I walked home with a feeling of rare exhilaration. Whatever happened, this was my own quarrel, and I had so acted as to secure the sympathy of all who knew the facts. The quarrel had been fixed on me in public in a manner peculiarly disgraceful to both my opponents, and if they killed me, it would be murder.
If on the other hand I could kill either or both, the world would be the sweeter and purer for their riddance. Moreover I had so arranged matters that I saw how I should have at least an equal chance of my life. I should have the choice of weapons and I would fight Devinsky with swords and the "butcher" with pistols.
I thought much about Durescq's skill. He had a huge reputation both as a swordsman and a shot; but I was very confident in my own skill with the sword, and inclined to doubt whether he could beat me even with that. In the end, however, I decided not to run that risk. The issue should be left to chance. The duel should be fought with pistols. One should be loaded, and one unloaded; and a toss should settle which each should have. We would then stand at arm's length, the barrel of one man's weapon touching the other's forehead. The man to whom Fortune gave the loaded weapon would thus be bound to blow the other's brains out, whether he had any skill or not. Both would stand equal before Fortune.
About an hour later, Essaieff came to me and told me that the whole regiment was in a state of excitement about the fight and that feeling against Devinsky had reached a positively dangerous pitch, especially when it was known that he had practically refused to meet me. That point was still unsettled, and Essaieff had come to get my final decision.
"My advice is, stand firm," he said. "You're in the right. There isn't an unprejudiced man in the whole army who wouldn't say you were acting well within your rights; just as, I must say, my dear fellow, you've acted splendidly throughout."
I told him what I had been thinking.
"It seems a ghastly thing to put a life in the spin of a coin," he commented.
"Better than to have it ended without a chance, by the thrust of a butcher's knife."
"That name will stick to Durescq for always," he said, with a slow smile. "It was splendid. Do you know you made me hold my breath while you were at him. Damn him, so he is a butcher!"
"Do you say Devinsky won't meet me?" I asked.
"No, not that he won't; but he raises the excuse that as Durescq's challenge was given first—as it was indeed—the order of the fight must follow the order of the challenges. But they arranged the challenges purposely in that order."
"I shan't hold to the point," I said, after a moment's consideration. "If they insist I shall give way and meet Durescq first. But this will only make it the more easy for us to insist on our plan of fighting. Don't give way on that. I am resolved that one of us shall fall: and chance shall settle which."
Essaieff tried to persuade me to insist on meeting Devinsky first; but I would not.
"No. He shan't carry back to St Petersburg the tale that we in Moscow are ready to bluster in words, and then daren't make them good in our acts."
"I hope he'll carry back no tale at all to St Petersburg," answered my friend, grimly: and then he left me.
I completed what few preparations I had to make in view of the very probably fatal issue of the fight: wrote a letter to Olga and enclosed one to Balestier as I had done before; and was just getting off to bed, when Essaieff came back to report.
My message had added to the already great excitement and there had been at first the most strenuous opposition to our plan of fighting. But he had forced his way, and the meetings—with the "butcher" first and, if I did not fall, with Devinsky afterwards—were fixed for eight o'clock. He promised to come for me half an hour before that time: and he urged me to get to bed and to have as much sleep as possible to steady my nerves.
They were steady enough already. I gloated over the affair; and I meant so to use it as to set the seal to my reputation as "that devil Alexis," whether I lived or died.
But after all I was baulked.
I slept soundly enough till Borlas called me early in the morning and told me strange news. A file of soldiers were in my room, and the sergeant had requested me to be called at once as he had an important message.
I called the man into my bedroom and asked him what he wanted.
"You are to consider yourself under arrest, Lieutenant," he said saluting, and drawing himself up stiffly. "And in my charge."
"What for?"
"I don't know, Lieutenant. I had my orders from the Colonel himself first thing; and, if you please, I am to prevent you leaving the house. You'll understand my position, sir. Will you give me your word not to attempt to leave?"
"Where are your written orders?" I knew the man well and he liked me.
"My orders are verbal, Lieutenant; but very strict and imperative."
"Privately, do you know anything of the cause of this?"
"You'll have a letter from the Colonel, I think, Lieutenant, within an hour, requiring you to go to him. Major Devinsky is also confined to his quarters, sir; and also, I think, Captain Durescq. We've heard in the regiment, sir, what happened at the officers' club last night." A certain look on his lined bearded face and in his eyes as he saluted me when he said this, told me much.
I chafed at the interference, and cursed the Colonel for having apparently taken a hand in the matter. This butcher would now be able to go back to St Petersburg with a lying garbled tale that we in Moscow got out of quarrels by clinging to the coat tails of our commanding officer; and it made me mad. I tried to persuade the sergeant to let me out to go to the place of meeting; promising to be back within an hour; but he was immovable.
