In Secret Author:William Le Queux General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1920 Original Publisher: Odhams Press Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can se... more »lect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER THREE THE SECRET OF A HUSHED-UP AFFAIR My meeting with the handsome, dark-haired Anastasia, or Stana, as she was called, was destined to bring me certain exciting adventures, and disclose a very Strange and important secret. When, one morning at the Gare du Nord, in Paris, I entered the express for London, I found ensconced opposite the seat reserved for me a smartly-dressed, dark-eyed young girl of perhaps twenty-two, rather petite and very dainty, who was busy looking at the pictures in Excelsior, and who raised her eyes with covert glance. There were not so many passengers as usual that morning, and we were alone. I was on my way from Cairo to London, by way of Marseilles, and had indeed only arrived at the Gare de Lyon an hour before, just in time to take my coffee hastily and cross Paris in a taxi. The morning was grey and cold after the bright warm sunshine of Egypt, and I rather envied my smart companion her warm furs. Soon after the train had moved out on its rush to Calais we began to chat, first in French and then in English, which she spoke exceedingly well. She hadcome by the Sud Express from Madrid on the previous night, it seemed, and was going to London to join her brother. She was, however, not Spanish, but had been born at Wolmar, in Livonia, and her name, I afterwards learnt, was Anastasia Irmann. While we were chatting a man in a soft felt hat and travelling coat passing along the corridor recognised me, and, putting his head into the compartment, addressed me by name, inquiring how I was, and adding : " See you on the boat, old chap !...« less