She sat down and motioned Peter to take a place by her side upon the sofa.
“You will forgive me if I am a little incoherent,” she implored. “To-day I have had a shock. You, too, have read the news? You must know that the Count von Hern is dead—killed in the railway accident last night?”
“We read it in the Daily Telegraph,” Peter replied.
“It is in all the papers,” she continued. “You know that he was a very dear friend of mine?”
“I have heard so,” Peter admitted.
“Yet there was one subject,” she insisted, earnestly, “upon which we never agreed. He hated England. I have always loved it. England was kind to me when my own country drove me out. I have always felt grateful. It has been a sorrow to me that in so many of his schemes, in so much of his work, Bernadine should consider his own country at the expense of yours.”
Sogrange drew a little nearer. It began to be interesting, this.
“I heard the news early this morning by telegram,” she went on. “For a long time I was prostrated. Then early this afternoon I began to think—one must always think. Bernadine was a dear friend, but things between us lately have been different, a little strained. Was it his fault or mine—who can say? Does one tire with the years, I wonder? I wonder!”
Her eyes were lifted to his and Peter was conscious of the fact that she wished him to know that they were beautiful. She looked slowly away again.
“This afternoon, as I sat alone,” she proceeded, “I remembered that in my keeping were many boxes of papers and many letters which have recently arrived, all belonging to Bernadine. I reflected that there were certainly some who were in his confidence, and that very soon they would come from his country and take them all away. And then I remembered what I owed to England, and how opposed I always was to Bernadine’s schemes, and I thought that the best thing I could do to show my gratitude would be to place his papers all in the hands of some Englishman, so that they might do no more harm to the country which has been kind to me. So I came to you.”