was alone. With an
effort she rose and mechanically made her dispositions for sleep,
thinking meanwhile of the words of Captain Goritz and feeling a dull and
unhappy sense of disappointment and defeat. There was a latent cruelty
under his air of civility which astonished and terrified her. And the
revelations with regard to Hugh Renwick, astounding though they were,
had in them just enough of a leaven of fact to make them almost if not
quite credible. Hugh Renwick, the man she had chosen--a friend, a paid
servant of atrocious Serbia! She could not--would not believe it. And
yet this man's knowledge of European politics was simply uncanny. If his
civility had disarmed her earlier in the day, if she had been able to
speak lightly of the threat of her imprisonment, the fear that had
always been in her heart was now a blind terror--not of the man's
passions but of his lack of them. He was cold, impenetrable,
impervious--a mind, a body without a soul. He haunted her. She lay on
her couch and stared wide-eyed at vacancy. The sound of his voice still
rang in her ears. She wondered now why the memory of it was so
unpleasant to her. And then she thought she knew that it was because the
magnetism of his eyes was missing. His body was a mere shell covering an
intricate piece of machinery. She tried to think what it must be like to
be actuated by a mind without a soul. She had pledged herself obedience
to this man, trusting to her implicit faith in the ultimate goodness of
every human creature to bring her through this venture safe from harm.

Vaguely, as though in dreams, she remembered that this man had thought
that Hugh Renwick would follow her to Sarajevo. She had written him a
note of warning telling him to leave for England at once. Would he
disregard her message, discover where she had gone, and if so, would he
follow? Renwick's sins, whatever they were, seemed less important in
this unhappy moment of her necessity. He had failed her in a crucial
hour----

She started up from her couch a smile upon her lips. Hugh Renwick was no
Serbian spy. The man, Goritz, lied. Hugh Renwick and Goritz--it was not
difficult to choose! One a man who let no personal suffering--not even
the contempt of the woman he loved interfere with his loyalty to his
country; the other, one who used a woman's loyalty as a means to an
end--cruelly, relentlessly--which was the liar? Not Hugh Renwick. Weary
and tortured, but still smiling, Marishka sank back