The man before me stared at me with open mouth in blank amazement.
“The Grand Duchess Natalia!” he echoed. “Impossible!”
“It is true,” I went on. “At Eastbourne, in her school-days, she was known as Miss Gottorp—which is one of the family names of the Imperial Romanoffs—and on her return to Brighton she resumed that name. The suspicious-looking foreigners who have puzzled you by haunting her so continuously are agents of Russian police, attached to her for her personal protection; while the threats against her have emanated from the Revolutionary Party. And,” I added, “you can surely now see the existence of the barrier between you—you can discern why, at last, foreseeing tragedy in her love for you, Her Highness has summoned courage and, even though it has broken her heart, has resolved to part from you in order to spare you further anxiety and pain.”
For some moments he did not speak.
“Her family have discovered her friendship, I suppose,” he murmured at last, in a low, despairing voice.
“Her family have not influenced her in the least,” I assured him. “She told me the truth that she could not deceive you any longer, or allow you to build up false hopes, knowing as she did that you could never become her husband.”
“Ah! my God! all this is cruel, Mr Trewinnard!” he burst forth, with clenched hands. “I have all along believed her to be a girl of the upper middle-class, like myself. I never dreamed of her real rank or birth which precluded her from becoming my wife! But I see it all now—I see how—how utterly impossible it is for me to think of marriage with Her Imperial Highness. I—I—”
He could not finish his sentence. He stretched out his strong hand to me, and in a broken breath murmured a word of thanks.
In his kind, manly eyes I saw the bright light of unshed tears. His voice was choked by emotion as, turning upon his heel, poor fellow! he abruptly left the room, crushed beneath the heavy blow which had so suddenly fallen upon him.