Suddenly the woman sprang up. “They will miss me,” she cried. “I must go. There—there is danger.”
“Do not go. Not yet. Stay a little—only a little. It is so long—so long—”
“I must! I—I cannot see. There is a mist over my eyes—”
“It is a cloud! No, it your hair! No! it is my lips—”
CHAPTER XVI
After Lillian Byrd and Topham had left Berlin, their relative importance in Rutile’s eyes underwent a gradual change. Anxious at first to hear from Miss Byrd chiefly because he hoped she might be able to discover something that might aid him to rescue his friend from what he felt sure was a dangerous entanglement, he soon became anxious to hear from her for her own sake. Therefore, he eagerly welcomed the letters she wrote him even before she left for Brazil, and he spent much time and used up much midnight oil in preparing answers.
Both the Ouro Pretos had left Berlin and with their departure, the possible political aspect of the affair was relegated to the back of his mind, especially as he could get no information concerning their interview with the Emperor. The question of restoring the duchy seemed to have entirely dropped out of sight, the general impression prevailing that the Emperor had denied the request and that the discomfited claimants had gone back to Brazil. And the murdered robber had been forgotten!
The whole affair was brought sharply back to Rutile’s mind, however, by the contents of a letter he received from Miss Byrd about three months after she had left England.
After the usual preliminaries, the letter proceeded:
“I know you must think I have been neglectful of your request to investigate the Ouro Pretos; but I have not really been so. The information you wanted was not altogether easy to obtain; and in getting it I chanced on some things that roused keen interest in me as a newspaper woman.