"You need have no fear on that score," he said. "Pharos shall hear nothing from me, I can promise you that. Farewell, Fräulein, and may your life be a happy one."
I said good-bye to him, and then took my place in the vehicle beside Valerie. A quarter of an hour later we were on our way to Wittenberge, and Berlin, like Prague, was only a memory. Before leaving the station I had purchased an armful of papers, illustrated and otherwise, for Valerie's amusement. Though she professed to have no desire to read them, but to prefer sitting by my side, holding my hand, and talking of the happy days we hoped and trusted were before us, she found time, as the journey progressed, to skim their contents. Seeing her do this brought the previous evening to my remembrance, and I inquired what further news there was of the terrible pestilence which Pharos had declared to be raging in eastern Europe.
"I am afraid it is growing worse instead of better," she answered, when she had consulted the paper. "The latest telegram declares that there have been upward of a thousand fresh cases in Turkey alone within the past twenty-four hours, that it has spread along the Black Sea as far as Odessa, and north as far as Kiev. Five cases are reported from Vienna; and, stay, here is a still later telegram in which it says"—she paused, and a look of horror came into her face, "Can this be true?—it says that the pestilence has broken out in Prague, and that the Count de Schelyani, who, you remember, was so kind and attentive to us last night at the palace, was seized this morning, and at the time this telegram was despatched was lying in a critical condition."
"That is bad news indeed," I said. "Not only for Austria but also for us."
"How for us?" she asked.
"Because it will make Pharos move out of Prague," I replied. "When he spoke to me yesterday of the way in which this disease was gaining ground in Europe he seemed visibly frightened, and stated that as soon as it came too near he should at once leave the city. We have had one exhibition of his cowardice, and you may be sure he will be off now as fast as trains can take him. It must be our business to take care that his direction and ours are not the same."
"But how are we to tell in which direction he will travel?" asked Valerie, whose face had suddenly grown bloodless in its pallor.
"We must take our chance of that," I answered. "My principal hope is that knowing, as he does, the whereabouts of the yacht he will make for her, board her, and depart for mid-ocean to wait there until all danger is passed. For my own part I am willing to own that I do not like the look of things at all. I shall not feel safe until I have got you safely into England, and that little silver streak of sea is between us and the Continent."
"You do love me, Cyril, do you not?" she inquired, slipping her little hand into mine, and looking into my face with those eyes that seemed to grow more beautiful with every day I looked into them. "I could not live without your love now."
"God grant you may never be asked to do so," I answered; "I love you, dearest, as I believe man never loved woman before, and, come what may, nothing shall separate us. Surely even death itself could not be so cruel. But why do you talk in this dismal strain? The miles are slipping behind us; Pharos, let us hope, is banished from our lives for ever; we are together, and as soon as we reach London, we shall be man and wife. No, no, you must not be afraid, Valerie."