VON STROMBERG CATECHISES
position at Windenberg might be. He had answered the summons of the secret messenger willingly and at once. That much was in his favor. If they had suspected him before, this immediate obedience must have disarmed them. In the mind of General von Stromberg there could be no possible reason why Cyril should put himself at his mercy. General von Stromberg could not know as she knew that Cyril had another mission to perform. She looked up quickly to find John Rizzio’s dark eyes gazing at her. He frightened her at that moment, for it almost seemed from the expression of his face that he had succeeded in reading her thoughts—and in the light of his previous omniscience even that psychic feat seemed within the realm of possibility. But he merely smiled at her and looked out of the window.
That mission of Cyril’s! What was it? The obtaining of some information necessary to England? Some military secret such as the machinery of ordnance or the chemical mixture of explosive shells? Or was it something more personal, more sinister and dreadful—the death of some high official—perhaps the Emperor himself? She shuddered and shut her eyes, her mind painting unimaginable horrors. Not murder—even for Cyril she could not connive at that. But she must be prepared to do something for him, to help him, if she could by false testimony or if necessary, no matter what they did to her, by silence. If they suspected Cyril, of course he would be kept in ignorance of her arrival. Of all these things and others she thought with ever-growing doubt and timidity. And all the while in the back of her head was the idea of her possible appeal to the American Ambassador at Berlin.
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