Ch. 19: Jennie Experiences the Surprise of Her Life

At nine o'clock the long train came to a standstill, seventeen minutes late at Luga, and ample time was allowed for a leisurely breakfast in the buffet of the station. The restaurant was thronged with numerous passengers, most of whom seemed hardly yet awake, while many were unkempt and dishevelled, as if they had had little sleep during the night.

Jennie found a small table and sat down beside it, ordering her coffee and rolls from the waiter who came to serve her. Looking round at the cosmopolitan company, and listening to the many languages, whose clash gave a Babel air to the restaurant, Jennie fell to musing on the strange experiences she had encountered since leaving London. It seemed to her she had been taking part in some ghastly nightmare, and she shuddered as she thought of the lawlessness, under cover of law, of this great and despotic empire, where even the ruler was under the surveillance of his subordinates, and could not get a letter out of his own dominion in safety, were he so minded. In her day-dream she became conscious, without noting its application to herself, that a man was standing before her table; then a voice which made her heart stop said,--

"Ah, lost Princess!"

She placed her hand suddenly to her throat, for the catch in her breath seemed to be suffocating her, then looked up and saw Lord Donal Stirling, in the ordinary everyday dress of an English gentleman, as well groomed as if he had come, not from a train, but from his own house. There was a kindly smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes, but his face was of ghastly pallor.

"Oh, Lord Donal!" she cried, regarding him with eyes of wonder and fear, "what is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," the young man replied, with an attempt at a laugh; "nothing, now that I have found you, Princess. I have been making a night of it, that's all, and am suffering the consequences in the morning. May I sit down?"

He dropped into a chair on the other side of the table, like a man thoroughly exhausted, unable to stand longer, and went on,--

"Like all dissipated men, I am going to break my fast on stimulants. Waiter," he said, "bring me a large glass of your best brandy."

"And, waiter," interjected Jennie in French, "bring two breakfasts. I suppose it was not a meal that you ordered just now, Lord Donal?"

"I have ordered my breakfast," he said; "still, it pleads in my favour that I do not carry brandy with me, as I ought to do, and so must drink the vile stuff they call their best here."

"You should eat as well," she insisted, taking charge of him as if she had every right to do so.

"All shall be as you say, now that I have the happiness of seeing you sitting opposite me, but don't be surprised if I show a most unappreciative appetite."