Part 12 (2/2)
”The joke of it is that I, too, am being watched whereever I go.
That fellow Streuss has spies everywhere. That is one reason why I believe that Von Behrling was serious.
”Oh, he was serious!” Louise repeated.
”You are sure?” Bellamy asked. ”You have never had even any doubt about him?”
”Never,” she answered firmly. ”David, I had not meant to tell you this. You know that I saw him for a moment this morning. He was in deadly earnest. He gave me a ring--a trifle--but it had belonged to his mother. He would not have done this if he had been playing us false.”
Bellamy sprang to his feet.
”You are right, Louise!” he exclaimed. ”I shall go back to my rooms at once. Fortunately, I had a man shadowing Von Behrling, and there may be a report for me. If anything comes here, you will telephone at once?”
”Of course,” she a.s.sented.
”You do not think it possible,” he asked slowly, ”that he would attempt to see you here?”
Louise shuddered for a moment.
”I absolutely forbade it, so I am sure there is no chance of that.”
”Very well, then,” he decided, ”we will wait. Dear,” he added, in an altered tone, ”how splendid you look!”
Her face suddenly softened.
”Ah, David!” she murmured, ”to hear you speak naturally even for a moment--it makes everything seem so different!”
He held out his arms and she came to him with a little sigh of satisfaction.
”Louise,” he said, ”some day the time may come when we shall be able to give up this life of anxiety and terrors. But it cannot be yet--not for your country's sake or mine.”
She kissed him fondly.
”So long as there is hope!” she whispered.
CHAPTER XI
VON BEHRLING'S FATE
It seemed to Louise that she had scarcely been in bed an hour when the more confidential of her maids--Annette, the Frenchwoman--woke her with a light touch of the arm. She sat up in bed sleepily.
”What is it, Annette?” she asked. ”Surely it is not mid-day yet?
Why do you disturb me?”
”It is barely nine o'clock, Mademoiselle, but Monsieur Bellamy--Mademoiselle told me that she wished to receive him whenever he came. He is in the boudoir now, and very impatient.”
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