Wogan drew back instinctively. He had a sense that this open window,
though there was no one to spy through it, was in some way a security.
Suppose that he closed it! That mere act of shutting himself and her
apart, though it gave not one atom more of privacy, still had a
semblance of giving it. He was afraid. He said,-"There is no need. Who should spy on us? What would it matter if we were
spied upon?"
"I ask you to close that shutter."
From the quiet, level voice he could infer nothing of the thought behind
the request; and her unwavering eyes told him nothing.
"Why?"
"Because I am afraid, as you are," said she, and she shivered. "You
would not have it shut. I am afraid while it stays open. There is too
much expectation in the night. Those great black pines stand waiting;
the stars are very bright and still, they wait, holding their breath. It
seems to me the whirl of the earth has stopped. Never was there a night
so hushed in expectation;" and these words too she spoke without a
falter or a lifting note, breathing easily like a child asleep, and not
changing her direct gaze from Wogan's face. "I am afraid," she
continued, "of you and me. I am the more afraid;" and Wogan set the
shutter in its place and let the bar fall. Clementina with a breath of
relief came back to her seat at the table.
"How long is it till dawn?" she said.
"We have half an hour," said Wogan.
"Well, that old man--Count von Ahlen, you said--received you, heaped
logs upon his fire, stanched your wounds, and asked no questions. Well?
You stopped suddenly. Tell me all!"
Wogan looked doubtfully at her and then quickly seated himself over
against her.
"All? I will. It will be no new thing to you;" and as Clementina raised
her eyes curiously to his, he met her gaze and so spoke the rest
looking at her with her own direct gaze.
"Why did he ask no question, seeing me disordered, wounded, a bandit,
for all he knew, with a murder on my hands? Because thirty years before
Count Philip Christopher von Königsmarck had come in just that same way
over the lawn to the window, and had sat by that log-fire and charmed
the old gentleman into an envy by his incomparable elegance and wit."
"Königsmarck!" exclaimed the girl. She knew the history of that
brilliant and baleful adventurer at the Court of Hanover. "He came as
you did, and wounded?"