Yetive
and her companions were waiting for them at the fountain, a hundred
yards ahead.
"You may go, Baldos," said Beverly in low tones.
"I am not fatigued nor--" he began eagerly.
"Go!" snarled Marlanx. "Am I to repeat a command to you? Do you ignore
the word of your mistress?" There was a significant sneer in the way he
said it.
"Mistress?" gasped Baldos, his eye blazing, his arm half raised.
"Count Marlanx!" implored Beverly, drawing herself to her full height
and staring at him like a wounded thing.
"I humbly implore you not to misconstrue the meaning of the term, your
highness," said the Count affably, "Ah, you have dropped
something. Permit me. It is a note of some description, I think."
He stooped quickly--too quickly--and recovered from the ground at her
feet the bit of paper which had fallen from her hand. It was the note
from Ravone to Baldos which Beverly had forgotten in the excitement of
the encounter.
"Count Marlanx, give me that paper!" demanded Beverly breathlessly.
"Is it a love-letter? Perhaps it is intended for me. At any rate, your
highness, it is safe against my heart for the time being. When we reach
the castle I shall be happy to restore it. It is safer with me. Come, we
go one way and--have you not gone, sir?" in his most sarcastic tone to
the guard. Beverly was trembling.
"No, I have not; and I shall not go until I see you obey the command of
her highness.
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