In Direst Peril | Page 8

advice and help."
I answered that I should be glad to render any service in my power, but I was afraid to show how eager I was to be of use to her, and I thought that my answer sounded grudging and reluctant.
"Thank you," she said, simply. I could see her great eyes shining from the dusk in which she sat, and they seemed never to leave my face for a moment. "I heard you say just now that Mr. Brunow had told you the story. Did he show you this?"
She drew a scrap of paper from the bosom of her dress, and I took it from her hand. I told her I had seen it before, and returned it to her.
"Without this," she went on, "I should have had no faith in Mr. Brunow's statement; but I have compared it with old letters of my father's, and I have no doubt that it was written by his hand. Now, Captain Fyffe"--she did her hardest to be business-like and commonplace in manner through all this interview, and my honor and esteem rose higher every moment--"now, Captain Fyffe, I want to ask you if in your judgment there is anything which can be done. I come to you--I tell you frankly--because you have already done my family one incalculable service. It is a poor way of offering thanks to burden you with a new trouble."
"If I have done anything to save you from grief or trouble, Miss Rossano," I replied, "I can ask for no better reward than to be allowed to repeat my service."
If she had been anybody but the woman she was she might have accepted my words, which I knew were spoken with coldness and restraint, as a mere surface compliment of no value. But I never knew her yet mistaken' in respect of that one virtue of sincerity. It is especially her own, and it is the touchstone by which a true heart tests all others.
"Thank you," she answered, simply.
I told her it was four weeks that day since I had first heard of the matter, and that I had since given it a good deal of practical consideration. I drew for her a rough map of the country, showing the roads, marking the places where guards were posted, and so on, and I gave her what information I had been able to acquire about the rates of possible travel. From Itzia I calculated we could, if well mounted, cross the frontier in about nine hours. There were no telegraph wires in that region in those days, and I pointed out that with a start of a single hour escape was probable. I laid stress on the value of the sympathetic attendant, and she hung with clasped hands and suspended breath on every word I spoke.
"You have thought of all this already?" she asked, when I had said all I then had to say.
"I have thought of little else," I answered. "But now I must tell you that all this will cost money."
"We can see to that," said Lady Rollinson, who was almost as interested as her niece. She showed it another way; for while Miss Rossano had listened without a word, the old lady had been full of starts and ejaculations.
"I must be able to tell the man on whose aid I shall have to rely that the relatives of the count are wealthy, and that they will reward him handsomely. I may even have to promise him an independence for life."
"You may promise him anything it is in my power to give him," cried Miss Rossano. "If I could secure my father's liberty I would surrender every penny I have in the world."
"The man is a common soldier," I responded. "He has his rations and his clothes, and a few copper coins a day to find him a little beer and tobacco. To such a man a pension of a pound a week would look like Paradise. Much depends on his condition. If he is a single man, I may secure him. If he is married and has a family, I shall find greater difficulties in the way. The great thing is not to hope too much. I will try, if you will allow me, and I will leave no stone unturned."
"Captain Fyffe, how shall I thank you?" cried Miss Rossano.
"I shall be repaid, madame," I answered, "if I succeed." She did not understand me then, but I told her afterwards what my meaning had been. I told her that I should have earned the right, if I brought her father back with me, to tell her I had earned the right to say that I knew no such pride as to live or die in her service. And that was simply true, though I had