"I would, if I dared, Lieutenant; but I dare not. I'm not the man to stop a fair fight, and I hate this work. But duty's duty."
When Essaieff came, he threw new light on the matter. The affair had caused a huge commotion. In the early hours of the morning he had been summoned to the Colonel, who had in some way got wind of the matter; a very ugly version having been told him. My friend had had to tell the plain truth and there had been the devil to pay. The wires to St Petersburg had been kept going through the night; the whole thing had been laid before Head-Quarters at the Ministry for War; and the arrest of the three principals had been ordered from the capital.
Soon afterwards a peremptory summons came for me from the Colonel and when I got to him I found both Devinsky and Durescq there, together with two or three of the highest officers then stationed in Moscow. A sort of informal examination took place, out of which I am bound to say both the other men came very badly; and in the end we were all three ordered off to stay in our quarters under arrest. I found that not only were we not allowed to go out—sentries being posted in my rooms all the time—but no one was permitted to enter: nor could I communicate with a single individual for two days.
At the end of that time the order came for me to resume duty; and as soon as the morning's drill was over, the Colonel sent for me and told me what had happened. The military authorities at St Petersburg had taken the harshest view of the conduct of my two antagonists. It was regarded as a deliberate plot to kill. Devinsky had been cashiered; and only Durescq's great influence had prevented him from sharing the same fate. As it was, he had had all his seniority struck off, been reduced to the rank of a subaltern, and sent off there and then under quasi arrest with heavy military escort, to a regiment stationed right away on the most southern Turkestan frontier.
"As for Devinsky, the regiment's well rid of him," said the Colonel, with such emphasis and earnestness that I saw his own personal animosity had had quite as much to do with the man's overthrow as the latter's own conduct. But it pleased the old man to put it all down to me, and when we were parting, he shook hands cordially and said:—"The Regiment owes you a vote of thanks, my boy; and I'll see that it's paid in full."
"One question I should like to ask," said I. "How did you get to hear of it all?"
"The news was everybody's property, lad, and—don't ask questions," he replied with dry inconsequence. And would say no more.
But I was soon to learn, and the news surprised me as much as any part of the whole strange incident.
The first use I made of my liberty was to go and see Olga and explain my absence and all that had happened. She had heard a somewhat garbled account of it in which the part I played had been greatly exaggerated, and she received me with the greatest tenderness and sympathy; and tears of what seemed pleasure, but she explained as cold, glistened in her eyes. We had a long and closely confidential chat; and she made me feel more by her trustful manner and gentle attitude than by her actual words, how much she had missed me during the days of our separation and how thankful she was to be free of Devinsky for good, and how much she felt she owed to me on that account.
For myself I was sorry when I had to leave her. She was the only person in Moscow to whom I could speak without restraint; a fact that made our interviews so welcome that I was loath to end this one.
It was getting dusk when I left and as I walked home I was thoughtful and preoccupied. The question of Olga's safety was pressing very hardly on me and made me extremely anxious. The more I saw of her the more eager I was to get her out of harm's way; and the consciousness that she must share the consequences of any disaster that might happen to me, were I discovered, was pressing upon me with increasing severity. I was beginning to anticipate more vividly, moreover, the coming of some such disaster. The time was passing very quickly. It was getting on for nearly three weeks since the Nihilist meeting, and I knew that my Nihilist "allies" would be growing anxious for a sign of my zeal. They were probably well aware that I was doing nothing to redeem my pledge.
There was also the undeniable danger inseparably connected with the distasteful intrigue with Paula Tueski. I had so neglected her in my character of lover that I was hourly expecting some proof of her indignation. I had only seen her twice in the three weeks; and each time in public; and though Olga and she had interchanged visits, I knew perfectly well that she was not the woman to take neglect passively.
I blamed myself warmly, too, for my own inactivity. My whole policy had been so to try and gain time, and yet I had made no use of it, except to get into broils which had increased the already bewildering complications.
That this would be the effect of my quarrel with Devinsky and Durescq, I could not doubt when I came to think the matter over in cool blood. I had been the means of both of them being ruined; and naturally every friend they had in Russia would take part against me. I knew that Durescq had friends among the most powerful circles in Russia, and I had nothing to oppose to their anger save the poor position of a lieutenant in a marching regiment and a past that was full of blackguardism and evil repute. Personally this was all nothing to me; but when I thought of the indirect results it might have for Olga it troubled and worried me deeply.
Everything pointed to one conclusion—that Olga should leave Russia while she could do so in safety. I was meditating on these things when a girl stopped me suddenly, asking if I were Lieutenant Petrovitch. She then gave me a scrap of paper; and I glanced at and read it.
"The old rendezvous, at once. Urgent. P.T."
I questioned the girl as to who gave it to her, and where the person was; but getting no satisfactory account, dismissed her with a few kopecks.
