At last he moved, and as he turned away he saw something so unexpected that it startled him.  Indeed, for the moment it did more than startle him, it chilled him.  He understood that slight stirring of the curtain.  The woman now held a dagger in her hand, and the point of the blade stuck out and shone in the moonlight like a flame.

Wogan became angry.  It was all very well for the woman to come spying into his room; but to take a dagger to him, to think a dagger in a woman’s hand could cope with him,—­that was too preposterous.  Wogan felt very much inclined to sweep that curtain aside and tell his visitor how he had escaped from Newgate and played hide-and-seek amongst the chimney-pots.  And although he restrained himself from that, he allowed his anger to get the better of his prudence.  Under the impulse of his anger he acted.  It was a whimsical thing that he did, and though he suffered for it he could never afterwards bring himself to regret it.  He deliberately knelt down and kissed the instep of the foot which protruded from the curtain.  He felt the muscles of the foot tighten, but the foot was not withdrawn.  The curtain shivered and shook, but no cry came from behind it, and again the curtain hung motionless.  Wogan went out of the room and carried the letter to the Prince.  The Countess of Berg was still playing upon her harp, and she gave no sign that she remarked his entrance.  She did not so much as shoot one glance of curiosity towards him.  The Prince carried the letter off to his cabinet, while Wogan sat down beside the Countess and looked about the room.

“I have not seen Lady Featherstone this evening,” said he.

“Have you not?” asked the Countess, easily.

“Not so much as her foot,” replied Wogan.

The conviction came upon him suddenly.  Her hurried journey to Bologna and her presence at Ohlau were explained to him now by her absence from the room.  His own arrival at Bologna had not remained so secret as he had imagined.  The fragile and gossamer lady, too flowerlike for the world’s rough usage, was the woman who had spied in his room and who had possessed the courage to stand silent and motionless behind the curtain after her presence there had been discovered.  Wogan had a picture before his eyes of the dagger she had held.  It was plain that she would stop at nothing to hinder this marriage, to prevent the success of his design; and somehow the contrast between her appearance and her actions had something uncanny about it.  Wogan was inclined to shiver as he sat chatting with the Countess.  He was not reassured when Lady Featherstone boldly entered the room; she meant to face him out.  He remarked, however, with a trifle of satisfaction that for the first time she wore rouge upon her cheeks.

CHAPTER V

Wogan, however, was not immediately benefited by his discovery.  He knew that if a single whisper of it reached the Prince’s ear there would be at once an end to his small chances.  The old man would take alarm; he might punish the offender, but he would none the less surely refuse his consent to Wogan’s project.  Wogan must keep his lips quite closed and let his antagonists do boldly what they would.