"And the street below?"
Yeva nodded and renewed the inspection of her new present in the mirror, so Marishka wrote:
Hugh,
I am a prisoner in a house near the Sirokac Tor beyond the Carsija—a house with a small garden the gate of which has a blue door. I am treated with every courtesy, but I am frightened. Come tonight at twelve to the small court at the left of the house and knock twice upon the door. I will come to you. Forgive me.
Marishka.
While Yeva was scrutinizing her new adornment in the small mirror Marishka reread the note. She did not wish to alarm her lover unduly, for perhaps after all there were no need for grave alarm.
The intentions of Captain Goritz were perhaps of the best, his given word to liberate her, to free her from her promise and return her to her friends, had been spoken with an air of sincerity, which under other conditions might have been impressive. But some feminine instinct in her still doubted—still doubted and feared him. And in spite of his many kindnesses, his few moments of insensibility to her weariness and distress there in the motor in the flight from Konopisht, and in the railway carriage when he had spoken of Hugh Renwick's connection with hated Serbia—these memories of their association lingered and persisted. She feared him. The failure of their mission would perhaps have made a difference; and the promise of a man whose whole existence was a living lie, was but a slender reed to hang upon.
She straightened abruptly and gazed before her in sudden dismay. Her word of honor—as a Strahni! She was breaking her promise—had already broken it. For she had pledged herself to Goritz—to go with him whither he pleased, if he would enable her to save the life of Sophie Chotek.
But he had failed! But he had failed! She clutched at the sophistry desperately. Goritz had failed. Under such conditions should she consider her promise binding? It had been conditional. Liberty, there in the street below, just at her elbow, and Hugh Renwick within reach! She came to this conclusion with desperate speed, and quickly addressed and sealed the envelope.
Yeva, before the mirror, was wrapped in admiration of her new possession.