Sonya sometimes spoke of her girlhood and then again of her life in the United States and in England. Once or twice she even called the name of Captain Dalton. Nona supposed that she must be recalling her meeting with Captain Dalton at the Sacred Heart Hospital. Then she remembered that Sonya had spoken of knowing the English officer years before.
But although her patient betrayed many facts of her past life to her nurse, never once did Sonya explain why she was living in such an out-of-the-way place. Neither did she give any clue to the kind of work that must have engaged her time and energy. Surely Sonya Valesky must have been upon some secret mission in the days of their first meeting on board the “Philadelphia!” Even then she had papers in her possession which she would allow no one to see.
However, Sonya was too desperately ill to permit her nurse much opportunity for surmising. Nona would never have left her alone for a moment except that she knew it was her duty to keep up her own strength.
Every afternoon she went for a short walk. And because no one but the Russian physician was allowed to enter the house, now and then the young Russian lieutenant would join Nona along the road. This could only occur when he was able to get leave, yet Nona began to hope for his coming. She was so depressed and lonely.
Once she asked him if he had ever heard of a member of his family named “Anna Orlaff.” Of course she gave no reason for her question. But it made no difference, because the young soldier could recall no such person.
In the course of one of their talks, however, he confided to Nona that he was a younger brother, but that his family were members of the Russian nobility.
Never once, however, did the young man betray any fact connected with Sonya Valesky’s history. He explained that their families had long known each other and that he had always been fond of her, nothing more.
So for this reason as well as others Nona found herself attracted by the young Russian officer. He seemed very simple, much younger than an American of the same age. At this time Michael Orlaff must have been about twenty-three. But Nona was wise enough to discover that he was not so simple and direct as she had first believed him. A Russian does not readily betray either his deeper thoughts or his deeper feelings. The young Russian lieutenant would not even speak of the war nor his own part in it. Yet Nona guessed from her own observation and from certain unconscious information that he was one of the favorite younger officers of the Russian general in command of the Grovno fortifications.
So a number of weeks passed, until now and then Nona Davis almost forgot the war and her original reasons for being in her present strange position. No one brought her papers; Barbara’s and Mildred’s letters contained little war news. The truth was possibly being concealed from them, or else there was no way of their discovering it.
So Nona was at least spared the anxiety of knowing that the victorious German hosts were drawing nearer and nearer the fortress of Grovno. Like stone houses built by children the other ancient Russian forts had fallen before his “Excellenz von Beseler,” the victor of Antwerp, who was known as the German battering ram.