It beat me. Obviously it was from Paula Tueski. Equally obviously it was an appointment at which she had apparently something to say of importance. But where the deuce the "old rendezvous" was I knew no more than the wind.
I am not one to waste time over the impossible; and as I certainly could not go to a place I did not know of, I tore the letter into shreds and went on home.
I let myself in and found that my servant was out—a most unusual thing at that time of the day; but I had begun to fear that the man was below rather than above the average of Russian servants and was already contemplating his dismissal. I did not attach much importance to his present absence, however; and throwing myself into a chair sat and thought or tried to think of some scheme by which I could induce Olga to leave the country, and some means by which her departure could be safely arranged. She must go at once. She had promised me to go when I could tell her it was necessary for my safety; and I could truthfully say that now. If she would go, I would have a dash for liberty myself.
While I was thinking in this strain someone knocked at my outer door, and when I opened it, to my surprise, Paula Tueski rushed in quickly.
A glance at her face shewed me she was in an exceedingly ill temper; as indeed it appeared to me she generally was.
"Where is your servant?" was her first question hurriedly asked.
"I really don't know. Out somewhere; but——"
"His absence means danger, Alexis. Why didn't you come to me when I sent a message to you just now. You read it, questioned the girl, and then tore it up and threw it in the gutter; and all this as unconcernedly as if you did not know full well that from our window you must be in full view of me. Are you always going to scorn me?"
I took care to shew no surprise; but it was clear I had blundered badly, and that the "rendezvous" was close to the spot where the paper had been given to me.
"I could not come. I had to hurry home. I——"
"Bah! Don't trifle with me like that. Haven't you had enough of your prison during the last two days?"
"You know the news, then?" said I, following her gladly off the track.
"It is you who do not know the news. Ah, Alexis, you are giving me more trouble in this new character of yours than ever you did in the old one—much as you harassed me then. But I do not mind if only...." She stopped and looked at me with beaming eyes. "You have not kissed me; and here I am risking all again and even venturing right here into your rooms."
"What do you mean about new character?" I asked. Her phrase had startled me.
"I like it better than the old. Fifty thousand times better 'That devil Alexis,' than 'That roué Petrovitch.' But whenever I think of the change, I can't understand it—I don't understand you. I could almost swear, sometimes, you are not the same man"—she came close up to me and putting her hands on my shoulders, stared long and earnestly right into my eyes—"and then I wonder how I can have been so blind as not to have seen all that lay hidden in you: all that was noble and brave and daring. But I love you, Alexis, twenty thousand times more than ever; and to have saved your life now is a thought of infinite sweetness to me. Kiss me, sweetheart."
I started back as if she had stung me.
"Do you mean you had anything to do with..." I stopped, but she knew what I meant. She smiled and in a voice exquisitely sweet and tender, though hateful to me, she answered:
"Your life is mine, Alexis? Do you think I would let that butcher from St Petersburg take it? Let him keep to his own shambles. Yes, I set the wires in motion, and I did not stop until the one man was utterly ruined and the other degraded in the eyes of all Russia. Your life is mine, Alexis"—she seemed to revel in this hateful phrase—"and those who would strike at you, must reckon with me as well. We are destined for each other, you and I; and we live or die together."
"You have done me a foul wrong, then," I cried hotly. "You have disgraced me; made me out for a braggart that provokes a fight and then shirks it by screening myself behind the law. Do you suppose I thank you for that?" I spoke as sternly as I felt. But she only smiled as she answered,
"I did not think of your feelings. This man would have killed you. His hands are bloody to the armpits. Do you think I would let him find another victim in you when I could stop him and save you? Did you not reproach me, too when I did not interfere before, and tell me my love was cold? Would I suffer such a reproach again, think you? No, no. Your life is mine, I repeat, and for the future I will protect it whether you will or no. That is how I love; and so it shall be always. I have come now to warn you. Hush! What is that?"
I listened and heard someone moving in the lobby of my rooms.
"It is Borlas returned," I said, and opening the door called him. Getting no answer I called again loudly; and then my visitor whispered to me to come back into the room. But I paid no heed to her, and went forward a few steps to go into my servant's room. As I did so, a desperate rush was made and three men disguised, dashed at me violently. They had gained an entrance somehow and were no doubt making their way to attack me in my room or were going to lay in wait for me, when my quick ears heard them and thus spoiled their plans.
I was unarmed, and saw instantly the foolishness of attempting to fight three men, probably armed, while I had not so much as a stick. Making a feint of an attack upon the nearest, therefore, I jumped aside and darted back into the room I had just left, closing the door instantly behind me, while my companion and I held it shut until I had secured it.
Then I turned to her for an explanation.
"They are my husband's agents," she whispered. "He suspects us, as you know; and he arranged this attack, thinking that if you were killed, the act just at this juncture would be set down to Devinsky's revenge. I came on purpose to warn you. If they catch me here now, we are both ruined beyond hope."
