“I knew it, mademoiselle, but I wanted to hear you say it again. Go into that room,” and Azim Bey dashed off with something like a sob.
Sorely puzzled, Cecil advanced in the direction he indicated, and drew aside the curtain over the doorway. Through the mist of her tears she saw a gaunt, dark-bearded man, wearing the regulation frock-coat and fez, standing with his back to her and looking out of the window.
“An Armenian!” she said to herself, perceiving at once the unwelcome suitor whom she was to put out of his misery. “Monsieur——”
The man turned round, and Cecil stood awestruck and speechless. Had that rocky grave in the mountains of Kurdistan given up its dead? She dropped the curtain, and staggered blindly across the floor with outstretched hands.
“Charlie?” she gasped, tremblingly.
The room was reeling with her, but strong arms caught her as she nearly fell, and the voice she had thought never to hear again was in her ears.
“Cecil, my own darling, look at me. Don’t cry so dreadfully—it breaks my heart. Have I frightened you so much?”
“They told me you were dead,” she murmured, when she could still the long-drawn sobs which broke from her in the stress of that first recognition.
“And they told me you were going to marry another fellow,” he retorted, quickly, “but I never believed it. Still, I never thought I should see you again, my dearest girl.”
“But Hanna saw you killed—at least he saw you dead.”