‘I confess, mademoiselle, I am puzzled. At first I thought I was in the prison at Sebastopol; but’—— and Jack looked round him.
The girl laughed gaily. ‘You think more of where you are than of anything else,’ she said. ‘Well, you are in the house of Count Pauloff; he brought you here from Sebastopol.’
‘Ha! now I know who you are. You must be the count’s sister; you are so much alike, yet so much more handsome’—— Then Jack checked himself and blushed; but Irma, for such was her name, seemed by no means displeased.
‘I am the count’s sister,’ she said.
‘I saw you at the Alma.’
‘Ah that dreadful day, when poor Alexis was wounded and would have been slain but for you!’ and Irma covered her face with her hands as though to shut out some disagreeable vision.
‘The count told me yesterday’—— began Jack.
‘Yesterday?’ interrogated Irma with a smile.
‘I mean, as we rode into Sebastopol from the picket who captured me.’
Irma opened her eyes very wide; then they suddenly dimmed, as though with tears.