PAYING THE BILL.
By a majority of thirty-three, Prince Romanos Christodoridi was
elected High Commissioner of Emathia. This result caused no surprise
at the Theophanis headquarters, where hope was practically extinct
from the moment that a pencil note was received from Professor
Panagiotis shortly after the opening of the poll:--
“Treachery. Nilischeff has demanded that he and his followers should
be allowed to vote in favour of union with Thracia. Informed that this
is not the question before the delegates, he declines to vote at all.
He influences seventy-eight votes.”
The abstention of these delegates, all Slavs, coupled with the adverse
voting of those who had been led to believe that Maurice was merely
the tool of Scythia, turned the scale in favour of Prince Romanos, and
led to much lively mutual recrimination afterwards. This ceased only
in presence of the astonishing sight of the defeated candidate shaking
hands with his successful rival, and promising him all the help he
could give in his arduous task. The world, as represented by the
diplomatists of Europe and the sightseers, looked on cynically, as at
a formal ceremony that meant nothing whatever, but the unsophisticated
Emathians accepted the scene in good faith, possibly considering that
the experiences of Hagiamavra gave them a more intimate knowledge of
the two men than that enjoyed by the politicians.
It was a day of surprises, and not the least of them fell to Zoe’s
share. She was standing on the verandah in the afternoon, awaiting
eagerly the return of Maurice and Wylie with full details of the
defeat, when a carriage drove up to the door, and a slender
black-robed figure descended. It was Donna Olimpia Pazzi, and when she
saw Zoe looking down at her she made her an eager sign.
“Please don’t call the servants. It is you I am come to see,” she said
breathlessly, and hastened up the steps. “I have brought you a book
and a message from the Princess,” she went on, still in the same
hurried way. “No, not the Princess Dowager--my own Princess, Princess
Emilia--a book of poems, which she submits with humility to your
matured judgment--they are her own, of course--and hopes that your
friendship will justify her boldness. That was my excuse for getting
leave to come, but I had something to say to you.”
“Yes?” said Zoe. “Do sit down. Is anything the matter?”
“I will not sit down,” said the girl, with something like defiance.
“Forgive me----” she broke off hastily. “I am in great trouble, and I
must tell some one. You will not betray me?”
“Certainly not,” said Zoe, much surprised. “Your secret will be safe
with me.”
“It is not my own secret only, but I can trust you. Last week you
refused a proposal of marriage from the Prince--from Romanos
Christodoridi?”
“Most certainly I refused him, though I have no idea how you heard
anything about it.” Zoe spoke coldly. “I regarded his proposal as an
insult, since he knew I was already engaged.”
“It was a greater insult than you imagined. He is my husband.”
“Your husband--married to you? When? How long----?”
“At Bashi Konak, when he was there wounded. In my Princess’s private
chapel, by her chaplain. She was present, and the Princess Dowager.”
“But by Latin rites--and you are a Roman Catholic, too? But the Greeks
would never forgive him! It is impossible for him to be Prince.”
“He is Prince, and you will not betray him, because you have promised;
nor shall I, because I am his wife--his most unhappy wife. But I could
not let you continue to think you had refused him, when he was mine
already.”
The curious perverted pride in Donna Olimpia’s voice as she drew up
her head haughtily made Zoe wonder, and she felt half repelled, half
pitiful. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You are married to him; you
have got what you wanted, then, I suppose? Then why are you not
happy?”
“How can I be happy?” the girl’s voice was choked. “He cannot
acknowledge me, or the Greeks would howl him out of Emathia. The
Princess promised me--the Princess Dowager, I mean--that he should not
be elected. Then I was to meet him in Paris, where his father would
not trouble him, and we should be left in peace. She brought me away
from Bashi Konak because she said the secret could never be kept if we
were seen together, and it must not come out until we were both safely
away from Emathia. Then he came here, and she has hardly let me see
him--even in her presence. And now he is Prince, and he can’t claim me
after all.” The tears flowed fast.
“Then claim him,” said Zoe, rather unsympathetically.
