Her Royal Highness Part 41

Yet I am still your friend. I will see you safely out of this impa.s.se--if you will only allow me. What is that doc.u.ment you have abstracted from the safe?"

She made no response, but placing her hand within her breast she very slowly drew it out and handed it to him.

Without opening the envelope he placed it in his pocket. Then taking her hand, he looked long and earnestly into her face and said:

"You had better return to the Palace at once, Lola. You are not well.

Leave me to settle matters with Ghelardi."

"But he will tell the King!" she gasped, wringing her hands in despair.

"What can I say--how shall I explain?"

"Leave all to me," he urged. "But before you go, tell me one thing.

Why is Henri Pujalet in Rome?"

"No, no!" she shrieked, "do not mention his name. I--ah! no--do not torture me, I beg of you!" she went on wildly. "Hate me--denounce me as a spy, if you will--revile my memory if you wish--but do not taunt me with the name of that man."

"I will see you to your carriage. Come," he urged simply.

She struggled to calm herself, placing her gloved hand upon her beating heart, while the Englishman laid his hand tenderly upon her shoulder in deepest sympathy.

At first he had been horrified at discovering the bitter, amazing truth.

But horror had now been succeeded by poignant regret and a determination to suppress, if possible, what must be, if divulged by Ghelardi, as no doubt it would--a most terrible national scandal.

While they were standing together, a Colonel of Artillery and two ladies entered, the former showing them the private cabinet of the head of the War Department. The women recognised the Princess by the decoration she wore at the edge of her bodice, and bowed low and awkwardly before her as she pa.s.sed out, followed by Hubert.

With hurried steps he conducted her to the main entrance, and at once sent a servant for one of the royal automobiles, saying that Her Royal Highness was not well.

Together they waited in an ante-room almost without speaking. She seemed too nervous and overwrought.

"I trust you, Mr Waldron," she said suddenly, looking up into his face.

"Yet--ah! what can you think of me! How you must scorn and despise me!

But--but I hope you will not misjudge me--that--you will make allowances for me--a girl--a very foolish girl?"

"Do not let us discuss that now," he hastened to reply in a low, hard voice, for he never knew until that moment how mad was his affection for her.

And just then one of the royal flunkeys entered, bowing, to announce that the car was awaiting Her Royal Highness.

Their hands clasped in silence, and she walked out through a line of obsequious servants and down the flight of steps to the royal car.

As she went out a waiter stood behind the line of soldiers drawn up in the great vestibule, watching intently. Un.o.bserved he had followed the pair when they had emerged from His Excellency's private cabinet, and his shrewd eyes had noticed something amiss.

He was the same man who had pa.s.sed Hubert earlier in the evening and whose face had so puzzled him.

The Englishman, after the royal car had driven away, turned and made his way back in search of Ghelardi.

The discovery held him utterly confounded. What secret was contained in that envelope she had stolen? Why had she a key to the Minister's safe?

As he walked back, his mind tortured by a thousand strange thoughts and curious theories, the mysterious waiter followed him at a respectable distance, watching.

Hubert was wondering what had become of Pucci whom he ordered to be near him, and whom he had not seen the whole evening.

He gained the door of His Excellency's room just as the Chief of Secret Police returned along the corridor.

"I have been endeavouring to discover His Excellency, but, unfortunately, I cannot find him anywhere," the old man said. "We will open the safe and see what has been taken. It is utterly astounding to me that the Princess Luisa should be revealed as a spy."

"I do not think we should condemn her yet," urged Waldron. "There may be some explanation."

"Explanation! What explanation can there be of a woman who takes advantage of a reception, when the sentries are relaxed, to creep up here, open the safe with a false key, and abstract doc.u.ments."

"I cannot see the motive," declared Waldron.

"Ah! but I do. I and my agents have been watching for weeks," he replied, and crossing to the safe he placed the key in the lock and again opened it.

Many formidable bundles of doc.u.ments were disclosed, lying within, together with the thin envelope with which Lola had replaced the one she had taken.

Waldon took it up and turned it over with curiosity. Then, deliberately tearing it open, he pulled out its contents.

It was, he found to his dismay, only a blank piece of tracing paper!

"Ah! that is what she has placed here, after taking out a similar envelope, I suppose," snapped the keen-eyed old man, grasping the situation in a moment. "I have suspected this all along--ever since those fortress plans so mysteriously disappeared. And now she has taken another doc.u.ment. I was foolish to allow her to leave with you."

"The doc.u.ment--or whatever it is--is in my safe keeping."

"You have it!" he cried quickly. "Please hand it to me."

"I shall do no such thing, Commendatore," was Hubert's defiant reply.

"It is a secret of State, and you, as a foreigner, have no right to its possession!"

"It has been given to me for safety, and I shall hand it over to His Majesty, and to him alone."

"Signor Waldron, I demand it," the old man said angrily, raising his voice as he flung the safe door to with a clang and re-locked it. "I demand it--in the name of His Majesty!"

"And I refuse."

"You defy me then?"

"Yes, I defy you, signore," he replied firmly, his dark eyes fixed upon those of the crafty official.

"You are Her Highness's lover. When the King is made aware of that fact he will show you little graciousness, I a.s.sure you," said Ghelardi with a dry laugh.

"But you will remain silent upon that point, just as you will remain silent regarding what we have discovered to-night," the Englishman said slowly. "No scandal must attach to the Princess's name, remember."

"Of course you wish to s.h.i.+eld her--for your own ends. She is the spy for whom we have been searching all these weeks. It is she who placed in the hands of the our enemies the truth concerning the new fortifications along the northern frontier."

"I refuse to discuss that point," replied Hubert very coldly, but firmly. "One thing alone I demand of you, and that is silence--silence most absolute and profound."

"It is my duty to inform the King of the whole circ.u.mstances."