“Well?” she said, and stopped and swayed upon the threshold.  Wogan turned from the window towards her.

“Your Ladyship was wise, I think, to leave Bologna.  The little house in the trees there had no such wide prospect as this.”

He spoke rather to give her time than out of any sarcasm.  She set a hand against the jamb of the door, and even so barely sustained her trifling weight.  Her knees shook, her childlike face grew white as paper, a great terror glittered in her eyes.

“I am not the visitor whom you expect,” continued Wogan, “nor do I bring the news which you would wish to hear;” and at that she raised a trembling hand.  “I beg you—­a moment’s silence.  Then I will hear you, Mr. Warner.”  She made a sort of stumbling run and reached a couch.  Wogan shut the door and waited.  He was glad that she had used the name of Warner.  It recalled to him that evening at Ohlau when she had stood behind the curtain with a stiletto in her hand, and the three last days of his perilous ride to Schlestadt.  He needed his most vivid recollections to steel his heart against her; for he was beginning to think it was his weary lot to go up and down the world causing pain to women.  After a while she said, “Now your news;” and she held her hand lightly to her heart to await the blow.

“The King married this morning the Princess Clementina,” said Wogan.  Lady Featherstone did not move her hand; she still waited.  It was just to hinder this marriage that she had come to Italy, but her failure was at this moment of no account.  She heard of it with indifference; it had no meaning to her.  She waited.  Wogan’s mere presence at the villa told her there was more to come.  He continued:—­

“Last night Mr. Whittington came with the King to Bologna—­you understand, no doubt, why;” and she nodded without moving her eyes from his face.  She made no pretence as to the part she had played in the affair.  All the world might know it.  That was a matter at this moment of complete indifference.  She waited.

“The King and Mr. Whittington came at nine of the night to the little house which you once occupied.  I was there, but I was not there alone.  Can your Ladyship conjecture whom I brought there?  Your Ladyship, as I learned last night from Mr. Whittington’s own lips, had paid a visit secretly, using a key which you had retained to the house on an excuse that you had left behind jewels of some value.  You saw her Highness the Princess.  You told her a story of the King and Mlle. de Caprara.  I rode to Rome, and when the King came last night Mlle. de Caprara was with the Princess.  I had evidence against Mr. Whittington, a confession of one of the soldiers of the Governor of Trent, the leader of a party of five who attacked me at Peri.  No doubt you know of that little matter too;” and again Lady Featherstone nodded.

“Thus your double plot—­to set the King against the Princess, and the Princess against the King—­doubly failed.”