'Rufus!' she cried in great distress, 'what have you done?'
'The question is what he's done to you,' answered Van Torp. 'I believe the blackguard has shot you!'
'It's nothing. Thank God it hit me! It was meant for you.'
Van Torp's rage instantly turned into tender care, and he insisted on examining the wound, which was slight but would leave a scar. By a miracle the ball had grazed the angle of the temple without going near the temporal artery, and scarcely singeing the thick brown hair.
Van Torp rang and sent for water and absorbent cotton, and made a very neat dressing, over which Lady Maud tied her big veil. Just as this was done, Stemp appeared at the door.
'It's ready, sir, if you would like to come and see. I've not scratched him once, sir.'
'All right.' Van Torp turned to Lady Maud. 'Do you feel faint? Lean on my arm.'
But she would not, and she walked bravely, holding herself so straight that she looked much taller than he, though she felt as if she were going to execution.
A moment later she uttered a loud cry and clung to{423}Van Torp's shoulder with both hands. But as for him, he said only two words.
'You hellhound!'
The man was not Boris Leven.
"The man was not Boris Leven.""The man was not Boris Leven."
"The man was not Boris Leven."
The eyes, the upper part of the face, the hair, even the flowing moustaches were his, but not the small retreating chin crossed by the sharp, thin scar of a sword-cut long healed.
'I know who you are,' said Van Torp, surveying him gravely. 'You're Long-legged Levi's brother, that disappeared before he did. I remember that scar.'
The sham Kralinsky was securely tied down in a chair and the boatswain and the five seamen stood round him, an admiring public. Captain Brown had been informed of what had happened and was going on, and the discipline he maintained on board was so perfect that every man on the watch was at his post, and the steamer was already under weigh again. The boatswain and his contingent belonged to the watch below, which had not been called for the start.
'Let me off easy,' said Long-legged Levi's brother. 'I've not done you any harm.'
'Beyond wounding Lady Maud, after trying to pass yourself off as her dead husband. No. I won't let you off. Boatswain, I want this man arrested, and we'll take him and all his belongings before the British Consul in Messina in less than an hour. You just attend to that, will you? Somebody go and tell the Captain.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
For the boatswain and the men had seen and heard,{424}and they knew that Mr. Van Torp was right, and they respected him, and the foreign impostor had wounded an English woman; and having given his orders, the owner and Lady Maud turned and left Long-legged Levi's brother tied to the chair, in a very dejected state, and his uncertain eyes did not even follow them.
The rest is soon told. A long inquiry followed, which led to the solution of the mystery and sent Count Yuryi Leven to Siberia; for he was Boris Leven's twin brother.
The truth turned out to be that there had been three brothers, the youngest being Ivan, and they had all entered the same Cossack regiment, and had served in the Caucasus, where most officers learn the Tartar language, which is spoken by all the different tribes. It will be simpler to designate them by the English equivalents for their names.
Boris behaved himself tolerably well in the army, but both his brothers, John and George, who was his twin, were broken for cheating at cards, and emigrated to America. So long as they all wore their beards, as officers of Cossack regiments usually do, they were very much alike. They were all educated men of refined tastes, and particularly fond of music.
When his two brothers were cashiered, Boris resigned, entered the diplomatic service, married Lady Maud Foxwell, and was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg.
John and George separated in America when they were tired of punching cattle.
John was something of a naturalist and was by far{425}the most gifted of the three as well as the most daring. He gravitated to China and at last to Mongolia, wandering alone in search of plants and minerals, and it was to him that Baraka showed the ruby mine. He got back to civilisation with his treasure and took it to Petersburg unmolested.
There he found George earning a poor living in an obscure position in the public service, his conduct in the army having been condoned or overlooked. John, who was the incarnation of selfishness, would do nothing for him. George, exasperated by him, and half starved, murdered him in such a way that he was supposed to have died by an accident, took possession of his hoard of unsold rubies, and wrote to his twin brother to come and share the fortune John had left them.
