"There is no alternative," he said. "Your crime admits of none. We place no value upon any information you could give us. Our means are perfect for obtaining it ourselves. To prove it I can a.s.sure you of things which perhaps you do not know yourself. The plans which your friends stole are even now in the yards at Dorby in Yorkshire. The construction of submersible vessels is going on under Admiralty supervision and protection, a matter carefully arranged by your lover, Ruxton Farlow. Your father is at Dorby, and his private submersible is moored in an inner dock at Farlow, Son and Farlow's yards. These are all facts you may be aware of, but there are others which you certainly are not. One of them is that these constructions are about to be destroyed by explosion, and the plans too. Later on there will be further developments. As for the torture you suggest, that, too, is unnecessary. I have yet to learn of a greater torture which a young, rich, and beautiful woman can endure than the thought of being torn from the arms of the hero whom she has foolishly permitted herself to worship. There can be nothing more painful to her than to contemplate in her last moments the happiness which she is denied being enjoyed by some other woman when her own penalty has been paid. My reasoning is only a man's, but----"

"A devil's!"

Vita's calm had deserted her. Horror and loathing struggled for place in her wide shining eyes.

The man looked on unmoved.

"As you will, Princess," he said, with that curious flicker of the eyelids. "But now, since I have completed the business of my visit, I will relieve you of my obnoxious presence. When the time comes you will be given half an hour to prepare yourself for the execution of your sentence."

He moved away. The shadows of the room swallowed him up. Then, a moment later, Vita heard the door close behind him.

CHAPTER XXI

ENEMY MOVEMENTS

Ruxton's return to town from Dorby was made by special train in the middle of the night. It had been inspired by an irresistible impulse, born of an apprehension which his great love for Vita inspired.

Prince von Hertzwohl had only sheltered one night under the roof of Dorby Towers. Sir Andrew had been urgent that he should remain his guest indefinitely, feeling that the safety of an Englishman's home was the best of all havens for this large, simple-minded Pole. But Vita's father proved something of his daughter's estimate of him. His grat.i.tude and thanks had been sincere and cordial, but he displayed an understanding of the situation which astonished his hosts, and a decision that resisted all appeal.

"Dear friends," he had urged, "it cannot be. It is a joy to me, so great, to feel the warm shelter of your perfect English home. I love the parks, the wide moor, the white cliffs. But I love more than all the generosity and kindliness of your friendship. But you do not yet grasp what all this means. These people will have my life, and your locks and bars will be no obstacle to their Secret Service. They will get me here, as they would get me in their own country. Nor can we say what danger I might not expose you to. No, my course is quite simple. I will show you to-night."

Father and son were reluctantly forced to acquiesce.

That night, after dinner, the shrewdness of Vita's father was displayed. He departed to his bedroom, and, an hour later, he reappeared in the smoking-room.

The metamorphosis was perfect. An unkempt individual, lean, dirty, and slouching, entered the room and made its way to the fire. His beard and moustache were gone, and he was clad in the greasy clothes and discolored overalls of a riverside mechanic. The disguise was so perfect that only with the greatest difficulty both father and son were able to recognize him. Later on he left the house, and set out for the town of Dorby. It was his purpose to lose himself amongst the thousands of workers who peopled the waterside, and so, while keeping in touch with Dorby Towers, completely sink his ident.i.ty. Nor was it until after profound consideration that Ruxton and his father realized the wonderful but simple astuteness of the man's move.

It was the second night following this event that Ruxton's own resolve was arrived at. It was over forty-eight hours since he had dispatched his telegram to Vita telling her of her father's arrival and safety. He should have received a reply in under six hours. No reply, however, had been forthcoming.

At first Ruxton had been patient. There had been much to occupy him of an important nature at the shipyards. He had had little time to think of anything else. The constructions were steadily growing under the energetic hands of his engineers and marine architects. Already the promise of the future was taking definite shape. The work, pressed on at his urging, was proceeding apace. Already the completed outlines of two of the hulls filled twin slipways. His enthusiasm was growing with the rapidity of a man of keen imagination. His dreams were becoming real, tangible. The experiment was full of a promise which weeks ago had no place in his almost despairing regard of the future.

