Again her eyes were lifted to his and Peter was very sure indeed that they were wonderfully beautiful. He began to realize the fascination of this woman, of whom he had heard so much. Her very absence of coloring was a charm.
“You mean that you have brought me these papers?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly.
“No,” she said, “I could not do that. There were too many of them—they are too heavy, and there are piles of pamphlets—revolutionary pamphlets, I am afraid—all in French, which I do not understand. No, I could not bring them to you. But I ordered my motor car and I drove up here to tell you that if you like to come down to the house in the country where I have been living, to which Bernadine was to have come to-night—yes, and bring your friend, too, if you will—you shall look through them before any one else can arrive.”
“You are very kind,” Peter murmured. “Tell me where it is that you live.”
“It is beyond Hitchin,” she told him, “up the Great North Road. I tell you at once, it is a horrible house in a horrible lonely spot. Within a day or two I shall leave it myself forever. I hate it—it gets on my nerves. I dream of all the terrible things which perhaps have taken place there. Who can tell? It was Bernadine’s long before I came to England.”
“When are we to come?” Peter asked.
“You must come back with me now, at once,” the Baroness insisted. “I cannot tell how soon some one in his confidence may arrive.”
“I will order my car,” Peter declared.
She laid her hand upon his arm.