“And destroy his position? Never! I did not want him to be Prince, but
he wishes it, and I dare not cross his will. If he had been defeated
in the election, it would not have been my fault, and I could have
comforted him. But now he would never forgive me if I betrayed him.”
“Well, really,” said Zoe with some impatience, “so far as I can see,
there are only two things that you might do. You can make the marriage
public and claim him, or you can go back to Bashi Konak and keep out
of his way.”
“You say that, knowing what he is?” cried Donna Olimpia.
“But, speaking as one woman to another, there is one thing you can’t
do,” said Zoe earnestly. “You can’t stay on here unless the marriage
is recognised. I say that, knowing what he is, as you say. Go back to
Magnagrecia if you like--to Bashi Konak at any rate--but don’t stay
here.”
“You think he will find himself compelled to follow me, and so ruin
his own cause,” was the suspicious reply.
Zoe started angrily. “I was speaking to you for your good,” she said.
“Knowing Prince Romanos, I should think it highly unlikely---- No, I
won’t say it. But surely you see that you must protect yourself? He
won’t do it. I can’t quite make out what part the Princess Dowager has
been playing. You don’t think she deceived you deliberately?”
“I think not, but one cannot tell--with her. I don’t believe she
wished my husband to be Prince, or why take such pains to promote our
marriage?”
“I think you are both merely pawns in her game,” said Zoe. “At any
rate, you can’t feel any confidence in consulting her. If it suited
her, she would sacrifice you without a qualm. That’s what I always
feel about her.”
“You know that she has your brother also in her power?” said Donna
Olimpia suddenly. “I know it, because she told me so once, to comfort
me. I did not want my husband to be Prince, but neither did I wish him
to suffer the humiliation of being defeated by Prince Theophanis. ‘Be
tranquil,’ she said; ‘Prince Theophanis will not reign. A word from me
would make him impossible.’”
“Then you think she has brought about his defeat?” cried Zoe
indignantly. Donna Olimpia shook her head.
“No, and I will tell you why. The hold she has over him is something
connected with a paper. When we were at Skandalo, Princess Theophanis
visited her twice, in great trouble. They talked very low, and I heard
nothing in the anteroom until the end of the second visit. Then they
seemed to have come suddenly close to the door, where the icon hangs,
and something was said about Prince Christodoridi’s being elected, but
I could not hear distinctly. Then I heard the Princess Dowager say
something about ‘the paper signed by your husband,’ and Princess
Theophanis said, ‘I will give you the paper when my husband’s life is
safe,’ or words like that.”
“Well?” said Zoe breathlessly.
“Then on the day we heard that the prisoners were to be released--I am
certain of it, because the English naval officer told me the news when
he brought a packet of letters and telegrams addressed to the Princess
at Therma--she went out without me, to congratulate Princess
Theophanis. When she came back, she locked a large envelope up in her
desk. Before she did it, she took out a paper that was inside it, with
a deep mourning border, read it through, and put it back again. I saw
her.”
“The day the flag-lieutenant came?” said Zoe. “But Maurice had only
signed one paper then--a letter to a stockbroker--and he could hardly
manage that. That was black-edged, I know, but there was nothing in it
that could get him or anybody into trouble. Unless Eirene had added
what she wanted the money for--but even then---- No, I don’t see what
it could have been.”
“You won’t mind my interrupting you for a moment, Zoe?” said Eirene,
coming out of the house, “but I saw that you had Donna Olimpia here,
and I wanted her to take a note back to the Princess for me. You will
be sure to give it her at once, won’t you?” she asked of the girl. “It
is very important.”
“Without fail, madame,” said Donna Olimpia, with a certain excitement
in her tone. Neither she nor Zoe could help noticing the change in
Eirene’s appearance. It was as if years had fallen from her in a few
hours, and for the first time since Constantine’s death she actually
smiled as she went back into the house.
“I can’t understand it,” said Zoe breathlessly; “but I think there
can’t be a doubt that you would be better away from the Princess. I
must write and thank Princess Emilia for her book; shall I mention
that you are longing to return to her?”
