“But this is preposterous!” cried Eirene.
“Madame, you have chosen the only word that fits the situation. It is preposterous. They were brought up by their grandfather, a respectable landed proprietor named Smith, who became possessed, late in life, with the delusion that he was a descendant of the last Christian Emperor. The delusion would, no doubt, have died with him, but, unfortunately, it came to the ears of the firebrand Panagiotis in one of his visits to England for the purpose of stirring up support for his incendiary propaganda. He had been repulsed by your illustrious father, who preferred to await in dignified passivity the results of the diplomacy of his august friend the Emperor of Scythia, rather than put himself forward as the figurehead of a revolutionary conspiracy. Thus deprived of a raison d’être for his schemes, this man Panagiotis finds himself confronted with the means at once of forwarding his plots and of revenging himself upon your father’s daughter. He will produce a nearer heir. Now, madame, mark the course of events. Your impetuous resolution to proceed on pilgrimage to the shrines most nearly associated with the devotion of your illustrious race has the effect of bringing you within the range of the conspiracy, which has been so deftly engineered that even we, who are secretly protecting your movements, are unacquainted with its full purpose. The fiend Panagiotis sees his opportunity, and instructs his tools to worm themselves by insidious means into your confidence——”
“You are mistaken, monsieur,” with a last effort of dignity. “It was I who addressed myself to Miss Smith.”
“Alas, madame! must I point out that this apparent reserve was but a means of piquing the curiosity of a young lady who had just emancipated herself from the safeguards of her rank, and might be supposed to possess an innocent curiosity as to the concerns of her bourgeois fellow-travellers?” Eirene grew scarlet, and Zoe, remembering their early acquaintance, could not repress a smile. “The ruse was successful. By the time the Roumi frontier was crossed, the conspirators, with a confederate who poses as an officer of the British Army, were in possession of your Royal Highness’s confidence. I tell you frankly, with a full sense of the seriousness of my words, that but for the accident to the bridge, which I cannot help regarding as providential—I am no atheist, thank the saints!—I do not know what the result would have been. Whether you would ever have been permitted to reach Therma I cannot tell. It was the apparently commonplace and innocuous character of your companions that baffled all suspicion, and I doubt if our agents would have penetrated their true nature in time. But if you had once reached Therma, and accepted the treacherous hospitality of Panagiotis at his country villa, there can be no doubt that you would never have left it alive and free. You were an obstacle to his plans. Only your death, or your acceptance of an alternative, too degrading to you as a Princess and a woman for me to do more than hint at it, would have made his schemes safe.”
“Zoe,” broke in Maurice, as Eirene changed colour again when her eyes, vainly seeking a resting-place, met his, “what is this blackguard saying? Tell him to talk English, or if he can’t, to let you interpret. I can’t understand what he says, but he is making Eirene miserable.”
“He says that we are impostors, and that we made up to her on the journey that we might decoy her to the Professor’s and kill her,” said Zoe succinctly.
“Rubbish!” said Maurice. “Eirene, how can you listen to such nonsense? You know us too well to believe it, I should hope. Zoe and I will explain the whole thing to you in five minutes, if you will see us somewhere without this man, who seems to be mixing himself up in things which don’t concern him in the least.”
“I do not speak English,” observed M. Kirileff mildly, and—so Zoe averred afterwards—untruthfully, “but it appears to me that this young man is presuming upon the confidence with which you have honoured him, madame. He has to learn that you are no longer unprotected, but that the shield of Scythia is interposed between your royal person and his presumptuous designs. I cannot sufficiently admire the way in which Providence has utilised the atrocious crime of the brigands to preserve you from actual danger to your life and peace. The impostor durst not announce himself in his pretended character, knowing the devotion of the miscreants—however misdirected—to the Slavic and Exarchist idea, and the necessity of retaining your confidence forced him to treat you with respect and reserve. It was when the ransom was paid, and you were once more at his mercy, that you would have been again in extreme danger. That danger I had the happiness to avert by bringing you here. My measures were hasty, even violent, I confess—I had no choice—but they were successful.”
“Your fidelity calls for my highest gratitude, monsieur,” said Eirene, rallying her forces. “I do not mind confessing that I am overwhelmed by the news you have brought me. Such treachery—such duplicity—where I saw only loyalty and respect, is almost incredible. This impudent assertion, which touches my rights—what course is to be taken respecting it?”
“In my opinion, madame—which is not without weight, if I may respectfully say so, with my superiors—there could be no more suitable place for the detention of the culprits than this. It is the most humane, as well as the most convenient, view of the case to regard them as suffering from hereditary mania, but they cannot be allowed to impose their wild hallucinations upon the world. We must have from each of them a definite confession of the imposture, and of the steps by which they were induced to acquiesce in it, as well as of their motives in forcing themselves upon you. Until that confession is signed, they may well remain here in safety, carefully looked after by the good monks, and causing scandal to no one.”