"Then they shan't catch us," I replied. "Or if they do, shan't live to carry the tale outside the door:" and I proceeded to put in execution a plan which had already occurred to me.
While the men were straining and fighting to get admission into the room, I loaded my revolver, seized a heavy stick that lay in a corner, and opening the window noiselessly and with some little trouble and agility, got into the street. I let myself into the house and then I thundered at the outer door of my own rooms as if seeking immediate admission.
Instantly there was a great scuffling within, and I knew that the men were making off by the back, in the probable belief that they had been disturbed by some unexpected caller. Judging the time as best I could, so that I might perhaps catch one of them, I rushed in suddenly. One had fled, the second was in the act of dropping from a window, while a third was just clambering out.
I struck this one a blow on the head which laid him down senseless in a heap on the floor, and leaning out was in time to give the second a whack that must have nearly broken his arm. Then without wasting a moment I bound the man I had knocked down and closely bandaged his eyes.
Telling Paula Tueski that I had scared the rascals away, I dragged the fellow to the light, that she might recognise him. She identified him directly, and without a word being spoken except by me, I thrust him into a dark closet and turned the key on him while I settled what to do next.
"You knew him, I could see," I said, when I joined my visitor again. "Is he a police spy?"
"No, not in the ordinary sense. I have seen him with my husband: but exactly what he is, I don't know. I believe he is one of a small band of really villainous men, used for especially ugly work."
"But why am I marked out for a visit from them?"
"I believe my husband has suspected you—on my account. I know he hates you cordially. You remember that affair in the Opera lobby, when you insulted him so grossly." I nodded: but of course I had not the remotest idea what she meant. "He never forgives. Since then he has been accumulating every jot and tittle of fact against you—and you have given him plenty, Alexis—and if he can work your overthrow, he will."
"Yes: but why try to get me assassinated. I'll go at once and ask him," I said, readily and impulsively.
"Are you mad?" exclaimed my companion.
"On the contrary, I'll go and shew him the danger of interfering with me. Where is he to be found now?"
"At home. He will not leave for an hour yet to make his evening visit to the Bureau. But he will never consent to see you."
"At any rate I'll try; and I'm much mistaken if I don't force him. I have a plan," I added, after a minute's thought. "I will clear us both at a stroke. Go at once to my sister, and tell her from me that I wish her to come back here with you and wait for me. Mind, too, should anyone come to fetch away that fellow I've locked up, let Olga say enough in his presence to make it clear that she was here with us when the attack was first made. Be quick and careful: for much will depend on all this being well done."
I drove rapidly to the place and sending in my card asked for an immediate interview with the Chief of the Police, on urgent business. The reply came back that M. Tueski could not see me; I was to call at his office. I sent the messenger back with a peremptory reply that I must see him, as I had discovered an assassination plot. I was still refused admittance; though a longer wait shewed me he had considered the matter carefully.
This time I wrote a brief note:—"One of your hired assassins, has been identified, has confessed, and lies at this moment bound and in my power. If you do not see me now I shall communicate direct with the Ministry of the Interior."
That proved the 'Open Sesame,' and in a few moments, I was ushered into the presence of one of the most hated men in Russia,—the man I had been commissioned to kill.
He was a small man with a face that would have been common looking but for its extraordinarily hard and cold expression. It was lined and seamed in all directions: and each line might have been drawn by Nature with the express object of marking him out as an absolutely merciless, calculating, and emotionless man.
His eyes were very bright as they fixed on me, and his voice, harsh, high pitched and tuneless.
"Men don't belie your new character when they call you daring," was his greeting.
He was standing by the side of a long table with his black clothed figure outlined against the colours of luxuriant tapestries with which the walls were hung. He motioned me to a chair, near enough to be within the demands of courtesy to an officer bearing the Emperor's commission, and far enough removed from him to be safe should the visitor turn out to be dangerous. I noticed, too, that an electric bell button was well within reach. "What do you wish with me, Lieutenant? This visit is unusual."
"I am not accustomed to bother about what is usual where my life is concerned," I answered, firmly. "I want an answer to a plain question. Why do you send your bravoes to assassinate me?"
"I have sent no bravoes to assassinate you, Lieutenant. I don't understand you. We don't hire assassins." As though the whole thing were ridiculous.
"Yet your wife recognised this man instantly."
"My wife!" he exclaimed, with a sufficient change to shew how this had touched him.
"Yes. Your wife. She was in my rooms when these men came."
He drew in a deep breath while he looked at me with eyes of hate. I had got right between the joints of his armour of impassivity. It was a cruel thrust; but I had an ugly game to play, and was forced to hit hard.
He seemed to struggle to repress his private feelings and to remain the impassive official. But human nature and his jealousy beat him, and his next question came with a jerk that shewed the effort behind it.
