CHAPTER VI.THE WATCH.

I changed my mind with regard to leaving St. Petersburg in three days, and decided to stay a week longer. For this change I made no explanation except to Mary, whom I took into my confidence, telling her of my intended visit to Ursula and asking her to go with me. At first she shrank from the idea in alarm, but finally consented, and on the afternoon of the second day after our adventure, we started again for what Mary called the thieves’ quarters. To save time we took adroskynearly to the end of the Nevsky, and walked the rest of the way. It was a warm afternoon and the street was swarming with children who, at sight of us, set up a clamor. “She’s come again—the madame who talks as we do,” and they began to gather around us; but I waved them off so imperatively that they did not even touch us with their hands as I went forward to where Ursula was again sitting in her door mending some garments which I knew intuitively belonged to her scapegrace nephew. She looked surprised when she saw us,but arose at once and asked us to come in instead of sitting upon the steps, as we had done before. Her room was neat and clean and homelike, although poorly furnished and showing signs of poverty.

“Please keep them out,” I said, motioning to the children, some of whom followed us in. “My business with you is private.”

An expression I did not quite like came upon her face as she sent the children away, and then, speaking in English, said: “What is it? Why have you come again?”

I told her very briefly that everything pointed to Carl as the thief who had entered Michel Seguin’s house, and why I was interested to get the watch, if possible. “Do you think Carl has it?” I asked.

Her needle came unthreaded just then, and after biting the end of her thread several times and making several jabs at the eye of her needle, she took up the poor old coat, patched in many places, and replied: “I don’t think—I never know what he has, nor what he does except as I hear it. I’ll not deny that the police have been here after him, but they didn’t get him. He’s cute,” and she smiled in a proud kind of way at the boy’s cuteness in eluding the vigilance of the gendarmes.

“Do you see him often?” I asked, and she replied: “Yes, and no; if he is hard pressed he stays where they can’t find him. Late at night he comes in to see me.”

“Can you communicate with him when you wish to?” I asked next, and she replied: “Yes, we have ways and means—a kind of underground railroad such as your people used to have when you had a slavery not half as crushing as ours.”

“You are a nihilist,” I said, and instantly her face flamed up, then grew pale, as she replied: “Of course I am. Half of us are nihilists at heart. Not that we want to kill the czar. That’s murder. We want a freer government, like yours, where we dare call our souls our own and are not watched at every turn.”

We were getting away from the object of my visit, and I came back to it by saying: “Will you see Carl and ask him to bring you the watch? I don’t care for the silver; it is the watch I want. I let him go when I might have kept him till the gendarme came. I think there is enough good in him to do me this favor.”

“He may do it for you. He was very grateful. Paul Strigoff is a devil,” she said; then she added, suddenly: “You and Michel Seguin are great friends.”

“Marry him! Marry a Russian! Never!”

I did not know whether we were or not, but it was safe to answer in the affirmative and that he had been very kind to us all since we first met him.

“He is of a good family and ought to be something better than a hunter of criminals. People wonder he took it up. Would you marry him?” was her next question.

“Marry him! Marry a Russian! Never!” I exclaimed, so loud that she started in her chair. Her spectacles fell off and her needle came unthreaded again.

“They are not so bad if you get the right one,” she said, adjusting her glasses and making more jabs at the eye of her needle.

I threaded it for her, and as there was nothing to gain by stopping longer, I took my leave, after bidding her let me know at once if she had good news for me.

“To-morrow,” was her reply, and I left her patching the old coat which made me faint to look at, it spoke so plainly of poverty and the scenes it must have been in, for I believed it was the one Carl had worn when I met him, and that the rent which Ursula was mending was made by Chance’s big paws.

Quite a retinue of children attended us for a ways, and among them my old hat was conspicuous again, worn this time right side before, with a piece of an oldblue veil twisted round it and round the girl’s face. That night seemed interminable as I waited for the to-morrow and what it might bring from Ursula. It brought a note addressed in a fair hand, and containing only the words: “Come this afternoon at two o’clock, and alone.”

