Upon one he discovered that the various calculations appeared to be heights in metres and centimetres, and certainly in another were measurements concerning reinforced concrete.
Suddenly a startling thought flashed across his mind. The plans of the new fortresses on the Austrian frontier had been stolen, but as far as he could gather no use had been made of them. True, the army of Austria-Hungary had been mobilised and was held in secret, hourly ready for attack. Yet no formal representations had been made from the Vienna Foreign Office to Rome, and all inquiries had failed to establish that the reason of the secret mobilisation was actually due to the alleged act of war on the part of Italy.
Was it possible, therefore, that the plans stolen were worthless and conveyed nothing without that neatly executed key which lay spread on the blotting-pad before him? Would Her Highness, when she met him next day, reveal to him the truth?
For the present he had imposed silence upon his enemy, the crafty old Ghelardi. But how long would that last—how long before Italy, and indeed the whole of Europe, rang with the terrible scandal of a Royal House!
That night he locked away the envelope with its precious contents safely in his steel dispatch-box and still in his clothes, cast himself upon the bed to sleep. But it was already nearly five in the morning, and he failed even to close his eyes.
The discovery of Lola’s treachery had utterly bewildered and unnerved him. Surely she could not want money—and the temptation of money alone makes the traitor. He loved her still. Yes, after that first revulsion of feeling at the moment when he had caught her in the very act it had become more than ever impressed upon him that by her sweetness and beauty she held him in her toils—that he loved her with a mad, profound passion, a deep and tender love, such as he had never before experienced, not even in the case of that brilliant-eyed Andalusian who had been so near dragging him down to his ruin.
Ay, he loved her, even though the bitter truth how stood revealed in all its naked hideousness. Yet, alas! he could not tell her of his love. No. He dare not! Between them there existed a wide barrier of birth that was of necessity unsurmountable. She, a princess of the blood-royal, could never be permitted to marry a mere diplomat, any more than she could marry the man to whom she had given her heart, Henri Pujalet.
Thoughts of the latter brought reflections that he was in Rome. That fact was very curious, to say the least.
Had not the Frenchman urged him to keep his presence a secret from Lola? Why? He had, he said, arranged to meet her.
Feelings of the most intense jealousy and hatred arose within Hubert’s heart, for did he not remember that passionate love-scene he had witnessed beneath the palms in far-off Wady Haifa.