"What was she doing there?" His tone was the essence of harsh bitterness.
"What was she doing there?" I echoed, as if in the greatest astonishment. "Why, what should she be doing but calling with my sister? They are there now, keeping guard over your—assistant."
He turned away for a moment to prevent my seeing in his face the relief which I could hear in his voice as he answered:—
"You are an even bolder man than I thought."
"I don't understand you, of course; but I have need to be bold," I retorted, "with you against me ready to plan my private execution. They're heavy odds. But now, perhaps, you'll answer my question—Why do you do this?"
"There might be many reasons—if it were true," he answered in the same curt tone he had first used.
"One's enough for me, if it's true," I replied, copying his sharp manner.
He stood a minute looking at me in silence, and then sat down.
"I think I've been doing you an injustice, Lieutenant," he said, presently. "I thought when you forced your way into me you might be coming to assassinate me. But I see now you're not such a fool as to try and do anything of that kind when you have left a broad trail behind you that would lead to your certain detection. You are young; with all the weaknesses of youth strongly developed—rash, hotheaded, sometimes tipsy, a fool with women, and when, necessary, a knave too, loose in money matters and unscrupulous, a gambler, a dicer, and a bankrupt in morals, religion, and honour. But you are shrewd—for you've deceived everyone about your sword-skill and your courage—and under the garb of a worthless fellow you have a cool, calculating, and yet dare-devil head that should make your fortune. Others are more right about you than I."
"Others?" I asked, interested and amused by this quiet enumeration of the results of the analysis of two very different, but united characters. "Who are the others?"
A faint ghost of what in another man would have been a smile relaxed the grim, hard, straight lips for an instant, in mockery of my attempt to draw him.
"You are not unknown, Lieutenant, as you may find soon; but you are a fool to mix yourself up with the Nihilists."
It was my turn now to be on the defensive.
"That is a charge which a child can make and the wisest man can sometimes fail to rebut," I answered, sharply. "I am not a Nihilist."
He waved his hand as if my repudiation were not worth a serious thought.
"I can make you a career, if you will. If you will act under me...."
"Thank you," I returned, coldly. "I know what you can do. You can put me first on the list for some task which will insure my being served as you meant me to be served to-day. One commission is enough for me, and I prefer the Emperor's."
"You don't know what you say, nor what you refuse."
"All the more reason for not regretting my refusal," I retorted, lightly. "But this does not answer my question—Why do you seek to have me assassinated?"
"Siberia is getting overpopulated," he returned, manifestly angry at my refusal.
"You mean it's cheaper to kill than to exile."
"One must have some regard for its morals, too," he sneered, with a contempt at which my rage took fire.
I looked at him with a light in my eyes which he could read plainly enough.
"You are a coward, M. Tueski," said I, sternly: "because you presume upon the office you hold to say things which without the protection that guards you, you would not dare to let between your teeth."
"It is useless to talk in that strain to me," he said, shortly. "I know you."
"No—by Heaven, you don't—yet. But I'll let you know something of me now. Men say you know no fear; that your loves, desires, emotions, are all dead—all, save ambition. I'll test that. This plot you have laid against my life is your own private revenge for some fancied wrong. You have sought to carry it out even at the very moment when you had had a hint to guard me. It was cunningly laid, and nearly succeeded; and then you would have set the blame down at Devinsky's door."
He listened without making a sign: quite impassively. But the mere fact that he did listen shewed me I was striking the right note, and further that he wished to see what I meant to do.
"Go on," he said, contemptuously, when I paused.
"I can prove this: aye, and I will prove it, even if I go to the Emperor himself: and prove it—by your own wife." He could not wholly conceal the effect of this. He knew the strength of the threat.
"More than that," I cried then, quickening my speech and shewing much more passion. "You know what the world says about me and your wife. You shewed me you knew it, when I told you just now that she was in my rooms when your men came to try and take my life. You have dared to smirch my honour in regard to women: and you have lied. So far as your wife is concerned, there has never been a thought of mine toward her tainted with dishonour. So far as I am concerned she is virgin pure. But, by God! beware how you taunt me. It lies with you to say whether I shall change; and if you drive me to it, I'll...."
I left the terrible sentence unfinished; and the change in the man's manner shewed me how he was inwardly shrinking and wincing at my desperate words.
"Go on. What do you want?" He spoke after a great effort and strove to keep his voice at the dead level of official lifelessness. But the man was an inward fire of rage and jealousy.
"This duel is not my seeking, but yours, M. Tueski," I continued. "And for my part I would as soon have a truce. But if we are to fight on, I will use every weapon I can lay my hand on,—and use them desperately. You can prove the truth of what I say. Send round someone to my rooms and fetch away the scoundrel who is there. My sister will let him go. Your wife, her friend, is staying with her to help in case of need. And whatever else I may be, at least I should not give my mistress to my sister for a friend."