George and Boris had been in constant correspondence, and had even helped each other with money from time to time. Some weeks elapsed after Boris's return to St. Petersburg before his death, and during that time, he told George, who knew London well and had moreover helped him in his attempt to get a divorce, a vast number of details about his married life and his wife's behaviour, her character and tastes. Then Boris was killed in the street, and George left the country and changed his name, with the vague idea that his own was not a very creditable one and that if he kept it he might be troubled by his brother Boris's numerous creditors. He began life over again as Kralinsky.
He had not entertained the least intention of passing himself for Boris and claiming Lady Maud as his wife,{426}till he met her, and her beauty made him lose his head completely when he saw that she took him for her husband. He would have been found out inevitably sooner or later, but Van Torp's vigorous action shortened Lady Maud's torments.
George was tried, and Russian justice awoke, possibly under pressure from England. The family history of the Levens was exhumed and dissected before the courts. The creditors of Boris Leven appeared in legions and claimed that in proper course he should have inherited the rubies from his murdered brother, who would then have been able to pay his debts. The court thought so too, and ordered the confiscated treasure to be sold.
But since it had been Boris's, the law was obliged to declare that the residue of the money, after paying the debts, was the property of Countess Leven, Boris's widow.
Lady Maud thus found herself in possession of a considerable fortune, for she accepted the inheritance when she was assured that it would go to the Russian Crown if she refused it. But there was a fall in the price of rubies, and the Russian government at once sent an expensive expedition to find the mine, an attempt which altogether failed, because Ivan Leven had never told any one where it was, nor anything about it, and the court only knew from certain jewellers who had dealt both with Kralinsky and Baraka, that it was 'somewhere in Central Asia,' which is an insufficient direction, even for a ruby mine.
The wealth Lady Maud thus commands enables her{427}to carry much further than formerly the peculiar form of charity which she believes to be her own invention, if it may be properly called charity at all, and which consists in making it worth while and agreeable to certain unfortunate people to live decent lives in quiet corners without starving, instead of calling to them to come out from behind the Virtue-Curtain and be reformed in public. It is a very expensive charity, however, and very hard to exercise, and will never be popular; for the popular charities are those that cost least and are no trouble.
Madame Konstantinos Logotheti is learning French and English, on the Bosphorus, with her husband, and will make a sensation when he brings her to London and Paris. On the day of his marriage, in Constantinople, Logotheti received a letter from Lady Maud, telling him how sorry she was that she had not believed him, that day on the yacht at Scaletta, and saying that she hoped to meet his wife soon. It was an honest apology from an honest woman.
He received a letter a few days later from Margaret, and on the same day a magnificently printed and recklessly illustrated booklet reached him, forwarded from Paris. The letter was from Margaret to tell him that she also took back what she had thought about Baraka and hoped to see him and her before long. She said she was glad, on the whole, that he had acted like a lunatic, because it was likely that they would both be happier. She herself, she said, was going to be married to Mr. Van Torp, at St. George's, Hanover Square, before{428}sailing for New York, where she was going to sing at the Opera after Christmas. If he should be in town then, she hoped he would come, and bring his wife.
The booklet was an announcement, interleaved with fine etchings, to the effect that 'The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company' would open their new Opera House in Fifth Avenue less than two years hence, with a grand Wagner Festival, to last two months, and to include the performance ofParsifalwith entirely new scenery, and the greatest living artistes, whose names were given. There was a plan of the house at the end of the booklet for the benefit of those who wished to make arrangements for being at the festival, and such persons were admonished that they must apply early if they expected to get seats.
Mr. Van Torp had told the Diva that he would like her to choose a wedding present which she really wanted, adding that he had a few little things for her already. He produced some of them, but some were on paper. Among the latter was a house in New York, overlooking the Park and copied exactly from her own in London, the English architect having been sent to New York himself to build it. Two small items were two luxurious private cars of entirely different patterns, one for America and one for Europe, which she was always to use when she travelled, professionally or otherwise. He said he did not give her theLancashire Lassbecause 'it wasn't quite new'—having been about ten months in the water—but he had his own reasons, one of which{429}was that the yacht represented a sentiment to him, and was what he would have called a 'souvenir.' But if she could think of anything else she fancied, 'now was the time.'