“Am I to leave my husband at the Princess Dowager’s mercy?”
“If you stay here, she has a weapon continually at hand with which to
attack him. Once you are at Bashi Konak, he cannot approach you
without acknowledging his marriage.”
“Princess, I am torn asunder. I will try to go--and yet I cannot
resolve to leave him to himself. While I am in the same city, even
though I don’t see him, I can watch over him a little, but if I go
away, who knows into what toils he may fall?” wringing her hands with
a hopeless gesture.
“Think about it,” said Zoe soothingly. “Would you like my brother or
Colonel Wylie to speak to him?” The unhappy girl shrank away. “They
would never take advantage of what you have told me, you know; but I
see that it would put them in a very awkward position. Well, if you
think of anything I could do---- Don’t forget my sister’s note.”
Donna Olimpia caught up the note, and hurried away, almost without a
farewell. She found that her mistress had returned from witnessing the
public proclamation of Prince Romanos, to which she had not been
permitted to attend her, and she received a sharp rebuke for staying
out so long. But the sight of Eirene’s note turned the Princess’s
thoughts into another channel.
“Insolent!” she muttered, for though impatience might be one of her
own failings, this did not make her any more tender towards it in
others. “Well, if she will have it, she shall!”
Going to her desk, she took out Eirene’s paper in its envelope, and
enclosed both in another envelope, which she addressed to Prince and
Princess Theophanis, as if it contained an invitation. Then she called
her Dardanian servant.
“You are to give this into the hands of Prince Theophanis and no one
else,” she said. “Ask him to open it at once, and to send a message by
you that he has received it safely. Go first to the Place de l’Europe
Unie--you know where his seat was on the platform--and if he is no
longer there, follow him to his house. Lose no time.”
The man obeyed with alacrity, seeing his chance of settling a bet
which he had made on the subject of the election with a compatriot
employed at the British Consulate and detailed to guard Prince
Theophanis. His own sharpest dagger, and the compatriot’s largest and
most highly ornamented revolver, had been the stakes, and both would
now adorn his girdle. He swaggered out with immense importance, almost
knocking down a quiet gentleman who had just alighted at the door as
he did so. Prince Soudaroff looked after him uncertainly. If the man
had been going in the direction of the Theophanis headquarters he
would have ventured to stop him, but the great square in front of the
site marked out for the High Commissioner’s palace was the common
rallying-ground this afternoon, and he let him go on. The flush of
gratified resentment had hardly died from the Princess’s cheek when
she received her visitor.
“And the next step?” she said eagerly.
“Patience, madame, patience! You must remember that we do not wish to
perpetuate the present unsettled state of affairs. No, let the
Emathians perceive the advantages of a settled government,
perhaps--who knows?--begin to find them press a little hardly; then
will come the opportunity of discrediting the temporary ruler, and the
necessity of supplying his place immediately. But we must be prepared
to prevent Prince Theophanis from stepping into the vacant place. I
presume the document which you hold contains no limitations as to
time?”
“None whatever,” said the Princess, concealing beneath a mask of
absolute certainty the sudden alarm she felt.
“Since the task was in your hands, madame, I knew it would be well
carried out. Still, I think, if I may say so, that in view of your
constant journeys, the time has come when the document would be safer
in my possession than in yours.”
“I’m afraid I can’t agree to that,” said the Princess, with a smile of
which her practised opponent detected the hollowness. “You see I have
promised Princess Theophanis not to let it out of my hands unless it
becomes necessary----”
“To produce it? Quite so. The promise is given. The mind of the
Princess Theophanis is at rest. The promise has done its work; let it
pass,” he waved his hand. “You will at any rate permit me to inspect
the document, madame? If I should retain it, disregarding your
protests, no blame can attach to you.”
“Fie, casuist!” said the Princess playfully.
“You flatter me, madame.”
“But I could not think of such a thing!”
“I await the document, madame.”
“It is useless, Prince.”
“Madame, here I am. Must I say that I do not leave the house without
that paper?”
