Now, I might not leave.

My duty was here.

This was my message; here was she for whom it was intended; and this was the place which I was to have sought alone.

I needed only to remember that my business was not with Helena von Ritz the woman, beautiful, fascinating, perhaps dangerous as they said of her, but with the Baroness von Ritz, in the belief of my chief the ally and something more than ally of Pakenham, in charge of England's fortunes on this continent.

I did remember my errand and the gravity of it.