She said that there was only one thing she should really like, but that she could not have it, because it was not in the market. He asked what it was, and it turned out to be the ruby which Logotheti had given her, and had taken to Pinney's to be cut, and which had been the cause of so many unexpected events, including her marriage. Logotheti had it in his possession, she supposed, but he had shown good taste in not trying to press it on her as a wedding present, for she could not have accepted it. Nevertheless, she wanted it very much, more as a remembrance than for its beauty.
Mr. Van Torp said he 'thought he could fix that,' and he did. He went directly to Mr. Pinney and asked what had become of the stone. Mr. Pinney answered that it was now cut, and was in his safe, for sale. The good man had felt that it would not be tactful to offer it to Mr. Van Torp. Logotheti, who was a fine gentleman in his way, had ordered it to be sold, when a good opportunity offered, and directed that the money should be given to the poor Greeks in London, under the supervision of Lady Maud Leven, the Turkish Ambassador, and the Greek Minister, as a committee. Mr. Pinney, after consultation with the best experts, valued it at fourteen thousand pounds sterling. Mr. Van Torp wrote a cheque for the money,{430}put the stone into an inner pocket, and took it to the Diva.
'Well,' he said, smiling, 'here's your ruby, anyway. Anything else to-day?'
Margaret looked at him wonderingly, and then opened the small morocco case.
'Oh—oh—oh!' she cried, in rising intimations of delight. 'I never saw anything so beautiful in my life! It's ever so much more glorious than when I last saw it!'
'It's been cut since then,' observed Mr. Van Torp.
'It ought to have a name of its own! I'm sure it's more beautiful than many of the named crown jewels!' She felt half hypnotised as she gazed into the glorious depths of the great stone. 'Thank you,' she cried, 'thank you so very much. I'm gladder to have it than all the other things.'
And thereupon she threw her magnificent arms round Rufus Van Torp's solid neck, and kissed his cool flat cheek several times; and it seemed quite natural to her to do so; and she wished to forget how she had once kissed one other man, who had kissed her.
'It wants a name, doesn't it?' assented Mr. Van Torp.
'Yes. You must find one for it.'
'Well,' he said, 'after what's happened, I suppose we'd better call it "The Diva's Ruby."'
MR. CRAWFORD'SLatest Novels
Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50
The Primadonna
"Mr. Crawford is a born story-teller. His imagination and inventiveness show as fresh and unwearied in his latest book as they did in 'Mr. Isaacs.'"—Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia.
Fair MargaretA Portrait.
"An exhilarating romance, ... alluring in its naturalness and grace."—Boston Herald.
Arethusa
Dr. Frederick Taber Cooper, inThe Bookman,says of Mr. Crawford: "In theory Mr. Crawford is a romanticist; in practice he is in turn realist, psychologue, mystic, whatever for the moment suits his needs or appeals to his instinct of born story-teller." He calls him, in fact, as others have done, "the prince of story-tellers."
By the author of "Saracinesca," etc.
FRANK DANBY'SNew Novel
The Heart of a ChildCloth, $1.50
"A book of such strength, such fineness, such sympathetic insight ... stands out conspicuously above the general level of contemporary fiction."—The Bookman.
"BARBARA'S"New Book
The Open Window
Tales of the Months told by "Barbara," author of "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," "People of the Whirlpool," etc.
Frontispiece.Cloth, $1.50
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Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS
THE SARACINESCA SERIES
In the binding of the Uniform Edition, each, $1.50
Saracinesca
"The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,—that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told."—Boston Traveler
Sant' Ilario.A Sequel to "Saracinesca"
"A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."—New York Tribune.
Don Orsino.A Sequel to "Sant' Ilario"
"Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story ofDon Orsinowill fascinate him until its close."—The Critic.
Taquisara
"To Mr. Crawford's Roman novels belongs the supreme quality of uniting subtly drawn characters to a plot of uncommon interest."—Chicago Tribune.
Corleone
"Mr. Crawford is the novelist born ... a natural story-teller, with wit, imagination, and insight added to a varied and profound knowledge of social life."—The Inter-Ocean, Chicago.
Casa Braccio.In two volumes, $2.00. Illustrated by A. Castaigne.