“But I cannot give it you.”
“Cannot, madame? Why not?”
“Because I have returned it. I swore that I would.”
“You have returned it? to Princess Theophanis?”
“Yes--at least to her husband.” The triumph in her tone did not escape
Prince Soudaroff, but it was not with sympathy that his eyes gleamed.
“At least, madame, you took the precaution of having it photographed
before parting with it?”
“No--I am sorry.” The Princess was startled at last. “I never thought
of that.”
“I also am sorry, madame. Do you perceive what you have done? For the
gratification of a moment’s malice you have wrecked this great
scheme--deliberately thrown away the results of the labour of years.
Could you not have been satisfied with sending this priceless paper to
Princess Theophanis? Then we might have procured its return by
threatening to reveal everything to her husband. But no, you must send
it direct to that most impracticable of men, of whom one can only say
that he will take the course the least in accordance with prudence and
calculation--an honest, single-minded fool! He will probably make it
public forthwith.”
“No,” said the Princess, with an inspiration born of dismay, “he will
keep it secret--to shield her. Go quickly and play upon his feelings.
You will promise secrecy if he will. Otherwise you will make public
the conduct of his wife.”
“I will try,” said Prince Soudaroff, a hint of hope in his tones. “But
remember, madame, you have failed--grievously. You know the penalty.”
“You will disown me to save yourselves? Oh, quite so! But I have been
disowned before this, Prince, and you have been glad to ask for my
help again.”
“I hardly think that Prince Kazimir is likely to ask for your help
again, madame,” was the biting reply with which Prince Soudaroff took
his leave. He chose a somewhat roundabout way to Maurice’s house, for
he was anxious to think out the best means of dealing with the
situation. The nettle must be grasped boldly, for the slightest sign
of weakness would draw attention to the insecurity of his position. To
his disgust, there was standing at the Theophanis door a highly ornate
carriage and pair,--one of those which had taken part in the state
procession round the city,--which from the cavasses and other
attendants attached to it he knew to be that of the British Admiral.
It was with the fervent hope that the presence of the distinguished
visitor would have prevented Maurice from opening the Princess’s
envelope that he asked for admittance, to find Wylie and Zoe
entertaining the flag-lieutenant in the verandah.
Fate was against him, as he realised the moment he heard that Admiral
Essiter was being received by Prince and Princess Theophanis in
private. The Dardanian had followed Maurice home from the square, and
caught him up just as he reached his own door. He opened the letter as
he mounted the steps, and Zoe saw his face change.
“Oh, Maurice, what is it?” she cried. “Not the black-edged paper? Oh!”
with a sudden thought, “you don’t say that Eirene gave the ten
thousand pounds to the Princess?”
“What does it mean?” said Maurice, bewildered. “What do you mean? What
black-edged paper?”
“Donna Olimpia told me just now that the Princess had a black-edged
paper, signed by you, which Eirene had given her to save your life;
and I knew you had signed nothing but the letter to Merceda. But it
was such a small sum, comparatively----”
“This is worse. That could only have discredited the Princess. This
discredits us--me.” He laid it before her, and Zoe, after reading it,
rose superior to her natural jealousy in a way that showed she had
learnt something since her engagement.
“Maurice, you must take it to Eirene, and have it out with her at
once. It mayn’t be as bad as it looks. Perhaps she will be able to say
something to explain---- At any rate you must settle it with her
before you speak to another creature, or things will never be right
again between you.”
“That’s true. I will. And you might as well tell Wylie how it is when
he comes in. He’ll have to know why I can’t stay in Emathia as we
agreed to do.”
He went into Eirene’s sitting-room, and she started up to meet him,
but turned white at the sight of the paper in his hand.
“What does this mean, Eirene?” he asked, laying it on the table, and
she bent over it and pretended to read it, for the sake of gaining
time.
“She swore on the icon to give it back to me,” she murmured at last.
It was not what she had intended to say, but all the arguments that
raced through her mind seemed utterly futile.
“Perhaps she agreed with me, that when one is disgraced it is as well
to know it,” he replied.
