“It is my fault,” she cried, “it is all my fault for coming here.  If I had had the courage to keep on this would never have happened!”

“No,” said Odo quietly, “and we should have gone straight to Peschiera and landed in the arms of our pursuer—­if this mysterious traveller is in pursuit of us.”

His tone seemed to steady her.  “Oh,” she said, and the colour flickered out of her face.

“As it happens,” he went on, “nothing could have been more fortunate than our coming here.”

“I see—­I see—­; but now we must go on at once,” she persisted.

He looked at her gravely.  “This is your wish?”

She seemed seized with a panic fear.  “I cannot stay here!” she repeated.

“Which way shall we go, then?  If we continue to Peschiera, and this man is after us, we are lost.”

“But if he does not find us he may return here—­he will surely return here!”

“He cannot return before morning.  It is close on midnight already.  Meanwhile you can take a few hours’ rest while I devise means of reaching the lake by some mule-track across the mountain.”

It cost him an effort to take this tone with her; but he saw that in her high-strung mood any other would have been less effective.  She rose slowly, keeping her eyes on him with the look of a frightened child.  “I will do as you wish,” she said.

“Let the landlord prepare a bed for you, then.  I will keep watch down here and the horses shall be saddled at daylight.”

She stood silent while he went to the door to call the innkeeper; but when the order was given, and the door closed again, she disconcerted him by a sudden sob.

“What a burden I am!” she cried.  “I had no right to accept this of you.”  And she turned and fled up the dark stairs.

The night passed and toward dawn the rain ceased.  Odo rose from his dreary vigil in the kitchen, and called to the innkeeper to carry up bread and wine to Fulvia’s room.  Then he went out to see that the horses were fed and watered.  He had not dared to question the landlord as to the roads, lest his doing so should excite suspicion; but he hoped to find an ostler who would give him the information he needed.

The stable was empty, however; and he prepared to bait the horses himself.  As he stooped to place his lantern on the floor he caught the gleam of a small polished object at his feet.  He picked it up and found that it was a silver coat-of-arms, such as are attached to the blinders and saddles of a carriage-harness.  His curiosity was aroused, and holding the light closer he recognised the ducal crown of Pianura surmounting the “Humilitas” of the Valseccas.

The discovery was so startling that for some moments he stood gazing at the small object in his hand without being able to steady his confused ideas.  Gradually they took shape, and he saw that, if the ornament had fallen from the harness of the traveller who had just preceded them, it was not Fulvia but he himself who was being pursued.  But who was it who sought him and to what purpose?  One fact alone was clear:  the traveller, whoever he was, rode in one of the Duke’s carriages, and therefore presumably upon his sovereign’s business.