THE QUEEN'S ERROR
The Reverend Mother looked from Madame la Comtesse to me, and from me back again to the Comtesse.
"Madame," she said, addressing her, "without doubt you are old friends; here is a re-union of the most pleasant!"
We heard her words, both of us, I have no doubt, but we did not answer her; my thoughts were back again in that basement room at Monmouth Street. I saw "Madame la Comtesse," this healthy, bright looking old lady, lying on the disordered bed, her clothes soaked in blood, a great wound in her throat.
How did she come here?
How did she escape?
Those were the two questions which, for the moment, absorbed my whole faculties.
Her face, as I gazed upon it, expressed first blank amazement and alarm; then pleasure; finally the formation in a strong mind of a great resolve; she was the first to recover her entire self-possession, which, perhaps, she had really never lost.
"Mr. Anstruther," she said in English, extending her frail, delicate looking hand, "I am delighted to meet you again."
She took my hand in both of hers, and still holding it looked up into my face.