“It was to save your life.”
“At the cost of honour.”
“It was the only way. I do care for your honour, Maurice, you know it,
but when it was a choice between that and your life----”
“It would have been more--regular--to leave the choice to me.”
“Ah, but I knew which you would choose. Oh, Maurice, don’t look at me
like that! I killed Constantine. Was I to kill you too?” It was the
first time she had mentioned the child’s death since she had broken
the news of it to him, and he realised the intense feeling which had
forced the words from her lips, and left her standing like a culprit
before him, supporting herself by the table. He strove for calmness.
“No, I suppose it could hardly be expected of you,” he said.
“Maurice!” she flung herself at his feet, “don’t look at me in that
way! What is the good of talking quietly when your eyes are killing
me? Say what you like--curse me; I deserve it.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, get up!” he groaned impatiently. “I don’t want
to be hard on you, Eirene. Don’t talk nonsense about cursing. But
really, life is not so excessively delightful that one cares to think
one has bought it at the price of honour.”
Eirene rose and stood before him. “You have your remedy,” she said,
very quietly. “Put the whole blame on me. Deny your signature. Send me
away--only forgive me first. I will never utter a word of complaint,
and I will always pray for you.”
“You forget that I did sign the thing, after all. Do you want me to
cover one baseness with another? No, we will go home quietly, and drop
out of sight.”
“There is no need for your future to be ruined. I will go--as you
cannot bear to see me. Zoe will take care of you--and Graham Wylie.”
Her voice trembled, but she fought down the rising tears. “You trust
them; they have not deceived you. You will have your work, and I shall
have my punishment. Perhaps when I am dying----”
“Nonsense!” cried Maurice, driven to exasperation. “There is no need
for heroic measures. If you will think a moment, you will see it is
impossible for me to stay here after this. Our Emathians are brave, at
any rate. Well, Scythia spreads a whisper that I saved my life by a
disgraceful compact with a Scythian agent. What influence should I
have after that? I could not deny it, and you may be quite certain
that I shan’t.”
“Maurice,” said Zoe’s diffident voice at the door, “Admiral Essiter
and his flag-lieutenant are here. Shall I say you are really too tired
to see them?”
“No!” cried Eirene, waking suddenly into fiery energy. “Bring the
Admiral in here, in here--at once, Zoe. Maurice, I forbid you to say
a word! Leave this to me.”
Poor Admiral Essiter, perceiving on the threshold that he was
intruding upon a domestic difference, wished heartily that he had not
thought of following up his official visit of congratulation to Prince
Romanos with one of condolence to the defeated candidate. He knew
something of Eirene by personal experience, and more by report, and
the sight of the black-edged paper on the table suggested to him that
she was about to separate from Maurice owing to his ill-success in the
election, and that he had been pitched upon to assist at the final
arrangements. For all the magnificence of his appearance, and his
natural coolness, he came very near retreating ignominiously, and
Eirene saw it.
“Come in, please, and shut the door,” she said imperiously. “I wish to
make a confession in your presence, sir. I have forged my husband’s
signature to that paper.”
“Really, Eirene!” said Maurice indignantly. “My wife is not quite
herself, Admiral. I signed the paper with my own hand. She doesn’t
know what she is saying.”
“Of course not--very natural,” murmured the Admiral soothingly. “This
is rather an inconvenient time, isn’t it? You would rather I called
another day?”
“No, no!” cried Eirene. “You are to stay. Don’t mind what my husband
says.”
“But I must pay a little attention to him in his own house, mustn’t
I?” said the Admiral, in the genial voice which had so many times
averted a break-up of the European Concert. “You can speak frankly to
me, Teffany, you know. If there is anything I can help to arrange, you
have only to say so. If not, I go, seeing nothing and remembering
nothing.”
“If nothing else will satisfy my wife----” began Maurice unwillingly.
“Nothing will,” said Eirene, with such determination that her husband
and the Admiral alike bowed to it.
