e on our way to Wittenberge,
and Berlin, like Prague, was only a memory. Before leaving the station I
had purchased an armful of papers, illustrated and otherwise, for
Valerie's amusement. Though she professed to have no desire to read
them, but to prefer sitting by my side, holding my hand, and talking of
the happy days we hoped and trusted were before us, she found time, as
the journey progressed, to skim their contents. Seeing her do this
brought the previous evening to my remembrance, and I inquired what
further news there was of the terrible pestilence which Pharos had
declared to be raging in eastern Europe.

"I am afraid it is growing worse instead of better," she answered, when
she had consulted the paper. "The latest telegram declares that there
have been upward of a thousand fresh cases in Turkey alone within the
past twenty-four hours, that it has spread along the Black Sea as far as
Odessa, and north as far as Kiev. Five cases are reported from Vienna;
and, stay, here is a still later telegram in which it says"--she paused,
and a look of horror came into her face, "Can this be true?--it says
that the pestilence has broken out in Prague, and that the Count de
Schelyani, who, you remember, was so kind and attentive to us last night
at the palace, was seized this morning, and at the time this telegram
was despatched was lying in a critical condition."

"That is bad news indeed," I said. "Not only for Austria but also for
us."

"How for us?" she asked.

"Because it will make Pharos move out of Prague," I replied. "When he
spoke to me yesterday of the way in which this disease was gaining
ground in Europe he seemed visibly frightened, and stated that as soon
as it came too near he should at once leave the city. We have had one
exhibition of his cowardice, and you may be sure he will be off now as
fast as trains can take him. It must be our business to take care that
his direction and ours are not the same."

"But how are we to tell in which direction he will travel?" asked
Valerie, whose face had suddenly grown bloodless in its pallor.

"We must take our chance of that," I answered. "My principal hope is
that knowing, as he does, the whereabouts of the yacht he will make for
her, board her, and depart for mid-ocean to wait there until all danger
is passed. For my own part I am willing to own that I do not like the
look of things at all. I shall not feel safe until I have got you safely
into England, and th