“Well,” she echoed eagerly. “You have seen him—eh? When did you return?”
“To-night,” Waldron replied. “He has sent you this,” and from the breast of his uniform coat he drew the letter from her lover, Henri Pujalet.
With eager fingers she carried the note across to the shaded reading-lamp upon the table, and tearing it open, read the message it contained.
Hugh stood watching the expression of her pale, anxious face. It went instantly white as the dress she wore; her pale lips slowly parted, and in her splendid eyes was an expression of such horror that he had never seen in any person’s eyes before.
For a second she seemed transfixed by the words written there.
Next second, with an almost superhuman effort, she summoned all her self-composure. Her slim, nervous fingers crushed the letter, and with a quick movement she crossed to the fire near which Hubert was standing and cast the message into the flames.
Hubert Waldron had acted as Cupid’s messenger, but whatever the Princess’s secret lover had written, it apparently gave her grave concern.
She stood, her left hand pressed to her heaving chest, a strangely pathetic little figure in her Court dress and glittering diamond cross upon her corsage. Her great, wonderful eyes were fixed upon the moss-green carpet, and he saw that she was trembling as though in fear.
“Your Highness is distressed,” he remarked in a low voice full of sympathy. “Cannot I assist you further?”
“Distressed!” she cried, turning quickly upon him with her eyes flashing suddenly. “Distressed!” she echoed. “Ah, Mr Waldron, you do not know how crushing is this blow that has fallen upon me! I have done—my—very best—what I believed to be for the best, but—ah, Dio!—all is lost—lost—ah!—I—I—” And reeling suddenly, she clutched wildly at air and would have fallen forward had he not sprung up to prevent her.