He drew back in breathless amazement. Mademoiselle’s eagerness to return across from Elephantine was now explained. She had kept a secret tryst.
As he watched, he heard her speaking quickly and angrily in an imperative tone. The man was standing in the full moonlight, and Waldron could see him quite plainly—a dark, short-bearded man of middle-age and middle-height, wearing a soft felt Tyrolese hat.
He made no response, but only bowed low at his unceremonious dismissal.
The stranger was about to leave her when suddenly, as though on reflection, she exclaimed, still speaking in perfect Italian:
“No. Return here in half an hour. I will go back to the hotel and write my reply. Until then do not be seen. Gigleux must never know that you have been here—you understand? I know that you will remain my friend, though everyone’s hand is now raised against me, but if Gigleux suspected that you had been here he would cable home at once—and then who knows what might not happen! I could never return. I would rather kill myself?”
“The signorina may rely upon my absolute discretion,” declared the man in a low, intense voice.
“Benissimo,” was her hurried response. “Return here in half an hour, and I will give you my answer. It is hard, cruel, inhuman of them to treat me thus! But it is, I suppose, only what I must expect. I am only a woman, and I must make the sacrifice.”
And with a wave of her small, ungloved hand she dismissed him, and took a path which led through the public garden back to the hotel by a shorter cut.
Meanwhile Waldron strode on past the railway station to the quay, glanced at his watch, and then, half an hour later, after he had dispatched his telegram he was lurking in the shadows at that same spot.
He watched Lola hand a letter to the stranger, and wish him “Addio e buon viaggio!”