Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/234

218 original of that destroyed photograph on board the Lola. "But she has surely not always been so!" I exclaimed.

"No. I think not always," replied the sister quietly. But you said you intended to question her, and did I not tell you that to learn the truth was impossible?"

"But she can write responses to my questions?" I argued.

"Alas! no," was the old woman's whispered reply. "Her mind is affected. She is, unfortunately, a hopeless lunatic."