“Do you think,” I asked Miss Haldin, after we had gone some distance up the great alley, “that Mr Razumov understood your intention?”
“Understood what I meant?” she wondered. “He was greatly moved. That I know! In my own agitation I could see it. But I spoke distinctly. He heard me; he seemed, indeed, to hang on my words...”
Unconsciously she had hastened her pace. Her utterance, too, became quicker.
I waited a little before I observed thoughtfully—
“And yet he allowed all these days to pass.”
“How can we tell what work he may have to do here? He is not an idler travelling for his pleasure. His time may not be his own—nor yet his thoughts, perhaps.”
She slowed her pace suddenly, and in a lowered voice added—
“Or his very life”—then paused and stood still “For all I know, he may have had to leave Geneva the very day he saw me.”
“Without telling you!” I exclaimed incredulously.
“I did not give him time. I left him quite abruptly. I behaved emotionally to the end. I am sorry for it. Even if I had given him the opportunity he would have been justified in taking me for a person not to be trusted. An emotional, tearful girl is not a person to confide in. But even if he has left Geneva for a time, I am confident that we shall meet again.”