if you will permit me to tell you so to your face, are--what shall we
say?--well, far from being an unprepossessing man. Like a foolish
guardian I have permitted you to be a good deal, perhaps too much,
together, and the result even a child might have foreseen. You have
learnt to love each other. No; do not be offended. I assure you there is
no reason for it. I like you, and I promise you, if you continue to
please me, I shall raise no objection. Now what have you to say to me?"

"I do not know what to say," I said, and it was the truth. "I had no
idea you suspected anything of the kind."

"I fear you do not give me the credit of being very sharp," he replied.
"And perhaps it is not to be wondered at. An old man's wits can not hope
to be as quick as those of the young. But there, we have talked enough
on this subject, let us postpone consideration of it until another day."

"With all my heart," I answered. "But there is one question I had better
ask you while I have the opportunity. I should be glad if you could
tell me how long you are thinking of remaining in Prague. When I left
England I had no intention of being away from London more than a
fortnight, and I have now trespassed on your hospitality for upward of
two months. If you are going west within the next week or so, and will
let me travel with you, I shall be only too glad to do so, otherwise I
fear I shall be compelled to bid you good-bye and return to England
alone."

"You must not think of such a thing," he answered, this time throwing a
sharp glance at me from his sunken eyes. "Neither Valerie nor I could
get on without you. Besides, there is no need for you to worry. Now that
this rumour is afloat I have no intention of remaining here any longer
than I can help."

"To what rumour do you refer?" I inquired. "I have heard nothing."

"That is what it is to be in love," he replied. "You have not heard then
that one of the most disastrous and terrible plagues of the last five
hundred years has broken out on the shores of the Bosphorus, and is
spreading with alarming rapidity through Turkey and the Balkan States."

"I have not heard a word about it," I said, and as I did so I was
conscious of a vague feeling of terror in my heart, that fear for a
woman's safety which comes some time or another to every man who loves.
"Is it only newspaper talk, or is it really as serious as your words
imply?"

"It is very serious," he answered. "See, here is a man with t