All the while Drexel had kept Captain Nadson in the corner of his eye. He perceived that his cool front had had its effect; the officer was half reassured, and plainly was afraid to take any immediate action lest it might prove a mistake disastrous to himself. Drexel nodded curtly at the captain and walked away, feeling that suspicion was rendered inactive till the police official should arrive upon the business of the passport. By that time they would be miles out of St. Petersburg. As he sauntered up the stairway he wore the same cool, careless front; but within him was turmoil. How about the story the major-domo had told? But that, even were it true, that was nothing! The great thing, the only thing, was that for days he was to be constantly near the wonderful woman awaiting him above. It went through him with a thrilling sweep; and it was with a tense eagerness such as he never before had felt that he threw open the door. But she was not in the room where he had left her. Nor in the other room. He rushed from one to the other, looking even into the closets. There was no doubt of it. She was gone. CHAPTER IV THE PRISONER OF THE WHITE ONE As Drexel realized that she was gone, a pang of dizzy agony shot him through. What his uncle had said about his liking for Alice was perfectly true; it had been but a boy-and-girl affair at its best, never warmed by the least fervour; and it had been weakly, sentimentally cherished by him only because no true love had ever come to show him what thin moonshine stuff it was. But this was different--a thousand times different! The danger he had stood in, mortal danger perhaps, had been nothing to him in his anticipation of days of companionship with her. That he had seen her for the first time but three hours before, that she was an unknown personage to him, that she was hunted by the police, that the report said she had tried to shoot his cousin-to-be, Prince Berloff--these things counted also as nothing. Shrewd, cool-headed, imperturbable, with such an eye for the main chance as insured his getting it--thus was Drexel already widely known in Chicago. His uncle had more than once remarked to him in his blunt fashion, “Henry, you’ll never let your heart boss your brain cells!” And yet this was exactly what his heart was doing. He was wildly, recklessly in love! From the first he realised she must have gone wholly of her own accord--slipped out by the second staircase--and slipped out, to face alone what dangers? And why had she gone? This puzzled him for several moments, for she had seemed glad of the refuge offered by the plan of travelling as his wife. Then suddenly he bethought him of the instant-long change in her manner when he had told her his name, and the truth flashed home. She was afraid of Henry Drexel, and her sending him down to inquire about the train was but a ruse to give her a chance to escape him.