Up to this moment her age had been a matter of much speculation, varying from eighteen to twenty-six. Now one would have said unhesitatingly that she was a woman of at least thirty years, and a woman who did not carry those years lightly.
She sat down by Mrs Jefferson, and spoke in a low nervous voice. “I knew I should find you here,” she said. “I want your help. I think you have always been my friend here. Do me one service. Tell me what occurred in my room last night.”
“Do you mean to say?” asked Mrs Jefferson, amazed, “that you don’t know?”
“Should I ask if I did?” she said, mournfully. “A great weight and terror are on my soul—yet I cannot explain them. In some of my trances I keep the memory of all I see; in some I lose it. I know nothing of what I said last night after you spoke and I parted from Julian. It was your voice that came between us. You have great psychic power; but it is undeveloped.”
“Good gracious!” cried Mrs Jefferson; “then, if I’m responsible for what happened last night, I’ll have nothing more to do with Occultism as long as I live.”
“I can’t tell why it was,” resumed the Princess, mournfully. “The chain of communication broke, and I got away, and my great dread was that Julian should suffer.”
“Well, your dread is realised,” said Mrs Jefferson. “Don’t you know he’s very ill?”
She started, and grew deadly white. “Ill—Julian! No; I did not know. What is it?—serious do they say?”
“Very. Some shock to the brain. You know he was far from strong. He was only home from India on sick leave.”
The princess was silent for a moment. Her face looked inexpressibly mournful. Involuntarily her hand went to her heart, and she looked at Mrs Jefferson with sad, appealing eyes. “I have suffered a great deal,” she said, slowly. “I only bore it for his sake—for the hope they gave me that one day we should meet, and love, and taste the happiness of life together. Tell me, was it anything I said or revealed that shocked him?”