"My brother," she explained, "lay at death's door in Venice. I had just
landed at Leghorn, where I left my maid to recover from the sea, and
hurrying across Italy as I did, I still feared that I should not see him
alive."

The explanation was made readily in a low voice natural to one
remembering a great distress, but without any affectation of gesture or
so much as a glance sideways to note whether Wogan received it
trustfully or not. Wogan, indeed, was reassured in a great measure.
True, the Countess of Berg was now his declared enemy, but he need not
join all her friends in that hostility.

"I was able, most happily," continued Lady Featherstone, "to send my
brother homewards in a ship a fortnight back, and so to stay with my
friend here on my way to Vienna, for we English are all bitten with the
madness of travel. Mr. Warner will bear me out?"

"To be sure I will," said Wogan, stoutly. "For here am I in the depths
of winter journeying to the carnival in Italy."

The Countess smiled, all disbelief and amusement, and Lady Featherstone
turned quickly towards him.

"For my frankness I claim a like frankness in return," said she, with a
pretty imperiousness.

Wogan was a little startled. He suddenly remembered that he had
pretended to know no English on the road to Bologna, nor had he given
any reason for his haste. But it was upon neither of these matters that
she desired to question him.

"You spoke in parables," said she, "which are detestable things. You
said you would not lose your black horse for the world because the lady
you were to marry would ride upon it into your city of dreams. There's a
saying that has a provoking prettiness. I claim a frank answer."

Wogan was silent, and his face took on the look of a dreamer.

"Come," said one. It was the Princess Charlotte, the second daughter of
the Prince Sobieski, who spoke. "We shall not let you off," said she.

Wogan knew that she would not. She was a girl who was never checked by
any inconvenience her speech might cause. Her tongue was a watchman's
rattle, and she never spoke but she laughed to point the speech.

"Be frank," said the Countess; "it is a matter of the heart, and so
proper food for women."

"True," answered Wogan, lightly, "it is a matter of the heart, and in
such matters can one be frank--even to oneself?"

Wogan was immediately puzzled by the curious look Lady Featherstone
gave him. The words were a mere excuse, yet she seemed to