Only the English youth, Percy Trevellian, had got into conversation with him, and was proposing billiards to pass the time.

Paul loved billiards—but not to-night. Heavens! what an idea! Go off to the billiard-room—now—to-night!

He said he had a headache, and answered rather shortly in fact, and then, to escape further importunity, went up to his sitting-room, there to await the turn of events, leaving poor little Mabel Trevellian gazing after him with longing eyes.

"Did you see at dinner how he stared at that foreign person, mamma?" she said. "Men are such fools! Clarkson told me, as she fastened my dress to-night, she'd heard she was some Grand Duchess, or Queen, travelling incognito for her health. Very plain and odd-looking, didn't you think so, mamma? And quite old!"

"No, dear. Most distinguished. Not a girl, of course, but quite the appearance of a Princess," said Mabel's mother, who had seen the world.

Paul meanwhile paced his room—an anxious excitement was now his portion. Surely, surely she could not mean him not to see her—not to say one little good-night. What should he do? What possible plan invent? As eleven chimed he could bear it no longer. Rain or no, he must go out on the terrace!

"Those mad English!" the porter said to himself, as he watched Paul's tall figure disappear in the dripping night.

And there till after twelve he paced the path under the trees. But no light showed; the terrace gate was locked. It was chilly and wet and miserable, and at last he crept back utterly depressed, to bed. But not to sleep. Even his youth and health were not proof against the mad emotions of the day. He tossed and turned, a thousand questions singing in his brain. Was it really he who had been chosen by this divine woman for her lover? And if so, why was he alone now instead of holding her in his arms? What did it all mean? Who was she? Where would it end? But here he refused to think further. He was living at all events—living as he had never dreamed was possible.

And yet, poor Paul, he was only on the rim of all that he was soon to know of life.

At last he fell asleep, one sentence ringing in his ears—"Tears and—cold steel—and blood!" But if he was young, he was a gallant gentleman, and Fear had no place in his dreams.

CHAPTER VIII

Next day they went to the Bürgenstock to stay. It was all arranged with consummate simplicity. Paul was to start for a climb, he told his valet, and for a week they would leave Lucerne. Mme. Zalenska was not very well, it appeared, and consented to try, at the suggestion of the amiable manager—inspired by Dmitry—a few days in higher air. There would not be a soul in their hotel on top of the Bürgenstock probably, and she could have complete rest.

They did not arrive together, Paul was the first. He had not seen her. Dmitry had given him his final instructions, and he awaited her coming with passionate impatience.

He had written to her, on awaking, a coherent torrent of love, marvellously unlike the letter which had gone to poor Isabella only a few days before. In this to his lady he had said he could not bear it now, the uncertainty of seeing her, and had suggested the Bürgenstock crudely, without any of the clever details which afterwards made it possible.

He—Paul Verdayne, not quite twenty-three years old, and English—to suggest without a backward thought or a qualm that a lady whom he had known five days should come and live with him and be his love! None of his friends accustomed to his bashful habits would have believed it. Only his father perhaps might have smiled.

As for the Lady Henrietta, she would have fainted on the spot. But fortune favoured him—they did not know.

No excitement of the wildest day's hunting had ever made his pulses bound like this! Dmitry had arranged everything. Paul was a young English secretary to Madame, who had much writing to do. And in any case it is not the affair of respectable foreign hotels to pry into their clients' relationship when a large suite has been engaged.

Paul's valet, the son of an old retainer of the family, was an honest fellow, and devoted to his master—but Sir Charles Verdayne had decided to make things doubly sure.

"Tompson," he had said, the morning before they left, "however Mr. Verdayne may amuse himself while you are abroad, your eyes and mouth are shut, remember. No d——d gossip back to the servants here, or in hotels, or houses—and, above all, no details must ever reach her Ladyship. If he gets into any thundering mess let me know—but mum's the word, d'y understand, Tompson?"

"I do, Sir Charles," said Tompson, stolidly.

And he did, as events proved.

The rooms on the Bürgenstock looked so simple, so unlike the sitting-room at Lucerne! Just fresh and clean and primitive. Paul wandered through them, and in the one allotted to himself he came upon Anna—Madame's maid, whom Dmitry had pointed out to him—putting sheets as fine as gossamer on his bed; with the softest down pillows.