"But you had small difficulty comprehending the language a moment back.
Permit me to remind you that it chanced to be French I spoke when first kneeling at your bedside." She savagely bit her red lips in rage at my words; yet more, I thought, at her own forgetfulness.
"Pish! perhaps so;" and she stamped her foot angrily on the stone slabs of the floor.

"What does that prove to my discredit for you to harp upon ?" Why my accidental words should thus worry her I could not even guess.
Yet, clearly enough, there lay hidden some secret here--a hideous secret I had harshly probed.

Believing this, I felt that I could enhance my power over her by pressing it relentlessly home with whatsoever directness of speech I dared to venture.

With me, at such a crisis, decision meant action, and I advanced a step nearer, looking her directly in the eyes.

A single moment she met me with a haughty stare; then defiance faded away into pleading, and her glance wavered.
Whatever the cause, she was clearly afraid.
"Who--who are you ?" she faltered.