The Price of Power Part 42

"Who knows?" she asked. "d.i.c.k has to decide that."

"But Miss West and Davey, and all of them at Hove are distracted," I said, and then, turning to Drury, added, "Your man in Albemarle Street and the people at your offices in Westminster are satisfied that you've met with foul play. You certainly ought to relieve their minds by making some sign."

"I must, soon," he said. "But meanwhile--" and he turned his eyes upon his well-beloved meaningly.

"Meanwhile, you are both perfectly happy--eh?"

"Now don't lecture us, Uncle Colin!" cried the little madcap, leaning over the back of a chair and holding up her finger threateningly; and then to d.i.c.k she added: "Oh! you don't know how horrid my wicked uncle can be when he likes. He says such caustic things."

"When my niece deserves them--and only then," I a.s.sured her lover.

Though d.i.c.k Drury was in trade a builder of s.h.i.+ps, as his father before him, he was one of nature's gentlemen. There was nothing of the modern young man, clean-shaven, over-dressed, with turned-up trousers and bright socks. He was tall, lithe, strong, well and neatly dressed as became a man in his station--a man with an income of more than ten thousand a year, as I had already secretly ascertained.

Had not Natalia been of Imperial birth the match would have been a most suitable one, for d.i.c.k Drury was decidedly one of the eligibles. But her love was, alas! forbidden, and marriage with a commoner not to be thought of.

They stood together laughing merrily, he bright, pleasant, and all unconscious of her true station, while she, sweet and winning, stood gazing upon him, flushed with pleasure at his presence.

I was describing to Drury the fright I had experienced on arrival in Brighton to find them both missing, whereupon he interrupted, saying:

"I hope you will forgive us in the circ.u.mstances, Mr Trewinnard. Miss Gottorp resolved to go into hiding until you returned to give her your advice. Therefore, with my aunt's kind a.s.sistance, we managed to disappear completely."

"My advice is quickly given," I said. "After to-night there will be no danger, therefore return and relieve the anxiety of your friends."

"But how can you guarantee there is no danger?" asked the young man, looking at me dubiously. "I confess I'm at a loss to understand the true meaning of it all--why, indeed, any danger should arise. Miss Gottorp is so mysterious, she will tell me nothing," he said in a voice of complaint.

For a moment I was silent.

"There was a danger, Drury--a real imminent danger," I said at last.

"But I can a.s.sure you that it is now past. I have taken steps to remove it, and hope to-morrow morning to receive word by telegraph that it no longer exists."

"How can you control it?" he queried. "What is its true nature? Tell me," he urged.

"No, I regret that I cannot satisfy your curiosity. It is--well--it's a family matter," I said; "therefore forgive me if I refuse to betray a confidence reposed in me as a friend of the family. It would not be fair to reveal anything told me in secrecy."

"Of course not," he said. "I fully understand, Mr Trewinnard. Forgive me for asking. I did not know that the matter was so entirely confidential."

"It is. But I can a.s.sure you that, holding the key to the situation as I do, and being in a position to dictate terms to Miss Gottorp's enemies, she need not in future entertain the slightest apprehension.

The danger existed, I admit; but now it is over."

"Then you advise us to return, Uncle Colin?" exclaimed the girl, swaying herself upon the chair.

"Yes--the day after to-morrow."

"You are always so weirdly mysterious," she declared. "I know you have something at the back of your mind. Come, admit it."

"I have only your welfare at heart," I a.s.sured her.

"Welfare!" she echoed, and as her eyes fixed themselves upon me she bit her lips. I knew, alas! the bitter trend of her thoughts. But her lover stood by, all unconscious of the blow which must ere long fall upon him, poor fellow. I pitied him, for I knew how much he was doomed to suffer, loving her so fondly and so well. He, of course, believed her to be a girl of similar social position to himself--a dainty little friend whom he had first met as a rather gawky schoolgirl at Eastbourne, and their friends.h.i.+p had now ripened to love.

"I feel that you, Mr Trewinnard, really have our welfare at heart,"

declared the young man earnestly. "I know in what very high esteem Miss Gottorp holds you, and how she has been awaiting your aid and advice."

"I am her friend, Drury, as I am yours," I declared. "I am aware that you love each other. I loved once, just as deeply, as fervently as you do. Therefore--I know."

"But we cannot go south--back to Brighton," the girl declared. "I refuse."

"Why?" he asked. "Mr Trewinnard has given us the best advice. You need not now fear these mysterious enemies of yours who seem to haunt you so constantly."

"Ah!" she cried in a low, wild voice, "you do not know, d.i.c.k! You don't know the truth--all that I fear--all that I suffer--for--for your sake!

Uncle Colin knows."

"For my sake!" he echoed, staring at her. "I don't quite follow you.

What do you mean?"

"I mean," she exclaimed in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice, drawing herself up and standing erect, "I mean that you do not know what Uncle Colin is endeavouring to induce me to do--you do not realise the true tragedy of my position."

"No, I don't," was his blunt response, his eyes wide-open in surprise.

"Oh, d.i.c.k," she cried in despair, her voice trembling with emotion, "he speaks the truth when he urges me for my own sake to go south--to return again to Hove. But, alas! if I followed his advice, sound though it is, it would mean that--that to-morrow we should part for ever!"

"Part!" gasped the young man, his face becoming white in an instant.

"Why?"

"Because--well, simply because all affection between us is forbidden,"

she faltered in a hoa.r.s.e, half whisper, her beautiful face ashen pale, "because,"--she gasped, still clinging to the back of the chintz-covered chair, "because, although we love each other as pa.s.sionately and as dearly as we do, we can never marry--never! Between us there exists a barrier--a barrier strong but invisible, that can never be broken-- never--until the grave!"

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

THE PAINFUL TRUTH.

With Her Highness's permission I had despatched a rea.s.suring telegram in the private cipher to the Emperor prefixed by the word "Bathildis"--a message which, I think, greatly puzzled the local postmaster at Lochearnhead. Another I had sent to Miss West, and then returned to the small hotel at the loch-side where I intended to spend the night.

I had left the pair together, and strolled out across the lawn. Of what happened afterwards I was in ignorance. The girl had come in search of me a quarter of an hour later, pale, trembling and tearful, and in a broken voice told me that they had parted.

I took her soft little hand, and looking straight into her eyes asked:

"Does he know the truth?"

She shook her head slowly in the negative.

"I--I have resolved to return to Russia," she said simply, in a faltering voice.

"To see the Emperor?" I asked eagerly. "To tell him the truth--eh?"

Her white lips were compressed. She only drew a long, deep breath.

"d.i.c.k has gone," she said at last, in a strange, dreamy voice. "And-- and I must go back again to all the horrible dreariness and formality of the life to which, I suppose, I was born. Ah! Uncle Colin--I--I can't tell you how I feel. My happiness is all at an end--for ever."

"Come, come," I said, placing my hand tenderly upon the girl's shoulder.