The two months which had been fraught with events of so much moment to Caerleon had not been devoid of incident for Nadia, although her circumstances afforded at first sight far less promise of excitement than did his. Since their hasty departure from Bellaviste, the O’Malachy and his wife had been sojourning at the frontier village of Witska, where they seemed inclined to remain as a thorn in the side of M. Drakovics, and this the more that he could not discover any motive, even that of devising plots, for their doing so. His agents visited the village perpetually, both in disguise and in their proper persons, and after dogging the footsteps of the Herr Oberst and his wife for a longer or shorter time, and even making incursions into their rooms at the inn when they were out, returned to their employer baffled. In fact, there seemed nothing for them to observe. The “Kur” arrangements at Witska were more primitive even than those at Janoszwar; but the O’Malachy drank the regulation number of tumblers of medicated water with unfaltering bravery, and took the prescribed stroll afterwards, accompanied by his wife, on the only level piece of road in the village, duly increasing the distance a little every day. The afternoon was invariably spent in the open air, in a sheltered spot at the foot of a blank wall belonging to the oldest part of the inn, Madame O’Malachy reading aloud occasional extracts from one of the French novels which were her constant companions, and her husband responding lazily with good-humoured criticisms. No life could have appeared more simple and innocent, none more entirely above-board. And yet, as Nadia could have told, although she based her opinion rather upon various small indications than upon actual evidence, the worthy couple were the whole time carrying on an extensive and complicated secret correspondence, and acting as intermediaries between the Thracian patriots who disliked the present _régime_ and their Scythian sympathisers. An unexpected meeting with her mother early one morning showed Nadia that she was pale and heavy-eyed, as though she had worked late the evening before; and the mystery was explained a few nights after, when, hearing sounds in the house after midnight, and fearing she knew not what, she equipped herself with great bravery for a search, and discovered both her father and mother still in their sitting-room, the one engaged in writing letters and the other in destroying a number of papers which appeared to contain reports of some kind.