CHAPTER XIII.
HER DREAM.
He left the station as in a trance. He felt nothing but that something had happened to him that had mortally wounded him.
Mechanically, he got rid of Ralph’s companionship by leaving him at the scientist’s house. Then he gave the order “Home.”
He was going up the steps of his house when the door opened, and the count came out.
“Ah!” The count’s exclamation was one of satisfaction.
“But I am glad to find you, monsieur le docteur! The prince is terribly anxious about madame! She is very ill. You will come to her at once?”
The revulsion of feeling was acute. The blood rushed to Dr. Paull’s cheek. He turned abruptly from the count, and opened the street door with his key.
“Will you come in?” he said coldly.
At that moment some instinct suggested aversion to this man. He had met those seraphic blue eyes fixed upon him with a mocking expression that was anything but seraphic, and in his present humour he would have doubted anyone.
“I understood that the prince had left town,” he said, after he had led the way into the library and closed the door. “Was it he who sent you, or the princess?”