He looked up in
surprise as Orsino entered, then rose and offered him a chair.
"What has happened, my friend?" he asked, glancing curiously at the
young man's face.
"Everything," answered Orsino. "I love Madame d'Aranjuez, she loves me,
she absolutely refuses to marry me and she is going to Paris at a
quarter to ten. I know she is your daughter and I want you to prevent
her from leaving. That is all, I believe."
Spicca's cadaverous face did not change, but the hollow eyes grew bright
and fixed their glance on an imaginary point at an immense distance, and
the thin hand that lay on the edge of the table closed slowly upon the
projecting wood. For a few moments he said nothing, but when he spoke he
seemed quite calm.
"If she has told you that she is my daughter," he said, "I presume that
she has told you the rest. Is that true?"
Orsino was impatient for Spicca to take some immediate action, but he
understood that the count had a right to ask the question.
"She has told me that she does not know her mother's name, and that you
killed her husband.
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