At five o'clock that same afternoon I alighted from a taxi before the
_Langham Hotel_, and presenting my card at the bureau, inquired for Miss
Anson. The clerk looked at me rather curiously, I thought, glanced at
the card, and entering the telephone-box, spoke some words into the
instrument.
I was shown into a small room on the first floor, where I waited until a
gentlemanly, middle-aged, fair-headed man entered, with my card in his
hand.
"Good afternoon," he said, greeting me rather stiffly. "Her Highness is
at present out driving. Is there anything I can do? I am her
secretary."
"Her Highness?" I echoed, with a smile. "There must be some mistake.
I have called to see Miss Mabel Anson."
He regarded me with some surprise.
"Are you, then, unaware that Anson is the name adopted by Her Highness
to preserve her _incognita_?" he asked, glancing at me in quick
suspicion. "Are you not aware of her real rank and station?"
"No!" I cried, in blank amazement. "This is indeed a revelation to me!
I have known Miss Anson intimately during the past six years. What is
her true rank?"
"The lady whom you know as Miss Anson is Her Imperial Highness the
Archduchess Marie Elizabeth Mabel, third daughter of His Majesty the
Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria."
"Mabel! The daughter of an Emperor?" I gasped involuntarily.
"Impossible!"
He shrugged his shoulders. He was a foreigner, although he spoke
English well--an Austrian most probably.
"You are surprised," he laughed. "Many people have also been surprised,
as the Archduchess, living in England nearly her whole life, has
frequently been taken for an Englishwoman."
"I can't believe it!" I cried. "Surely there must be some mistake!"
I remembered those days of long ago when we had wandered together in
Kensington Gardens. How charming and ingenuous she was: how sweet and
unaffected by worldly vanities, how trustful was that look when she
gazed into my eyes! Her air was never that of the daughter of the
reigning House of Hapsbourg-Lorraine. She had possessed all the
enchantment of ideal grace without the dignity of rank, and it seemed
incredible that she was actually a princess whose home was the most
brilliant Court of Europe.
"I can quite understand your surprise," observed the secretary. "But
what is the nature of your business with Her Highness?"
"It is of a purely private nature."
He glanced at the card. "The Archduchess does not receive callers," he
answered coldly.
"But at least you will give her my name, and tell her that I have
something of urgent importance to communicate to her," I cried eagerly.
He hesitated. "If you are, as you allege, an old friend, I will place
your card before her," he said at last, with some hesitation. "You may
leave your address, and if Her Highness consents to receive you I will
communicate with you."
"No," I answered in desperation; "I will remain and await her return."
"That is impossible," he responded. "She has many engagements, and
certainly cannot receive you to-day."
I recollected that the letter I had found at Denbury made it plain that
we had parted abruptly. If this man gave her my card without any word,
it was more than likely that she would refuse to see me.
Therefore I entered into argument with him, but while I was speaking the
door opened suddenly, and my love stood before me.
She halted there, elegantly dressed, having just returned from her
drive, and for a moment we faced each other speechless.
"Mr Heaton!" she cried, and then, in breathless hurry arising from the
sudden and joyful surprise, she rushed forward.
Our hands grasped. For the moment I could utter no word. The
secretary, noticing our mutual embarrassment, discreetly withdrew,
closing the door after him.
Once again I found myself, after those six lost years, alone with my
love.
"At last!" I cried. "At last I have found you, after all these
months!" I was earnestly gazing into her great dark eyes. She had
altered but little since that night long ago at The Boltons, when I had
discovered the traces of that hideous tragedy.
"And why have you come back to me now?" she inquired in a low, strained
voice.
"I have striven long and diligently to find you," I answered frankly,
"because--because I wished to tell you how I love you--that I have loved
you always--from the first moment that we met."
A grave expression crossed her countenance.
"And yet you forsook me! You calmly broke off the secret engagement
that we had mutually made, and left me without a single word. You have
married," she added resentfully, "therefore it is scarcely fitting that
you should come here with a false declaration upon your lips."
"It is no false declaration, I swear," I cried. "As for my wife, I knew
her not, and she is now dead."
"Dead!" she gasped. "You knew her not! I don't understand."
"I have loved you always--always, Princess--for I have only ten minutes
ago ascertained your true rank--"
"Mabel to you--as always," she said, softly interrupting me.
"Ah, thank you for those words!" I cried, taking her small gloved hand.
"I have loved you from the first moment that we met at the colonel's,
long ago--you remember that night?"
"I shall never forget it," she faltered in that low tone as of old,
which was as sweetest music to my ears.
"And you remember that evening when I dined with you at The Boltons?" I
said. "Incomprehensible though it may seem, I began a new life from
that night, and for six whole years have existed in a state of utter
unconsciousness of all the past. Will you consider me insane if I tell
you that I have no knowledge whatever of meeting you after that night,
and only knew of our engagement by discovering this letter among my
private papers a couple of months ago?" and I drew her letter from my
pocket.
"Your words sound most remarkable," she said, deeply interested.
"Relate the whole of the facts to me. But first come along to my own
sitting-room. We may be interrupted here."
And she led the way to the end of the corridor, where we entered an
elegant little salon, one of the handsome suite of rooms she occupied.
She drew forth a chair for me, and allowing a middle-aged gentlewoman--
her lady-in-waiting, I presume--to take her hat and gloves, we once more
found ourselves alone.
How exquisitely beautiful she was! Yet her royal birth, alas! placed
her beyond my reach. All my hopes and aspirations had been in an
instant crushed by the knowledge of her rank. I could only now relate
to her the truth, and seek her forgiveness for what had seemed a cruel
injustice.
I took her unresisting hand, and told her how long ago I had loved her,
not daring to expose to her the great secret of my heart. If we had
mutually decided upon marriage, and I had deliberately deserted her, it
was, I declared, because of that remarkable unconsciousness which had
blotted out all knowledge of my life previous to that last night when we
had dined together, and I had accompanied the man Hickman to his
lodgings.
"But tell me all," she urged, "so that I can understand and judge
accordingly."
And then, beginning at the beginning, I recounted the whole of the
amazing facts, just as I have narrated them to the reader in these
foregoing chapters.
I think the telling occupied most part of an hour; but she sat there,
her lovely eyes fixed upon me, her mouth half open, held dumb and
motionless by the strange story I unfolded. Once or twice she gave vent
to ejaculations of surprise, and I saw that only by dint of supreme
effort did she succeed in preserving her self-control. I told her
everything. I did not seek to conceal one single fact.
"And he was actually murdered in my house?" she cried, starting up at
last. "You were present?"