Before they parted that night he learned that she had come from Serbia, and that her name was Marya Pavlovitch. She had married a state official a year and a half before. Her father’s name was Colonel Yovan Vanoff, a well-known officer of the King’s Guard at Belgrade, who had fought valiantly against the Turks in the first Balkan war, and had gained distinction at the decisive Battle of Kumanovo.
“My husband is in England,” she told Geoffrey, speaking English well. “He is attached to the Serbian Mission. So I am here with my father, who, alas! is becoming daily more feeble.”
Next evening they met again—and the next. The old man was most affable, and day after day they had long chats in French, in which Lane often joined.
One afternoon Geoffrey went by boat along to Lucerne, eager and anxious. Mrs. Beverley and Sylvia had arrived at the Schweizerhof, that great hotel which overlooks the lake. They had tired of the Trossachs, and also of dusty London, so in accordance with young Falconer’s suggestion, they had arrived to spend a couple of weeks in “lovely Lucerne”—that town in which, before the war, one could spend a week under the wing of any tourist company for the modest sum of five guineas, railway fare included.
Geoffrey met Sylvia and her mother, and after half an hour in the great lounge of the hotel they dined together. The “Wild Widow” was charmed with the hotel and its outlook, while Sylvia, delighted at the retirement of the penurious Lord Hendlewycke, who now no longer visited them, contrived to snatch a few moments alone with her lover.
“Do you remember, Geoffrey, what you told me—that mysterious message by wireless telephone warning you not to go East?” she said anxiously, as they sat in the corridor after dinner, while her mother had gone upstairs.
“Yes,” he replied. “But really the whole thing was so ridiculous. It was, I’m convinced, only some amateur playing a practical joke.”
“Perhaps. But you should take no risks, dear,” she replied. “I don’t like the situation. Remember all that has passed.”
“Why are you so anxious?” he asked.
“Well,” she answered, glancing around, “you are, no doubt, a marked man, Geoff. You have been able to upset the plans of various conspirators, and they, no doubt, seek their revenge. Hence, be careful—do be very careful.”