Through the
warm spring night, Piers raved and agonised. The business hour found
him lying upon his bed, sunk in dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER XXXII
Again it was springtime--the spring of 1894. Two years had gone by
since that April night when Piers Otway suffered things unspeakable
in flesh and spirit, thinking that for him the heavens had no more
radiance, life no morrow. The memory was faint; he found it hard to
imagine that the loss of a woman he did not love could so have
afflicted him. Olga Hannaford--Mrs. Florio--was matter for a
smile; he hoped that he might some day meet her again, and take her
hand with the old friendliness, and wish her well.
He had spent the winter in St. Petersburg, and was making
arrangements for a visit to England, when one morning there came to
him a letter which made his eyes sparkle and his heart beat high
with joy. In the afternoon, having given more than wonted care to
his dress, he set forth from the lodging he occupied at the lower
end of the Nevski Prospect, and walked to the Hotel de France, near
the Winter Palace, where he inquired for Mrs. Borisoff. After a
little delay, he was conducted to a private sitting-room, where
again he waited. On a table lay two periodicals, at which he
glanced, recognising with a smile recent numbers of the _Nineteenth
Century_ and the _Vyestnik Evropy_.
There entered a lady with a bright English face, a lady in the years
between youth and middle age, frank, gracious, her look of interest
speaking a compliment which Otway found more than agreeable.
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