Page:In the name of a woman (1900).djvu/35

 "I will see you safe to your home," I said, when she stopped at the mouth of it and held out her hand. She smiled.

"No, no, I am in no danger; but for you, take this path as far as it goes, turn sharp to the right until you come to an avenue of trees, and at the bottom of that you will know where you are. Good-night, Count! and once more I thank you with all my heart for your service. But we shall both live to see my thanks in an alliance that will do great things for the Prince and for Bulgaria."

She gave me her hand, and though I pressed her to let me see her safely across the city, she would not, but put me on my honour not to follow her, and turning, sped away, keeping in the shadow, and going at such a speed that she was soon out of my sight.

Then I followed the way she had told me, and found myself close to the street in which my hotel was situated. I walked slowly from that point, my brain in a whirl of excitement at all that had happened in the crowded hours of that night.

When I reached my hotel it was only to pace my room in restless, anxious, brain-racking thought of the net of complications in which I found myself involved, and the hundred dangers which appeared to have sprung up suddenly to menace me. It was in vain that I threw myself on my bed. I could not sleep. If I dozed, it was only to start up at the bidding of some dream danger, threatening me with I know not what consequences. It was long past the dawn before I slept, and when the servant called me, I sprang up, thinking it was my instant arrest that was intended.

But my wits were cooler and more collected for the rest, and when hour after hour of the anxious day