“No anxiety is necessary.”
“Then she is alive?”
“I believe so.”
“And well?”
“Yes, she is quite well. But—”
“But what?” he demanded. “Speak, Lorena. Speak, I beg of you.”
She had hesitated, and he saw by her contracted brow that anxiety had arisen within her mind.
“Well—she is safe, I believe, up to the present. Yet if what I fear be true, she is daily nay, hourly, in peril—in deadliest peril.”
“Peril!” he gasped. “Of what?”
“Of her life. You know that the political organisations of the East are fraught with murder plots. Dr Petrovitch has opponents—fierce, dastardly opponents, who would hesitate at nothing to encompass his end. They have intrigued to induce the King to place him in disgrace, but at Belgrade the Petrovitch party are still predominant. It is only in the country—at Nisch and Pirot—where the Opposition is really strong.”