“I fear not, but we will ask at the hospital.”  And after the exchange of some further explanations, we took a hansom back to Charing Cross.

At first the sister refused to allow Muriel to see the patient, but she implored so earnestly that at last she consented, and the distressed girl in the black coat and hat crept on tiptoe to the bedside.

“He was conscious for a quarter of an hour or so,” whispered the nurse who sat there, “He asked after some lady named Muriel.”

The girl at my side burst into low sobbing.

“Tell him,” she said, “that Muriel is here—­that she has seen him, and is waiting for him to recover.”

We were not allowed to linger there, and on leaving the hospital I took her back again to Notting Hill, promising to keep her well informed of Jack’s condition.  He had returned to consciousness, therefore there was now a faint hope for his recovery.

Day succeeded day, and although I was not allowed to visit my friend, I was told that he was very slowly progressing.  I idled at the Hotel Cecil longing daily for news of Elma.  Only once did a letter come from her, a brief, well-written note from which it appeared that she was quite well and happy, although she longed to be able to go out.  The Princess was very kind indeed to her, and, she added, was making secret arrangements for her escape across the Russian frontier into Germany.

I knew what that meant.  Use was to be made of certain Russian officials who were secretly allied with the Revolutionists in order to secure her safe conduct beyond the power of that order of exile of the tyrant de Plehve.  I wrote to her under cover to the Princess, but there had been no time yet for a reply.

I saw Muriel many times, but never once did she refer to Rannoch or their sudden departure.  Her only thought was of the man she loved.

“I always believed that you were engaged to Mr. Woodroffe,” I said one day, when I called to tell her of Jack’s latest bulletin.

“It is true that he asked me to marry him,” she responded.  “But there were reasons why I did not accept.”

“Reasons connected with his past, eh?”

She smiled, and then said: 

“Ah, Mr. Gregg, it is all a strange and very tragic story.  I must see Jack.  When do you think they will allow me to go to him?”

I explained that the doctor feared to cause the patient any undue excitement, but that in two or three days there was hope of her being allowed to visit him.  Several times the police made inquiry of me, but I could tell them nothing.  I could not for the life of me recollect where I had before seen the face of that man who had passed in the darkness.

One afternoon, ten days after the attempt upon Jack, I was allowed to sit by his bedside and question him.

“Ah, Gordon, old fellow!” he said faintly, “I’ve had a narrow escape—­by Jove!  After I left you I walked quickly on towards the club, when, all of a sudden, two scoundrels sprang out of Suffolk Street, and one of them fired a revolver full at me.  Then I knew no more.”