“Then may I suggest that we should sit down?” said the arbitrator
pleasantly, drawing forward a chair for Eirene. “This is not a
court-martial, is it?--merely a little friendly talk. You were going
to tell me something, Princess?”
“I want you to know,” said Eirene, leaning forward in her chair, with
her hands clasped rigidly on her knee, “that I have deceived Maurice
and disgraced him----”
“Eirene! You will make the Admiral think----” cried Maurice, but the
Admiral held up his hand.
“One at a time, please. We will hear the Princess first. You deceived
your husband, ma’am--for his good, of course?”
“Of course,” said Eirene, unconscious of sarcasm. “I made him sign
that paper, when he thought he was only signing a letter.”
“You had better see it,” said Maurice, handing the document across the
table. The Admiral read it with astonishment.
“This has never left your own possession, I hope, Princess?”
“I wrote it for the Princess Dowager of Dardania, and she has had it
till now. She has great influence at the Scythian Court, and she got
the Emperor to save Maurice’s life, in return for that. I knew he
wouldn’t like my doing it, so I had to mislead him about it.” Eirene’s
tone was impenitent.
“And your feeling is that if the existence of this document should
ever be asserted, you would be unable to deny it?” asked the Admiral
of Maurice, who nodded. “Well, it seems to me that it is at least as
discreditable to Scythia as to you--more so, in fact. They can hardly
have intended ever to make it public. It was to be a weapon held over
you, I presume.”
“Yes. I was to get him to resign without mentioning it, if I could,”
assented Eirene, charmed with the Admiral’s penetration. “And it has
saved his life, and if I could have helped it he would never have
known anything about it. But I know it is just the kind of thing he
will never forgive----”
“Eirene!” cried Maurice, stung beyond endurance. “Can’t you see that
it is not the thing itself, but your having done it, that is so
horrible?”
“And so,” said Eirene, looking very straight at the wall to keep her
tears from overflowing, “I am going to take all the blame, and go away
to a convent, and never see him again.”
“Come, come!” said the Admiral reprovingly. “We don’t do things of
that sort in England, Princess, off the stage--or at least we don’t
talk about doing them. You have treated your husband very badly, and
I don’t wonder he feels it, but there’s no need to make things worse.”
Eirene drew herself up, and the Admiral noted with secret satisfaction
that Maurice moved nearer her involuntarily, and that his voice was
very chilling as he said, “My wife and I can settle that between
ourselves, Admiral. But if you think there is anything to be done
about this paper----”
“You would like to approach the Princess Dowager about it, perhaps? We
might frighten her with the threat of making it public. But I fancy
she is merely a tool. What I should like would be to get at the person
behind her.”
As if in answer to the aspiration, Zoe opened the door and came in,
closing it carefully. “Maurice, Prince Soudaroff is here, and is very
anxious to see you. I told him the Admiral was with you, and he said
he was come about a paper. Do you think it could be----”
“The very man I should have chosen!” said the Admiral.
“Bring him in, Zoe,” said Maurice, taking his stand resolutely beside
Eirene, with his hand on her shoulder--a point that Prince Soudaroff
noted immediately as he entered. His decision had been reached the
moment he learned that the Admiral was closeted with Maurice and
Eirene, and he did not wait to be addressed. The Princess Dowager must
be thrown over.
“I have come on rather a painful errand,” he said. “There is a
document in existence, I understand, affecting the honour of Prince
Theophanis. How it was fabricated I hardly know, but I have a horrible
fear that a certain exalted lady of our acquaintance has been meddling
with politics again. These little irregularities will occur, one must
regretfully admit, when ladies interfere in things they know nothing
about.”
“The document embodied a certain engagement, to be carried out if
Prince Theophanis was elected?” asked the Admiral, who had the paper,
face downwards, in his hand.
“Exactly. And I fear the absurd thing has been made the means of
causing some little pain to Princess Theophanis? Ah, I was afraid so.
Really, a woman can be very cruel when her affections are concerned,
and of course the lady of whom I speak imagined she was acting in the
interests of her son.”
“Which was a pure delusion?” said the Admiral.