"You are the devil!" The words forced themselves through his teeth at this word. I used it deliberately: and it was the shrewdest thing I could have done. He left the room without another word, going through a door behind him; and, calling to someone, he whispered some instructions.
"You have sent? You are right," I said, when he returned. "And now, call off these bloodhounds of yours; and so long as you play fair with me, my sister and your wife can be friends. And no longer. One other condition. Give me two police permits to cross the frontier on special business—one for me and one for my sister. You may not be sorry if I decide to take a holiday."
"I cannot give them, and you cannot leave," he answered.
"Write me the permits. I'll see about using them."
"No; I cannot write them. If I did, they would be cancelled to-morrow by the Ministry of the Interior."
"Why?"
"The fact is what I say. You cannot leave Russia."
"I care nothing for that. Write them—or we resume this duel, M. Tueski."
He was a changed man. He was so accustomed to exact implicit obedience to his will, and to ride roughshod over everyone about him, that now being beaten, his collapse was utter and complete. He was absolutely overcome by the pressure I could threaten and he thought I was blackguard enough to apply.
For once at least my old black character did me a good turn. He acted like a weak child now, entirely subjected by my will. He wrote the permits as I directed.
As he was writing it occurred to me there must be some influence behind the scenes which told with him. Else, why did he not forthwith write out the order for my imprisonment? He had done it hundreds of times before in the case of men infinitely more influential than myself. His signature would open the door of any prison in Russia. It suggested itself that it was this reason which was at the bottom of the attempt to get me killed. He dared not follow out his own desire.
"One thing puzzles me," I said, coolly, as I took the permits. "Why haven't you, instead of writing these, written an order packing me off to gaol? What is this power behind you?"
"I may live in hope, perhaps," he returned. "Your sword and your shrewdness may carry you far: and some day as far as the gaol you speak of. I shan't fail to write it when the time comes."
I left him with that.
As I left the house a man pressed close to me, and I turned to see what he wanted. There was no one else about.
"Is it done?" he whispered.
I looked at him keenly; but I had never seen him before, I thought.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The night in the riverside wharf," he whispered back.
He was a Nihilist; here right in the very eye of the police web.
"The way is laid," I answered, equivocally, as I hurried away.
I had actually forgotten in my eagerness all about my charge to kill the man with whom I had been closeted in conference.
But I saw instantly that the Nihilist would probably hold it for an act of treachery that I had been in Tueski's house and yet had let him live.
I walked back to my rooms as I wished to cool my head and think. The interview with Christian Tueski had excited me, and what was of more importance, had kindled a hope that after all I might be able to escape the tremendous difficulties that encompassed me.
One thing in particular pleased me, for it was a double-edged knife loosening two sets of the complications. It was the promise I had given to the man to respect his wife so long as he kept faith with me. This gave me power over him, and what was of infinitely greater value to me personally, it was a shrewd defence against the wife also.
I smiled as I thought of the ingenuity of this; but I little thought what would be the actual result. It seemed then the shrewdest and cleverest, as well as the most daring thing I had done; but in the end the consequences were such as might properly have followed an act of the grossest stupidity and villainy possible. For the moment it pleased me, however, and I was in truth finding the keenest pleasure in this parrying of the thrusts which the fates were making at me.
There was a problem I could not solve, however, in the question of the power which seemed to be behind the Chief of the Police; the power which made him apparently afraid to strike me openly though so willing to trip me secretly. I could not imagine what it could be, nor whence it could come.
When I reached my rooms my sister and Paula Tueski were waiting for me in the greatest anxiety; and both were overjoyed to see me safe and apparently in high spirits. The police agents had been for the fellow I had left under lock and key; and Olga had taken care to carry out my instructions to the letter. Her quick instincts had warned her, and she had made a parade of almost affectionate friendship for the other woman during the time the men had been present.
After I arrived she could scarcely take her eyes off me, and I saw them glistening as with tears.
"I will take you home, directly," I said, carelessly, as a brother might speak. "But I have something to say first to Madame Tueski; so you must wait for a few minutes."
A look of reproach nearly found expression in hasty words, but remembering herself she said hastily, acting the part to the life:—
"Oh, you're always so mysterious, Alexis. I've no patience with you."
Then I led the other into my second sitting-room and told her much of what had passed: and when I came to that part of the interview that immediately concerned herself, she was very bitter and angry.
"You think I am a pawn to be moved where you like in your game; of no account, and the meanest thing on the board. You and he are both alike in that—but wait. Your life is mine, Alexis. I have told you."
"But you must surely see that the first consideration must be all our lives—to say nothing of our safety," I answered, rather roughly, I fear, and very unsympathetically. Her heroics rasped me. "What the deuce is the good of your loving me if your husband shuts me up in a dungeon, or sends me dancing to Siberia, or causes a dagger to let out my life blood?"
