“Pardon me, if I stay here until you come back to me,” said the prince, his ashy face showing only too plainly the suffering at his heart. “I dare not accompany you. I love my wife ardently, passionately—and——”
“Remain here,” gently replied the medical man. “I shall not keep you long in suspense.”
The prince flung himself face downward on a lounge as his valet conducted the doctor from the room. He began to fear that this awful shock would end in depriving him of reason. Throbbing pulses surged like waves in his ears, and his senses threatened to desert him.
The slow-dragging minutes went on, on, on, steadily, monotonously, and at length the prince felt he could not remain thus supinely waiting any longer. In reality, half an hour had elapsed from the moment he was left alone, but it seemed like many hours.
Rising, he was about to go to the salon, but as he raised himself, the portière was drawn aside, and the physician stood again before him.
The sad, grave face told its own tale, but the prince could not be satisfied.
“Doctor, how have you found her? What news do you bring me?” he cried desperately.
“The worst. Reason has utterly fled, never, I fear, to return. There has been some fearful pressure on the brain and nervous system. It would be as well to have a consultation, however, for sometimes these difficult cases are deceptive.”
But his judgment was only too firmly established on further inquiry. Lucia adhered to her crazed resolve not to utter a word, though her frequent terror and fixed look showed that she still believed herself closely watched by the figure she imagined she had seen in the chapel at the Russian embassy.
But she had caused a terrible suspicion of the truth to dawn in the mind of the last victim of her ruthless ambition. The prince reflected upon the subject until he arrived at a tolerably correct surmise of the facts of the case.