“Elise!”...
Elise Perrier clasped her hands. “Thank God!” she murmured. “I feared you would never wake again.” Her face worked strangely, and she burst into tears.
“Elise—what has happened? What is to-day?” Before she could answer, another question sprang to my lips: “Where is Naumoff?”
“He has left, my lady,” whispered Elise in awestruck tones.
“Left?” A long silence held us. “Left? Where has he gone?”
Elise looked down at me with blanched and quivering countenance.
“To Venice,” she said in low tones.
I started up. “To Venice?” To Venice! My memory darted to and fro like a child playing hide and seek. “Elise! Elise! Elise!” I stretched out my hands like one sinking and drowning in the darkness. Elise wept. I watched the strange faces that Elise always made when she wept: funny, pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and chin.
“To Venice.” My memory flickers like a feeble light, then blazes into sudden flames that sear my soul with fire. “Elise! He must be stopped. He must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop him—!”
“It is impossible, my lady.”