"You mean to keep the word you gave him?"
"Certainly, so long as he keeps his."
She fixed her large lustrous eyes on me and let them rest on me during a long pause of silence.
"You and he together will drive me to some desperate deed," she said, at length, very slowly. "Then perhaps you will learn what a love like mine will dare for your sake. I cannot and will not bear this separation."
She wearied me with these protests, but I said nothing and went on to question her as to whether there was any power behind her husband influencing him in regard to me. She knew nothing, but admitted that she had her suspicions.
I told her next that while he was trying to assassinate me, she might find the tables turned on him, as there was a Nihilist plot on foot to assassinate him. She paid little heed to it at first, saying that there had been many such schemes formed, all of which had proved abortive, because he was most carefully and continuously guarded. A moment later, however, her manner changed a little, and she questioned me somewhat closely concerning the matter.
"They don't choose their agents shrewdly in these things," she said, "and we hear too soon of their designs. They should choose a man like you, Alexis." She seemed to speak with a hidden meaning, and I was doubtful whether she knew anything; but I kept my doubts to myself.
"If they had done that, I had a rare chance to-night," I answered.
"A bold man or a reckless woman makes the chance," she retorted in the same manner. "I am going, Alexis:" she added, and then forced on me caresses which were vastly repulsive. But I could not reveal my true feelings until I had at any rate placed Olga in safety. My indifference and coldness were apparent to the woman, and she upbraided me with a burst of angry passion, till I had to patch up a sort of peace.
We went back to Olga and soon afterwards drove away, Olga and I setting the other down at her door.
So long as Madame Tueski was with us, Olga maintained the part of the impatient sister; but as soon as we were alone her manner changed altogether.
"I had to send for you this evening," I said, "And you saved me from a situation of great difficulty and hazard by coming so promptly. I thank you for having done so."
No reply. I glanced at her in the gloomy light in the cab and saw the profile set hard and immobile, with the lips pressed closely together.
"Storm signals out," thought I.
"I was saying I thanked you. You acted with rare discretion and did me a great service."
Not a word.
"You were not so silent just now." I hazarded.
"I was acting—with discretion." She repeated my word with that relish and enjoyment which a well regulated mind always feels about a telling sarcasm.
"And what sort of discretion is this?" I retorted, laughing.
She was silent again.
"I have a good deal to tell you in explanation."
"I have no wish to hear anything, thank you," she interposed. "I can trust your discretion"—much emphasis again on the word—"as completely as you can mine. I am glad to have been ofuseto you and Madame Tueski." She threw the word "use" at me as if it had been a bomb to be exploded in my face.
"What have I done that's wrong? I'm very sorry," I said.
"I beg you not to apologise. You never used to, and as you appear to be slipping back into your old habits it would be out of character to apologise—to me. I am only to be used."
"I don't a bit understand you."
There was a moment's silence, and then she could contain her indignation no longer and burst out with the cause of it.
"Why didn't you send me home immediately you returned? You could surely have given me your servant as an escort. Then you would have spared me the shame and humiliation of waiting during your private interchange of confidences with that woman."
At that instant we stopped at her house.
"Please not to come in to-night," she said. "I have had to keep certain things waiting here while I was being ofuseto you, and was sitting alone in your rooms; and I have now very much to do."
"I am sorry to trouble you; but I am coming in. This thing must be cleared up at once;" and I followed my very angry sister into the house.
She led the way to a small drawing-room and turning to me said coldly:—
"I am ready to hear what you wish to say."
I had been thinking quickly during the interval, and now changed my point of attack.
"I had a very serious thing to say. You gave me your promise...."
"I would rather you would not remind me of any promises," she interrupted. This was said deliberately; but then she broke through her cold formality, and with a little stamp of her foot finished angrily:—"I won't keep them. I won't be reminded of them. Things are altered—altogether altered."
"What I was going to say is..." I began, when she broke in again.
"I won't hear it. I don't want to hear any more. I wish you'd go away."
"You must hear me," I said quietly, but with some authority in my tone.
"'Must!' I don't understand you."
"Must—for your own safety."
"Thank you. I can protect myself. Your other cares and responsibilities have a prior claim on you. Will you please leave me now?"
"No, I can't go, until I've told you...."
"I will not listen! Didn't I tell you?" She was vehemence itself.
I shrugged my shoulders in despair.
"This morning..." I began; but the moment I opened my lips she broke out again with her vehement interruptions.
"Ah, things were different this morning. I had not then been insulted. Do you forget I am a Russian; and think you can treat me as you will—keep me waiting while—bah! it is unbearable. Will you go away? Is there no sense of manliness in you that will make you leave me? Must I call for assistance? I will do that if you do not leave me. You can write what you have to say. But, please, spare me the pain of seeing you again."
