“‘You brothers will have much to talk about,’ she said. ‘I am going to the dining-room. When you have finished, let me know.’
“As soon as she had left them, Arthur told his brother that their father was not expected to outlive the night, and that he must come to him at once.
“‘This is not the moment to remember your quarrel,’ Arthur said to him; ‘you have come back from the dead only in time to make your peace with him before he dies.’
“Arthur says that at this Chetney was greatly moved.
“‘You entirely misunderstand me, Arthur,’ he returned. ‘I did not know the governor was ill, or I would have gone to him the instant I arrived. My only reason for not doing so was because I thought he was still angry with me. I shall return with you immediately, as soon as I have said good-by to the Princess. It is a final good-by. After tonight, I shall never see her again.’
“‘Do you mean that?’ Arthur cried.
“‘Yes,’ Chetney answered. ‘When I returned to London I had no intention of seeking her again, and I am here only through a mistake.’ He then told Arthur that he had separated from the Princess even before he went to Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo on his way south, he had learned certain facts concerning her life there during the previous season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to see her again. Their separation was final and complete.
“‘She deceived me cruelly,’ he said; ‘I cannot tell you how cruelly. During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father’s consent to our marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all that time he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo was only an excuse to meet him there.’
“‘Yet you are here with her tonight,’ Arthur protested, ‘only a few hours after your return.’
“‘That is easily explained,’ Chetney answered. ‘As I finished dinner tonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In it she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged me to come to her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present trouble, dying of an incurable illness, and without friends or money. She begged me, for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance. During the last two years in the jungle all my former feeling for Ziehy has utterly passed away, but no one could have dismissed the appeal she made in that letter. So I came here, and found her, as you have seen her, quite as beautiful as she ever was, in very good health, and, from the look of the house, in no need of money.