LikeTaquisaraandCorleone, it is closely related in plot to the fortunes of the Saracinesca family.
"Mr. Crawford's books have life, pathos, and insight; he tells a dramatic story with many exquisite touches."—New York Sun.
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Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS
Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50
Mr. Crewe's CareerIllustrated
"Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American spirit.... It is an honest and fair story.... It is very interesting; and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original, and captivating as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time past."—The Outlook, New York.
"Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, after it has passed the palate.... As for Victoria, she has that quality of vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which makes so many modern American heroines delightful."—The Times, London.
The CelebrityAn Episode
"No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for years.... It is the purest, keenest fun."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
Richard CarvelIllustrated
"... In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an American romance."—Chicago Tribune.
The CrossingIllustrated
"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in detail and in spirit."—The Dial.
The CrisisIllustrated
"It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest.... The intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown understandingly."—Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia.
ConistonIllustrated
"'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before.... It is one of the truest and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fiction."—Chicago Record-Herald.
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Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS
Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50
The Gospel of Freedom
"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to American fiction."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
The Web of Life
"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."—Buffalo Express.
The Real World
"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will—only such battles bite into the consciousness."—Chicago Tribune.
The Common Lot
"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared for many a day."—The World To-day.
The Memoirs of an American Citizen.Illustrated with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters.
"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit than anybody has yet done."—New York Times.
"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving ustheAmerican novel."—New York Globe.
Together
"Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels used to end—in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel only begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,—a novel about married people for all who are married.
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Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS
Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree.
Mr. Isaacs(India)
Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day.
Greifenstein(The Black Forest)
"... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."—New York Evening Telegram.
Zoroaster(Persia)
"It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do."—The New York Times.
The Witch of Prague(Bohemia)
"A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.
"The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."—New York Tribune.
Paul Patoff(Constantinople)
"Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied and stirring."—New York Evening Post.
Marietta(Venice)
"No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled skein."—Chicago Record-Herald.
"He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all."—New York Herald.
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Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS
NOVELS OF ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE
In decorated cloth covers, each, $1.50
A Roman Singer
"One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a perfect specimen of literary art."—The Newark Advertiser.
Marzio's Crucifix
"We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story,Marzio's Crucifixis perfectly constructed."—New York Commercial Advertiser.
Heart of Rome.A Tale of the Lost Water
"Mr. Crawford has written a story of absorbing interest, a story with a genuine thrill in it; he has drawn his characters with a sure and brilliant touch, and he has said many things surpassingly well."—New York Times Saturday Review.
Cecilia.A Story of Modern Rome
"That F. Marion Crawford is a master of mystery needs no new telling.... His latest novel,Cecilia, is as weird as anything he has done since the memorableMr. Isaacs.... A strong, interesting, dramatic story, with the picturesque Roman setting beautifully handled as only a master's touch could do it."—Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.
Whosoever Shall Offend
"It is a story sustained from beginning to end by an ever increasing dramatic quality."—New York Evening Post.
Pietro Ghisleri
"The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,—the entire atmosphere, indeed,—rank this novel at once among the great creations."—The Boston Budget.
To Leeward
"The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals are, perhaps, the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford's long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this one."—The News and Courier.
A Lady of Rome
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Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS
WITH SCENES LAID IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA
In the binding of the Uniform Edition
A Tale of a Lonely Parish
"It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."—Critic.
Dr. Claudius.A True Story
The scene changes from Heidelberg to New York, and much of the story develops during the ocean voyage.
"There is a satisfying quality in Mr. Crawford's strong, vital, forceful stories."—Boston Herald.
An American Politician.The scenes are laid in Boston
"It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."—New York Commercial Advertiser.
The Three Fates
"Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all, it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."—Boston Beacon.
Marion Darche
"Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly."—Detroit Free Press.
"We are disposed to rankMarion Darcheas the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."—The Literary World.
Katharine Lauderdale
The Ralstons.A Sequel to "Katharine Lauderdale"
"Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and inKatharine Lauderdalewe have him at his best."—Boston Daily Advertiser.
"A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."—The Westminster Gazette.
"It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."—Life.
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