“Absolutely. The idea was puerile.” Never was a lie uttered more
unflinchingly like truth.
“And the promise wrung from Princess Theophanis had no effect whatever
in obtaining her husband’s release?”
“How could it? Admiral Essiter will hardly imagine that we should
traffic with an affectionate wife for the life of her husband at the
price of a piece of paper?”
“I could hardly credit it. Then this document is quite valueless?” The
Admiral spoke casually, but he had produced a match-box from
somewhere, and as he spoke he lighted the paper he held. He saw, if
neither of the others did, Prince Soudaroff’s involuntary start
forward, instantly checked, to snatch it from destruction. “I think,”
he went on, in a business-like tone, as he crushed the last flaming
corner, “that it would be as well to have a record of the facts,
signed by all of us, for reference in case of need. The lady Prince
Soudaroff has mentioned might try to repeat her game on some future
occasion. Otherwise, of course, I must safeguard the interests of
Prince Theophanis by laying the whole affair before my colleagues, but
I should prefer to keep the matter between ourselves.”
“I should prefer it infinitely,” said Prince Soudaroff--on this
occasion, probably, with truth.
“Is Colonel Wylie acquainted with the facts?” asked the Admiral of
Maurice. “Yes? Then he might act as secretary.”
“I will fetch him,” said Maurice, and Wylie was called, and wrote out
a very uncompromising, if not wholly literal, history of the case.
When Prince Soudaroff had signed it and taken his leave, the Admiral
laughed.
“If Colonel Wylie would be good enough to make another copy, to be
laid up in the Theophanis family archives,--which in view of the
uncertainty of life in these regions had better be represented by the
Bank of England,--I should feel more at ease,” he said. “Otherwise, if
the _Magniloquent_ shared the fate of the _Maine_ one night, you would
be as badly off as ever.”
Wylie set to work on the copy, and Zoe remained to help him, while
Maurice escorted the Admiral to his carriage. When he returned to the
verandah, Eirene was awaiting him at the top of the steps.
“Am I to go, Maurice?” she asked him.
“Go? where?”
“I don’t know. To some convent in Scythia, I suppose.”
“Not with my consent.”
“But do you forgive me?”
“Would you do it again?”
“Oh, Maurice!” she hid her face on his shoulder. “If your life
depended upon it?”
“Not even then. Not without asking me, at any rate.”
“But that would mean not doing it. Don’t make me promise!”
“I must. Eirene, we have hard work before us, and we ought to be
shoulder to shoulder. You mustn’t make me feel that there’s a danger
of your working against me, for any reason whatever. Only tell me
before you do things. I think you’ll find that it’s happier for both
of us.”
“I will,” she murmured. “And look, Maurice, I scribbled this down just
now, and I want you to have it put into proper form. Is it too dark
for you to read it? It is to say that I give up my right of dealing
with Mr Teffany-Wise’s money. It has done more to separate us than
anything.”
“It has.” He sighed involuntarily. “If it hadn’t come between us----
Still, it has helped to free Emathia. But we will only deal with it
together in future, dear.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
Sydney C. Grier was the pseudonym of Hilda Caroline Gregg.
This book is part of the author’s “Balkan Series II.” The series, in
order, being: _The Heir_, _The Heritage_, and _The Prize_.
Alterations to the text:
Note: minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies (_e.g._
thunderstruck/thunder-struck, rank-and-file/rank and file, etc.) have
been preserved.
[Title Page]
Add brief note indicating this novel’s position in the series. See
above.
[Chapter VI]
Change “You _musn’t_ be so doleful” to _mustn’t_.
[Chapter IX]
“detention in the _court yard_” to _courtyard_.
[Chapter XIV]
“it may be necessary any day to to get all our forces together” delete
one _to_.
[Chapter XVI]
“there was no _gurantee_ of even temporary safety” to _guarantee_.
[Chapter XX]
“for the poor starving _peeple_ around” to _people_.
[Chapter XXI]
“_Wyllie_ transferred his whole force” to _Wylie_.
[End of Text]