“Did he exact any promise from you in return for your release?” the girl inquired anxiously.
“Only one. I am to leave Baracoa on to-morrow’s boat.”
Virginia’s face clouded. “Of course, I expected that,” she said, with a sigh. “Still, it’s a great pity that you have to go.”
Her words brought a joyous expression to Hawley’s face. “Do you really care?” he asked.
“Of course I care,” she answered, her color deepening; “but not on my own account—at least,” she added, with sweet candor, “not wholly on my own account. I was thinking of poor President Felix. You are going to leave him to his fate? Of course, I don’t blame you for going,” she explained quickly, observing the hurt expression which came to his face. “It would be suicide for you to stay after what has happened, and you have already made enough sacrifices in his behalf. Still, it does seem a great pity that we can’t do anything for him—that all our efforts should have been for nothing.”
“Yes, it does seem a great pity,” the Camera Chap agreed. “Tell me, Miss Throgmorton,” he said with apparent irrelevancy, “do you happen to know what is the matter with Captain Reyes’ eyes? I saw him on the Avenida Bolivar to-day, and he was wearing spectacles with thick blue lenses.”
Virginia frowned, as though she resented this evident attempt on his part to change the subject. “Yes, I have seen them,” she replied coldly, “I met him this morning as he was returning from the oculist. He had been complaining of weak eyes for some time, and yesterday the specialist ordered those glasses. But what has that got to do with poor President Felix?”
“Nothing, of course,” Hawley answered with a queer smile. “Nothing whatever. I was merely curious about those blue spectacles.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
WIRELESS WARNING.
Just as the steamship Eldorado, bound for New York, was about to leave her dock at Puerto Cabero, a touring car with a closed top dashed up to the wharf, and two women alighted and went aboard the ship. One of this pair, whose slender form was clad in black, wore a heavy veil which concealed her features, but Hawley, who was standing near the gangway when they arrived, gave a start of surprise. Despite the veil, he recognized the women as Señora Felix and her maid. The Camera Chap had not heard that the wife of the ex-president was to be among his fellow passengers. Later on, he learned that her departure from her native land was not a voluntary act. Her husband’s successor to the presidency had sent her a curt notice the day before that the government of Baracoa expected her to sail on the Eldorado, and that if she saw fit to disappoint the government’s expectation in this respect, she might have to stand trial on the painful charge of being in league with the government’s enemies.