The Pauper of Park Lane

But the question was, who could be this dainty girl who called herself Lorena?

“What do you mean by the woman who loves me?” he asked her presently, after a pause. “I don’t quite follow you. Who does me the great honour of entertaining any affection for me?”

“Who? Can you really ask that?” she said. “Ask yourself?”

“I have asked myself,” he laughed, rather uneasily, meeting her glance and wavering beneath it.

“Ah! you will not admit the truth, I see,” she remarked, raising her finger in shy reproof.

“Of what?”

“That you are beloved – that you are the lover of Maud Petrovitch!”

“Maud Petrovitch!” he gasped. “You know her? Tell me,” he cried quickly.

“I have told you,” she answered. “I have stirred your memory of a fact which you have apparently forgotten, Mr Rolfe.”

“Forgotten – forgotten Maud!” he exclaimed. “I have never for a moment forgotten her. She is lost to me – and you know it. Tell me the truth. Where is she? Where can I see her?”

But the girl only shook her head slowly in sadness. Over her bright, merry face had fallen a sudden gloom, a look of deep regret and dark despair.

“Where is she?” he demanded, springing up from the seat and facing his companion.

But she made no response. She only stared blankly before her at the dark sluggish waters of the Seine.

Chapter Thirty Five.

In which there is another Mystery

The girl puzzled him.

Her attitude was as though she delighted in tantalising him, as if she held knowledge superior to his own. And so she did. She was evidently aware of the whereabouts of Maud – his own lost love.

He repeated his question, his eyes fixed upon her pale, serious countenance. But she made no response.

“Why have you brought me here, Miss Lorena?” he asked. “You told me you had something to tell me.”

“So I have,” she answered, looking up at him again. “I don’t know, Mr Rolfe, what opinion you must have of me, but I hope you will consider my self-introduction permissible under the circumstances.”

“Why, of course,” he declared, for truth to tell he was much interested in her. She seemed so charmingly unconventional, not much more than a schoolgirl, and yet with all the delightful sweetness of budding womanhood. “But you have mentioned the name of a woman – a woman who is lost to me.”

“Ah! Maud Petrovitch,” she sighed. “Yes. I know. I know all the tragic story.”

“The tragic story?” he echoed, staring at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the tragic story of your love,” was her slow, distinct reply. “Pray forgive me, Mr Rolfe, for mentioning a subject which must be most painful, but I have only done so to show you that I am aware of the secret of your affection.”

“Then you are a friend of Maud?”

She nodded, without uttering a word.

“Where is she? I must see her,” he said quickly, with a fierce, anxious look upon his countenance. “This suspense is killing me.”

She was silent. Slowly she turned her fine eyes upon his, looking straight into his face.

“You ought surely to know,” she said, unflinchingly.

“I – I know! Why? Why do you say that?”

“Because you know the truth – you know why they so suddenly disappeared.”

“I know the truth!” he repeated. “Indeed I do not. You are speaking in enigmas, just as you yourself are an enigma, Miss Lorena.”

Her lips relaxed into a smile of incredulity.

“Why, Mr Rolfe, do you make a pretence of ignorance, when you are fully aware of the whole of the combination of circumstances which led Doctor Petrovitch and his daughter to escape from London?”

“But, my dear girl!” he cried; “you entirely misjudge me. I am in complete ignorance.”

“And yet you were present at Cromwell Road on the night in question!” she said slowly, fixing her eyes calmly upon him.

“Who are you, Miss Lorena, that you should make these direct allegations against me?” he cried, staring at her.

“I am your friend, Mr Rolfe, if you will allow me to act as such.”

“My friend!” he cried. “But you are alleging that I have secret knowledge of the Doctor’s disappearance – that I make a pretence of ignorance. If I were in possession of the facts, is it feasible that I should be so anxious of the welfare of Maud?”

“No anxiety is necessary.”

“Then she is alive?”

“I believe so.”

“And well?”

“Yes, she is quite well. But – ”

“But what?” he demanded. “Speak, Lorena. Speak, I beg of you.”

She had hesitated, and he saw by her contracted brow that anxiety had arisen within her mind.

“Well – she is safe, I believe, up to the present. Yet if what I fear be true, she is daily nay, hourly, in peril – in deadliest peril.”

“Peril!” he gasped. “Of what?”

“Of her life. You know that the political organisations of the East are fraught with murder plots. Dr Petrovitch has opponents – fierce, dastardly opponents, who would hesitate at nothing to encompass his end. They have intrigued to induce the King to place him in disgrace, but at Belgrade the Petrovitch party are still predominant. It is only in the country – at Nisch and Pirot – where the Opposition is really strong.”

“You seem to know Servia and the complication of Servian politics, mademoiselle?” he remarked.