a scar, yes, but that cannot be helped. And now
you are hungry? Ah, we will soon set that right! It is as I said, though
even the doctor would not believe me. The wounds are nothing,--so to
speak; the exhaustion was the mischief. You came through from Russia?
What times they are having there! You were fortunate to get through at
all. Yes, you are a very fortunate man, and an excellent patient;
therefore you shall have some breakfast!"

She worried me, with her persistent cheerfulness, but it would have been
ungracious to tell her so. She was right in one way, though. I was
ravenously hungry; and when she returned, bringing a tray with delicious
coffee and rolls, I started on them, and let her babble away, as she
did,--nineteen to the dozen.

I gathered that nearly a week had passed since I got to Berlin. The
hotel tout had captured me at the depot, and I collapsed as I got out of
the cab.

"In the ordinary way, you would have been sent to a hospital, but when
they saw the portrait--"

"What portrait?" I asked; but even as I spoke my memory was returning,
and I knew she must mean the miniature Loris had given me.

"What portrait? Why, the Fraulein Pendennis, to be sure!"

CHAPTER L

ENGLAND ONCE MORE

I started up at that.

"Fraulein Pendennis!" I gasped. "You know her?"

"I should do so, after nursing her through such an illness,--and so
short a time since!"

"But,--when did you nurse her,--where?"

"Why, here; not in this room, but in the hotel. It is three--no, nearer
four months since; she also was taken ill on her way from Russia. There
is a strange coincidence! But hers was a much more severe illness. We
did not think she could possibly recover; and for weeks we feared for
her brain. She had suffered some great shock; though the Herr, her
father, would not say what it was--"

She looked at me interrogatively; but I had no mind to satisfy her
curiosity, though I guessed at once what the "shock" must have been, and
that Anne had broken down after the strain of that night in the forest
near Petersburg and all that had gone before it. She had never referred
to this illness; that was so like her. Anything that concerned herself,
personally, she always regarded as insignificant, but I thought now that
it had a good deal to do with her worn appearance.

"And Herr Pendennis, where is he?" I demanded next.

"I do not know; they left together, when the Fraulein was at last able
to travel. Ah, but