“Well, before becoming the wife of Baron Elmer Grodsko, a Hungarian nobleman, who quarrelled with his family in order to marry you, you were dancing and singing at the theatre of Belgrade, in a touring troupe, directed by an adventurer, half villain, half rogue, named Valaque. It was there that Baron Elmer, on his way from Varna, saw you, fell in love, and carried you off, after shooting down Escovisco, who pursued him with a poniard.”
The young woman’s lips quivered, as she said with a look of disdain—
“Then that is all you know? You cannot go back any further than the theatre of Belgrade, and the Escovisco affair? You are making much ado about very little!”
“Oh! I was proceeding in order. I could go back further, and tell you of the mysterious strange death of Madame Ferranti, a charitable lady of Trieste, who had taken you, almost dead with hunger, from the streets into her service. You were sixteen years of age. Your benefactresses had a son. On the day his mother died—she was said to have been poisoned, though there was no definite proof of this—young Ferranti left home with you, carrying off all the ready money, negotiable deeds, and jewels of his dead mother. Was it you or he who gave Madame Ferranti the cup of tea she drank before she fell asleep never to wake again?”
“Indeed it was neither he nor I. It was an old servant, who had been twenty years in their service. Besides, she confessed it, and as there was no proof against her, nor against any one else, she was released.”
“Whilst you set out for Venice, and had a pleasant time with your companion. Ah! He had a fine way of mourning for his mother, the young Ferranti! It was at the Café Florian, on the Place Saint-Marc, that, one evening when he was drunk, the young ninny picked a quarrel with an Austrian major, who, the following morning, on the Lido, ran six inches of steel into his body, killing him on the spot.”
“Quite true! Poor Ferranti! He was a handsome fellow, who waltzed divinely, but was too fond of absinthe. It was that which killed him, or rather the stoccata of Major Bruzelow—a fine man, whose moustaches went almost round his head, but as stupid as his sabre, and as dangerous. It was he who forced me to leave Venice, where I was enjoying myself so well! I could not even speak to a man without the Major challenging him. He would have called out the whole town; I was obliged to go.”
“The Austrian police had something to do with it, had they not?”
“I have always hated the Tedeschi, and they have always paid me back in the same coin!”
“So that you cannot return to Austria, even now?”