I did not quite like the word alone, but did not hesitate a moment. But how should I manage it? What excuse should I make to my friends who were already looking upon me as something of a crank? At last I decided to make no excuse except that I was going out on business and alone, with the exception of Chance, who was already waiting outside the hotel, as he had waited every morning since my adventure with Carl. Mary suspected where I was going, but said nothing, and at a little before two I was driving along the Nevsky till I reached a point where I alighted, telling the driver I would walk the rest of the way. Chance was in high spirits, sometimes running far ahead of me and then bounding back to my side. The moment I turned into the street, or square, where Ursula lived his whole attitude changed. His fur seemed rough and his head was lowered to the ground as he started on a racing gallop as if in pursuit of something. He was usuallyobedient to my call, and I succeeded in getting him back and kept my hand upon his neck until I reached Ursula’s house. There were not as many children in sight as usual. They had gone on a picnic and the street was very quiet. Ursula was watching for me, but her countenance fell when she saw Chance pulling to get free.

“I thought you would come alone,” she said. “I am afraid of that dog.”

“He is harmless if there is nothing to be harmed,” I replied, taking the chair she offered me and still holding Chance, who tugged to get away from me, and finally did so, beginning to run in circles around the room and to scratch at a door which, I think, opened into a bedchamber and in which I heard a rustling sound as of some one moving. “Carl is in there,” I said to Ursula, who replied, after listening a moment, while Chance continued banging at the door with his huge paws: “He was there. He is not now, thank God! He has a way of leaving the place unknown to anyone but ourselves. And he has taken it. He saw the dog coming with you and was afraid like myself. I sent for him last night and told him what you wanted. He had the watch and promised to bring it this afternoon andgive it to you himself. He wanted to thank you personally for letting him go that day and to tell you he was not all bad and was going to do better. He brought the watch, but dare not face the dog.”

She arose and went into the bedroom, followed by Chance, who acted as if he would tear up the floor and ceiling, until I quieted him by the first blow I had ever given him, and which wrung from him a look of intense surprise as he crouched at my feet with his nose on the floor as if scenting something.

“Do you recognize it?” Ursula asked, putting the watch in my hands. “It has a name and date on the lid.”

I knew it was Nicol’s without the name, and the touch of it was like the touch of a vanished hand not dead in reality to my knowledge, but dead to me except so far as memory was concerned, and the sight of it brought Nicol as vividly to mind as when I was the pupil and he the teacher—young, handsome and strong in all that makes a man strong mentally and physically, and I could hear his voice calling meLucy, as he did once or twice when we were alone, and his soft, brown eyes looked at me as no other eyes since had ever looked. Where was he now, and what the mystery surrounding him? And——

“I thought you would come alone. I am afraid of that dog.”

There came over me a flash of heat which made my blood boil, as I thought: “Could Chance find him from this clew?” Then as quickly I answered: “No. I will get the truth from Michel Seguin when I give him back his property.”

As I turned to go I offered Ursula money for Carl. But with a proud gesture she refused it. “He thought you might do it and said he should not take it. He was not as mean as that,” she said, giving me a box in which to put the watch which was ticking as loudly and evenly as it had done years ago in the schoolhouse in Ridgefield. I wanted to give the woman something to show my gratitude to her, and offered her the stick pin which held my scarf. But she declined it; then, with a wistful look at the knot of red, white and blue ribbon which I always wore, she asked if I had another like it. I had, and at once gave her the knot, which she took with thanks.

“It is the badge of a free country,” she said, “where I once thought to go. It is too late now for me, but if Carl could get there it might make a good man of him. Here he can do nothing buthide—hide—till he is caught again, and then Siberia, or a dungeon!”

I was sorry for the woman, whose dim old eyes werefull of tears as she bade me good-by, saying: “You will not betray my boy by telling where he was when you got the watch?”

“Never!” I answered, and kissed the tired, white face which I might never see again.

I did not know what Mrs. Grundy would say when she saw a lone woman stop at Michel Seguin’s house, nor did I care. I was at a point where Mrs. Grundy’s opinion did not matter, and I bade the driver of thedroskyleave me at Monsieur Seguin’s door, after ascertaining that he was at home. His face was one of intense surprise when he saw me, and mingling with the surprise was a look of pleasure as he came forward to meet me.

“What is it? What has happened?” he asked, for I was shaking with excitement.

“Let me go to your room—Nicol’s room, and I will tell you,” I said.

He led the way to his den, and opening the box, I put the watch upon the table without a word.

“What!” he exclaimed, springing forward and taking it up. “My watch! Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t find it,” I said. “I got it through Carl. No matter how, nor when. He brought it to me, but the silver I did not get.”