Her words cut me to the quick; but they roused me also.
"You had better call for assistance," I answered firmly. Then I crossed to the door, locked it, and put the key in my pocket. "I will spare you the pain of another interview; but now that I am here, I decline to go until I have explained."
"You cannot explain," she burst in. The word seemed to madden her.
"Cannot explain what?"
"That woman's kisses!"
The words appeared to leap from her lips involuntarily; and she repented them as soon as uttered; and drawing herself up she tried to appear cold and stolid. But this attempt failed completely; and in her anger at the thought behind the words and with herself for having given it utterance, she stood looking at me, her bosom heaving and tossing with agitation and her face and eyes aglow with an emotion, which with a strange delight, I saw was jealousy.
There came a long pause, during which I recalled her manner and the way she had played with my words, during one of our rides when we had spoken of Devinsky's proposal to make her his wife.
I have always been slow to read women's hearts and have generally read them wrong; but I began to study this with a sense of new and peculiar pleasure.
She was getting very dear to me for a sister.
If my guess was right, my conduct with that infernal women, Paula Tueski, must have been gall and wormwood to Olga.
How should I have relished it had the position been reversed, and Devinsky been in Paula Tueski's place?
These thoughts which flashed across me in rapid succession produced a peculiar frame of mind. I had stood a minute in silence, not looking at her, and when I raised my eyes again I was conscious of sensations toward her, that were altogether different from anything I had felt before. She had become more beautiful than ever in my eyes; I, more eagerly anxious to please and appease; while at bottom there was a dormant fear that I might be mistaken in my new reading of her actions, in which was mixed up another fear, not nearly so strong, that her anger on account of Paula Tueski might really end in our being separated.
My first act shewed the change in me.
I ceased to feel the freedom with which I had hitherto acted the part of brother, and I immediately threw open the door and stood aside that she might go out if she wished. Then I said:—
"Perhaps you are right. My conduct may be inexcusable even to save your life."
Whether there was anything in my manner that touched her—I was conscious of speaking with much less confidence than usual; or whether it was the act of unfastening the door: or whether, again, some subtle influence had set her thoughts moving in parallel columns to mine, I do not know. But her own manner changed quite as suddenly as mine; and when she caught my eyes on her, she flushed and paled with effects that made her radiantly beautiful to me.
She said not a word; and finding this, I continued:—
"I am sorry a cloud has come between us at the last, and through something that was not less hateful to me because forced by the needs of the case. We have been such friends; but...." here I handed her the permit—"you must use this at once."
She took it and read it slowly in silence, and then asked:—
"How did you get this?"
"Myself, personally, from the Chief of the Police."
"Why did you run the mad risk of going to him yourself?"
"There was no risk—not so much in going to him as in keeping away from him. He had tried to have me murdered, and I went to find out the reason."
"I told you I would not leave."
"Unless—and the condition now applies—it was necessary for my safety."
"And you?" The light of fear was in her eyes as she asked this.
"As soon as you are across the frontier I shall make a dash for my liberty also. I can't go before, because my absence would certainly bring you under suspicion."
She looked at me again very intently, her head bent slightly forward and her lips parted with the strain of a new thought; while suspicion of my motive chased the fear for my safety from her face.
"Is this to get me out of the way? I won't go!"
"Olga!"
All my honour for myself and my love for her were in that note of reproach, and they appeared to waken an echo; for then this most strange girl threw herself down on to a couch and burying her face in her hands sobbed passionately.
I turned away from the sight of her emotion—the more painful because of the strong self-reserve and force of character she had always shewn—and paced up and down the room. I forced back my own feelings and the desire to tell her what those feelings were. To do that would be worse than madness. Till we were out of Russia, we were brother and sister and the bar between us was heavier than we could hope to move.
When the storm of her sobs ceased, she remained for some minutes quite still: and I would not break the silence, knowing she was fighting her way back to self-possession.
Presently, she got up and came to me, holding out her hand.
"I will go, Alexis—we are still firm friends?"—with a little smile of wistful interrogation. "Can you forgive my temper? I was mad for the moment, I think. But I trust you. I do indeed, absolutely. I know you had no thought of insulting me. I know that. I couldn't think so meanly of you. It's hard to leave—Russia—and—and everything. And you, too—at this time. Must I really go?" A half-beseeching glance into my eyes and a pause for the answer I could not give. "Very well. I know what your silence means. Come to-morrow morning—and say"—she stopped again and bit her trembling lips to steady them as she framed the word—"and say—goodbye to me. And now, please, let me go—brother and truest friend."
She wrung my hand, and then before I could prevent her or even guess her intention, she pressed her lips to it and, with the tears again in her eyes, she went quickly away, leaving me to stare after her like a helpless fool, longing to call her back and tell her everything, and yet afraid.