"Yes," she admitted, her eyes cast down, "against my will. I had a message to deliver."
"To whom?"
"To my uncle."
"Not a message," I said, correcting her. "Something more valuable than mere words. Is not that so?"
The Nightingale nodded in the affirmative, her blue eyes still downcast in shame.
"Where was your starting-point?" I asked.
"In St. Petersburg, a fortnight ago. I was given the little box in the Hôtel de l'Europe, and that night I concealed its contents in the clothes I wore. Some of them I sewed into the hem of my travelling-coat, and, and——"
"Stones they were, I suppose?" I said, interrupting.
"Yes, from Lobenski's, the jeweller's in the Nevski," she replied. "Well, that night I left Petersburg and travelled to Vienna, thence to Trieste, where I found my uncle's yacht awaiting me, and we went down the Adriatic and along the Mediterranean to Algiers. My uncle was already at home. The coup was a large one, I believe. Have you seen reports of it in the English papers?" she asked.