Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/303

Rh why I was entertained on board her; why the safe in the British Consulate was rifled, and why the unfortunate girl, kept a prisoner on board, was taken on shore just before the hurried sailing of the vessel. And there are other mysteries which the English police are trying to solve, namely, the reason Armida Santini and a man disguised as her husband died in Scotland at the hand of an assassin. But surely I need say no more. It is surely sufficient to convince you that if the truth were spoken, the revelations would be distinctly awkward."

"For whom?" he asked, opening his eyes.

"For you. Come, Baron," I said, "can we not yet speak frankly?"

But he was silent for a moment, a fact which was in itself proof that my pointed argument had caused him to re-consider his intention of sending me under escort back to that castle of terror.

If my journey there was in order to meet my love, I would not have cared. It was the ignorance of her whereabouts or of her fate that held me in such deep, all-consuming anxiety. Each hour that passed increased my fond and tender affection for her. And yet, what irony of circumstance! She had been cruelly snatched from me at the very moment that freedom had been ours.

I think it was well that I assumed that air of defiance of the man who had ground Finland beneath his heel. He was unused to it. No one dared to go against his will, or to utter taunt or threat to him. He was paramount, with all the powers of an emperor — the power, indeed, of life and death.