said Mic-co, "are nothing to me, Baron Tregar. They are merely a part of that great world from which I live apart. I am a Heidelberg man, since you feel sufficiently interested to inquire. Though my choice of a profession was merely a careless desire to know some one thing well, I have never regretted it." "I I beg your pardon," stammered the Baron and glanced keenly at Mic-co.
"It is one way out," admitted Tregar, "and by that way lies war with Galituria." He fell silent, plucking at his beard. "I fancy," he said at last, "that you will not go back to the music-machine." "It was and is my only means of following her." "Do so again," said the Baron dryly, "and the American yellow papers shall blazon your identity to the world.
"It is better," said Philip, "if I do not tell." Diane sharply caught her breath and stared at the sinister wraiths rising in floating files from the swamp stream. "Philip was it was it Themar's knife?" "Yes," said Philip. "And the man to whom you are pledged is Baron Tregar!" "Yes," said Philip again. "Why were you in the forest that night of storm and wind?"
He stayed so long upon his knees that Tregar touched him gently on the shoulder. "Ronador," he said gently. "Come. You are very ill and know not what you say." Ronador staggered blindly to his feet. Once more he waved the Baron aside and took up his terrible dialogue with the inner Voice. "The Voice! The Voice!" he whispered. "Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill!
By the pool Ronador leaped suddenly, his face quite colorless save where the flame of fever burned in his cheeks. "That Voice!" he said, standing in curious attitude of listening. "You hear it, Tregar? Always always it comes so in the quietest hours. Tell him! Tell him! Why should I tell him? What is he to me? I may not purchase relief at the price of any man's respect. Only Tregar knows. Hush!
Now as they turned, he rushed forward and flung himself with a great heart-broken sob at the feet of his cousin. "Theodomir! Theodomir!" he cried. Tregar turned away from the sound of his terrible sobbing. Hurrying clouds curtained the silver shield of a full moon and found themselves fringed gloriously with ragged light.
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