assured them that it was part of her salary and without it she was penniless. They found me in the library where I worked most evenings and they found also my money which I kept in a safe behind the desk. I fought for it but I hadn’t a chance. I was carried away on a stretcher and was found by Miss Grey a week afterwards in a hospital. Not a penny of my money was left. Miss Grey went to the bank. It was already too late. The assets had been seized, a seal put upon the safes and not a schilling was parted with to any of the depositors. She and I were left very nearly destitute. I lodged a complaint in the Courts. I was perhaps foolish but it seemed to me there was nothing else to be done. As a result we were thrown into prison. When I was freed I found Miss Grey with difficulty. I tried to get a job at a tourist agency. Meanwhile I wrote home to my wife for money. Miss Grey wrote to America. We both of us wrote to Mr. Benjamin at every address we could think of. No answer came to either of us from anywhere. Soon we saw official notices in all the Austrian and German papers. What they called ‘a moratorium’ existed.”
“I read of that,” Charles murmured.
“No money from abroad could be claimed by individuals until the exchanges had been adjusted. If money was sent it was confiscated by the State and any letters accompanying it were destroyed by the censor. It was sheer robbery. Meanwhile our employment came to an end. We met day by day. It was impossible for me to leave Vienna because of the money I had already spent on Mr. Benjamin’s account. Between us we could not raise enough for Miss Grey’s passage to England, much less back to America.”
“Why didn’t you go on writing to Mr. Benjamin?” Charles asked.
“Because we neither of us had the slightest idea where he actually was,” Patricia pointed out eagerly. “It was absolutely necessary, until he could reach a place of safety, that no one should know his whereabouts. As soon as that time arrived he promised to write to us. We have had not a line, but as every letter that arrived here was censored, it seemed a hopeless task to get in touch with anyone.”
“When disaster first came,” Blute went on, “we had three hopes. One was that we should hear from Mr. Benjamin, that he would get a letter through to us somehow or other notwithstanding the censorship; the second was that the Benjamin Hospital, with a foundation from him which brought them in the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars a year, would let us have the sum we needed to complete our obligations to Mr. Benjamin, and the third hope—it was the slimmest of all—was that we might some day or other come across a friend passing through Vienna.”
“Nothing so wonderful as this, though, ever entered into our dreams,” Patricia murmured.
“Well, that’s a very clear explanation of everything that has happened,” Charles pronounced. “It has been a horrible time for both of you. Now tell me this—I have made a wild guess. Am I right? The work you undertook for your Chief—had it anything to do with getting all his pictures and wonderful possessions out of Vienna?”
They were both silent.
“That was just what it was,” Blute said hoarsely after a moment’s pause. “We came so near success—”
“You didn’t succeed, then?”
There was a long and melancholy silence. Blute was shaking his head sadly. Patricia sat with her hands folded in front of her and it seemed to Charles that she was going through some sort of inward struggle. When at last she spoke it was as though the three words she uttered were tearing at her very heartstrings.
“No,” she confessed. “We failed.”
There was a knock at the door of the salon. The waiter entered. He indicated a chambermaid who was waiting outside.
“The young woman has come,” he announced, “to fetch the Fräulein who was dining here and who has a room on the other side of the hotel. It is a little difficult to find without help.”
Patricia rose to her feet. She held out her hands to her host.
“Mr. Mildenhall,” she said, “Charles, if you wish it—there are no words I can use to thank you. I go to bed without fear, almost happy for the first time for months. It is all your doing.”
“‘Almost’ happy?” he repeated.
She nodded.
“If you knew the difference between now and last night,” she said smiling, “you would not worry about the ‘almost.’”
“When can we meet to-morrow?”
“I do not know,” she answered thoughtfully. “I must see Mr. Blute, but I am too weary to talk any more to-night.”
“Come and have your coffee and rolls with me here in the morning,” he begged. “The chambermaid who looks after you will bring you along. I will be ready at nine o’clock.”
“You wish it?”
“I do seriously,” he insisted.
He led her towards the door.
“I wish it,” he repeated, “and I am determined also to know the meaning of that ‘almost.’”
The light faded from her face. She shook her head.
“That,” she said, “I shall not tell you just yet. It is not for you to know. Be satisfied with thinking what you have done for us, the misery from which you have snatched poor Mr. Blute and me. Apart from all of which,” she added, “I shall tell you this—”
She grasped his hand tightly. Suddenly she raised his fingers to her lips and kissed them.
“You are the sweetest Good Samaritan,” she cried, “the most wonderful and most tactful who ever brought a poor girl back into life!”
Her feet seemed to have recovered some of their old grace and lightness. She was across the room in a moment. She waved her hand and disappeared with the chambermaid.
CHAPTER XIII
Marius Blute had risen to his feet when Charles returned to his easy chair. The latter waved him back again.
“Sit down and finish your cigar,” he invited. “That is, unless you are tired.”
“I am no longer tired,” Blute said. ‘T am a strong man, really. No man could have gone through what I went through in prison unless he had a sound constitution. Wine and good food were what I needed. I am myself again. But I must not keep you up.”
“My dear fellow,” Charles protested, “does anyone ever go to bed in Vienna before midnight? If you were not here I should only go out to a café. Remember, I have only heard just a sketch of your adventures.”
“It is difficult,” Blute reflected, “to explain everything.”
“Could you tell me this?” Charles asked. “What was the meaning of that ‘almost’ in Miss Grey’s farewell speech? She had been looking so radiantly happy all the evening. Now just a little of the cloud seems to have come back.”
“If
