"Dear Olga,—You must get F. to take you to dinner on Friday night next. You must go to the Moscow Restaurant, and be there by 7.45 prompt. Please look your handsomest, and spare no pains to be agreeable. When the waiter brings you liqueurs be especially fascinating. Act on the Berlin plan. This is very important, as a danger has arisen which I had not calculated upon. The time for action has now come, and I need not remind you how much success means to you.
"Romanoff.
"P.S.—Destroy this as you have destroyed all other correspondence from me. I shall know whether this is done.—R."
This was the note which had caused Olga Petrovic's cheeks to pale. After reading it again, she sat thinking for a long time, while more than once her face was drawn as if by spasms of pain.
Presently she went to her desk, and taking some scented notepaper, she wrote a letter. She was evidently very particular about the wording, for she tore up several sheets before she had satisfied herself. There was the look of an evil woman in her eyes as she sealed it, but there was something else, too; there was an expression of indescribable longing.
The next afternoon Dick Faversham came to her flat and found Olga Petrovic alone. He had come in answer to her letter.
"Have I done anything to offend you, Mr. Faversham?" she asked, as she poured out tea.
"Offend me, Countess? I never thought of such a thing. Why do you ask?"
"You were so cold, so distant when you were here last—and that was several days ago."
"I have been very busy," replied Dick.
"While I have been very lonely."
"Lonely! You lonely, Countess?"