Rapidly traversing this or that path, as chance directed, he came in the course of his search upon a terrace over-hanging the Neva. A little group was looking down upon the smooth-flowing water.
“There goes my fan!” said a fair masker, lamenting the loss of that article, accidentally dropped by her into the river. “A hundred roubles floating away.”
“Ask the Baroness Runö to restore it you to-morrow,” said a gentleman beside her.
This chance mention of Pauline’s name caused Wilfrid to listen for a moment.
“I don’t understand——” began the lady.
“Why, look you,” replied her companion, “she goes to-morrow to her summer residence, the castle on her little island of Runö, some three miles down the river.”
“You mean that——”
“The current of the river strikes directly upon the eastern side of Runö, upon the shore called the Silver Strand. Things carried down by the river are always——”
“Always?”
“Well, say usually, cast ashore upon this same strand. There’s a romantic story that a former Prince Sumaroff, being in love with a daughter of a former Baron Runö, used to communicate with her by putting a letter into the cleft of a stick and throwing it into the river. An hour afterwards the lady would be reading the message. So, perhaps, your fan——”