The Prince guessed what she and her friend were thinking, and what Castro might tell if he dared talk to him about Alicia. "She has just lost a lover, and while she is weeping with theatrical vehemence, she is getting ready for another, as young as the first. A crime indeed, since poor Martinez is condemned to death, and only prolongs his days, thanks to absolute quiet. The slightest emotion means death to him."
Lubimoff could not tell the truth. His secret was Alicia's. Only they two knew the true identity of the prisoner who had died in Germany, and as long as she kept silent, he must do the same.
One night, the Colonel gave him some interesting news. At nightfall, when he was returning from the Casino, he had seen the Duchess de Delille from the street car. Dressed in mourning she was getting out of a hired carriage, in the Boulevard des Moulins, opposite the church of St. Charles. Later she had ascended the steps leading to the place of worship: she was doubtless going to pray for her protégé. And Don Marcos said this with a certain emotion, as though the visit to the church cancelled all the gossip he had been hearing in the previous few days.
Michael had a presentiment that this would be the means of rescuing him from his incertitude. He would meet Alicia at the church. And the following day, toward evening, he began to walk up and down the Boulevard des Moulins, without losing sight of the one church in Monte Carlo, the place of worship of gamblers and wealthy people, which seemed to maintain a certain rivalry with the Cathedral of silent, ancient Monaco.
This continual going and coming finally caught the attention of the shopkeepers on the street and of their clerks, girls with hair dressed high on their heads in a complicated fashion, who seemed to be dreaming behind the counters, waiting for some millionaire to lift them from their position of unjust obscurity. "Prince Lubimoff!" They all knew him, and his fame was such that immediately a hundred eyes curiously sought the object of his promenading. Doubtless it was a woman. On the deserted balconies women's heads began to appear, following his maneuvers more or less overtly. Window shades went up, revealing behind the panes questioning eyes and smiling lips. "Might it be for me?" This unexpressed question seemed to spread from one window to the next.
Annoyed by such curiosity, he ascended the double row of steps from the tiny deserted square in front of the church, using the same strategy there as when he had lurked in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa. He peeped into the interior of the sanctuary, dotted with red by a number of lighted tapers. There were only two women, within, both of them dressed in mourning and kneeling. They were women of lowly fortune, wives or mothers of men killed in the war. On returning to the little square, he passed the time reading and re-reading the headlines of all the papers displayed on the newsstand. Then he started off down a street, turned into another, walked across the square with an air of unconcern, and hid behind a corner, taking care not to lose sight of the entrance to the church. It was not bad waiting there: there were no passersby. The traffic on the nearby boulevard was invisible, as though going on in the depths of a ditch. Through the low branches of some trees, he could just see the roofs of carriages and street cars.
Night fell and she did not come.
The following day Michael returned, but discreetly, so as not to arouse the curiosity of the shopkeepers. He remained for long hours in the little square in that old part of the city, with none to watch him save a melancholy old woman who sold newspapers at a stand that had no customers. Nor did Alicia come this time.
The third day, when he was beginning to doubt whether there was any use of waiting, Alicia's head and shoulders suddenly appeared above the line of the top step. Then her whole body emerged, by waves, so to speak, as her feet advanced from step to step. Night was falling. On the façades of the buildings on the boulevard, above the green mass of the trees, the fugitive sun drew a golden brush stroke along the rows of roofs.
It was his heart that recognized her even before his eyes, just as on the day when he had seen her at a distance in the carriage accompanied by the officer. He had a feeling of shock at her black bonnet, with a long mourning veil falling on her shoulders. The emotion he felt on seeing her and the spying habit he had recently acquired, caused him to draw back, and she entered the church without seeing him. Ah, now he had her! This time she could not escape, he would have a great many things to tell her, very, very many! But at the same time he became rancorously conscious of the just indictment against her which he had prepared in advance; and, in spite of himself, he felt afraid, desperately afraid of the possibility that she might meet him with a curt reply, or perhaps not speak to him at all.