“But why? What has he done?”
“Well, she wishes it to be understood that he proposed to her at Ludwigsbad a year or two back, and she refused him. That sort of thing generally makes a woman pursue a man with implacable hatred, doesn’t it? What do you say?”
“Why, I should have thought just the opposite—that she would be as kind to him as possible, and fearfully sorry that he should love her in vain.”
“So should I. And we think, all of us—mind, he has never said a word on the subject—that she—well, that it was the other way about.”
“That she proposed to him, and he refused her? Oh, Nym!”
“And he married Aunt Ernestine. That’s where the sting comes in, you see. Why, what’s the matter, Nell?” for Helene was crying.
“I never thought people could be so wicked,” she murmured at last.
“Ah, you’ll find worse things done than that,” said Usk sagely. “Now do you see why Hicks thinks the Princess is mixed up in whatever has happened?”
“But what could she have done?”
“He’s quite certain there has been foul play, and he thinks the most likely thing is that they have hired a band of brigands to carry him off into the hills. You see, the district is a sort of No Man’s Land, and the brigands may have come from any part of the Balkans. They may even have taken him down into the Roumi territory to the south, where an army couldn’t find him. But Hicks doesn’t believe it’s as bad as that,” quickly. “He thinks it’s much more likely they have got him somewhere in the Dardanian mountains.”