"Well, and Lord Constantine?" said I, in low, stern tones, that
quivered with excitement; and I felt Denny's hand, that was on my arm,
jump up and down. "And Constantine, woman?"
"Nay, he did nothing," said she. "He talked with Vlacho a while, and
then they went away, and he bade me tend my lord, and went himself
to seek the Lady Euphrosyne. And presently he came back with her. Her
eyes were red, and she wept afresh when she saw my poor lord, for she
loved him. And she sat by him till Constantine came and told her that
you would not go, and that you and your friends would be killed if
you did not go. And then, weeping to leave my lord, she went, praying
heaven she might find him alive when she returned. 'I must go,' she
said to me; 'for though it is a shameful thing that the island should
have been sold, yet these men must be persuaded to go away and not
meet death. Kiss him for me if he awakes.' Thus she went, and left
me with my lord, and I fear he will die." And she ended in a burst of
sobbing.
For a moment there was silence. Then I said again:
"Who struck the blow, woman? Who struck the blow?"
She shrank from me as though I had struck her. "I do not know, I do
not know," she moaned.
Then a thing happened that seemed strange and awful in the gloomy,
dark hall.
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