“I don’t care for the silver,” he said, a little impatiently. “It was the watch I prized, because——”

He stopped abruptly and seemed to be thinking, while I was nerving myself for what I meant to do.

“You would make a splendid detective,” he said at last. “How can I thank you?”

Here was my chance. “You can thank me first,” I replied, “by letting that boy alone for a while, and if he is arrested again, don’t be harsh or cruel with him. There is good there which the knout will never improve.”

“Promised!” he said. “I’ll look after the lad myself, for your sake.”

The tone of his voice said what his half-shut eyes could not express, and I felt the blood tingling in my veins as I went on hurriedly:

“You can also tell me the mystery surrounding Nicol and why he is in hiding where even you cannot find him. You are a man and I am a woman—no longer young, and so I do not mind telling you that I liked Nicol Patoff very much, and I should be so glad to see him, and—and——”

Here I began to choke; but I swallowed hard, putaside all shame, and went on: “You have a lock of hair which he left when he went away. You said it wasblack; I know better; it isred, bright red—the color mine was when a young girl. It is darker now. He asked me for it, and I gave it to him. I want it back. It is mine, not yours. Will you give it to me?”

His eyes were wider open now than I had ever seen them, and startled me with an expression I could not define, but which made me wish I was not there talking to him.

“As Nicol’s property I must keep it with the watch until such time as he can claim them openly,” he said at last. “I know he thought more of the hair than of the watch. I cannot give it up.”

His manner was decided, and I felt my temper rising, but forced it down; for there was one more favor I would ask, and then I would say good-by to him forever.

“You have refused to give me the hair, but you have promised to be kind to Carl for my sake. Will you be equally lenient toward Nicol, should he be arrested and under your authority? Do you think you could do anything to help him? They say you are all powerful with your friends. Will you try to have Nicol’s punishment a little lighter? I don’t know what he has done, butdon’t let them give him the knout, nor the dungeon, nor Siberia,nor anything.”

I was choking now and standing up, with my hands clinched so tightly that my nails hurt my flesh, while he, too, stood with his eyes closed, his chin quivering, and his teeth pressed tightly over his under lip. When he spoke his voice was strained and unnatural, as he said: “Pardon me for what I am going to say. Do you love Nicol Patoff? Would you marry him if he stood high in St. Petersburg?”

He had asked me a similar question once before, and, as then, I now answered quickly: “No, I could not marry a Russian. I hate your government machinery. I should be a nihilist in a month, and my house would be a rendezvous for them.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but you have not answered my most important question: ‘Do you love Nicol Patoff?’ I have no right to ask you, but do you?”

He seemed terribly in earnest, and I recoiled a step from him as I answered: “No! I esteemed him as a friend, nothing more; and since I have known he was in danger I have felt a great interest in him; but love him—marry him—I couldn’t. I have answered you, and now tell me, can you shield him if he is found?”

“I think I can,” was his reply.

“And will you?”

“I will.”

“And will you tell him that I have not forgotten him?”

“I will,” were the replies and answers which followed rapidly as we walked side by side to the street, where I gave him my hand and said: “We shall certainly leave in two or three days, and I may not see you again. I must thank you for all the kindness you have shown us, helping us over rough places and in many ways, but most I thank you for Chance, who has been invaluable at times.”

He was still holding my hand and looking at me as if there was something he wished to say and was struggling to keep back. Whatever it was he did not say it, but, dropping my hand quickly, hailed adrosky, into which he put me, and, with a simple “Good-by,” turned back to his house. I made no explanation to anyone as to where I had been. I was too tired; my head ached, and I did not wish for any dinner, I said, and went to bed early, deciding to leave St. Petersburg as soon as possible. With a woman’s instinct I felt tolerably sure of the nature of M. Seguin’s feeling for me, but could not analyze my feelings for him. Heboth fascinated and repelled me. I liked him and feared him, for something in his personality always influenced me more than I cared to be influenced, and I wished to get away from it.

“We will have just one more day of looking around and then let’s go,” I said, at breakfast, to my friends, who acquiesced readily, for they longed for new scenes.

St. Petersburg was monotonous and vexatious. They had shown their passports and sworn to their nationality and ages and occupations until they were tired of it, and were quite ready to leave.

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