But at night there was less occupation for his mind, and inevitably his thoughts flew at once to the woman who had opened out to him the radiant possibilities of his future. No reply had reached him on that first night, and unease began to make itself felt. He mentioned the matter to his father with marked unconcern. The shrewd Yorkshire eyes which regarded him were blandly uncurious.

"Did you word it for reply?" he enquired, glancing up from the pictorial periodical he was looking at.

Ruxton had not worded it particularly so, he a.s.sured him, with a glance of trouble in his dark eyes.

Then the old man went on with his paper.

"I shouldn't worry about it," he said calmly. "It must have been delivered, or it would have been returned to you."

But the a.s.surance was without effect upon the lover. He said no more then, but at dinner the following evening his anxiety would no longer be denied.

The butler had withdrawn. Ruxton had been unusually disinclined to talk during the meal. The keen brain of his father had summed up the reason to a fraction, but, with quiet understanding, he had waited for the unburdening which he knew would soon come.

It came as Ruxton, ignoring the dessert, sat back in his chair and lit a cigar.

"I've ordered a special train for town, Dad; I can't stand the suspense any longer."

"You mean--the answer to your message." Sir Andrew made no attempt to misunderstand him. "But where is the suspense? It was a message of--his arrival, I understand. The answer was optional."

"Optional? Ah, you don't understand." Just for a moment the trouble seemed to pa.s.s out of the younger man's eyes. He was contemplating the wonderful love which had come to him. He breathed a deep sigh. "Look here, Dad, what would you have felt like--you know, say just before you married my mother, if you sent her an urgent message by wire and received no reply? Why, in the past twenty-four hours you'd have been driving in a stage coach, or something equally slow, to find out the reason, if I know anything. There are a dozen things I could have done.

I could have kept the wires humming incessantly--but for possibilities.

Those possibilities have restrained me. But now I can wait no longer. I must see Vita myself and a.s.sure myself that nothing is--wrong. Dad, it's the whole world to me. I can't wait any longer. I love her, and I am going to marry her. That's where the suspense lies."

"That's how I supposed," Sir Andrew nodded, his shrewd eyes twinkling.

"One has to endure many anxious moments under such circ.u.mstances. I have known them myself. You leave at----"

"Three A. M."

The old man nodded.

"I've not met her yet, boy," he said kindly, "though," he added slyly, "I seem as if I did know her. You see, you've spoken of her a lot.

Well, if she's half the woman you have told me she is, I congratulate you heartily. Somehow, boy, I feel sure she is. Yes, it is as well to go--with possibilities hanging over us all."

He rose from the table and held out his hand as Ruxton followed his example.

"The very best of luck, boy, and--will you give her my love? You can leave the work here in my hands."

The two men clasped hands with a vigor such as belonged to two strong natures, and then, as they moved off to the library, they fell to discussing those "possibilities" to which Ruxton had alluded.

Ruxton's anxiety was no mere impatience of a hotheaded lover. He had not permitted his imagination to distort things out of a real proportion. He knew that their Teutonic enemies were able to lay hands upon Vita if they decided upon such a course. And all too late he had realized that his message had been an indiscretion. Once having arrived at this realization, the rest followed in painful sequence. If his message, though carefully worded, had fallen into enemy hands, the possibilities such an event opened up were illimitable.

It was between ten and eleven in the morning that he presented himself at the flat in Kensington.

On his way up the stairs he received his first shock. It was no less than an encounter with Mrs. Jenkins on her way down them, garbed in her long outdoor ulster, such as all women of her cla.s.s seem to possess, bearing under one arm an ominous-looking bundle.

He stopped her, or rather she provoked attention herself by a dry cough and a prolonged, moist sniff.

"You goin' up to 'er flat?" she demanded; "'cos if you are she ain't in."

There was a sort of defiant displeasure in her words that, to Ruxton, might have been just her natural form of address, or might not have been.

He paused, glanced down at her bundle, and finally regarded her severely.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"Don't see it's your bizness. Any'ow I'm goin' to do a bit o' shoppin'."

Then Ruxton adopted a high hand.

"Well, just come back up-stairs a minute. Your shopping will keep. I want to speak to you on a matter of importance. Come along."