Of all the rooms in the great castle Etta liked the morning-room best. Persons of a troubled mind usually love to look upon a wide prospect. The mind, no doubt, fears the unseen approach of detection or danger, and transmits this dread to the eye, which likes to command a wide view all around.
The great drawing-room was only used after dinner. Until that time the ladies spent the day either in their own boudoirs or in the morning-room looking over the cliff. Here, while the cold weather lasted, Etta had tea served, and thither the gentlemen usually repaired at the hour set apart for the homely meal. They had come regularly the last few evenings. Paul and Steinmetz had suddenly given up their long drives to distant parts of the estate.
Here the whole party was assembled on the Sunday afternoon following Paul’s visit to the village kabak, and to them came an unexpected guest. The door was thrown open, and Claude de Chauxville, pale, but self-possessed and quiet, came into the room. The perfect ease of his manner bespoke a practised familiarity with the position difficult. His last parting with Paul and Steinmetz had been, to say the least of it, strained. Maggie, he knew, disliked and distrusted him. Etta hated and feared him.
He was in riding costume—a short fur jacket, fur gloves, a cap in his hand, and a silver-mounted crop. A fine figure of a man—smart, well turned out, well-groomed—a gentleman.
“Prince,” he said frankly, “I have come to throw myself upon your generosity. Will you lend me a horse? I was riding in the forest when my horse fell over a root and lamed himself. I found I was only three miles from Osterno, so I came. My misfortune must be my excuse for this—intrusion.”
Paul performed graciously enough that which charity and politeness demanded of him. There are plenty of people who trade unscrupulously upon these demands, but it is probable that they mostly have their reward. Love and friendship are stronger than charity and politeness, and those who trade upon the latter are rarely accorded the former.
So Paul ignored the probability that De Chauxville had lamed his horse on purpose, and offered him refreshment while his saddle was being transferred to the back of a fresh mount. Farther than that he did not go. He did not consider himself called upon to offer a night’s hospitality to the man who had attempted to murder him a week before.
With engaging frankness De Chauxville accepted every thing. It is an art soon acquired and soon abused. There is something honest in an ungracious acceptance of favors. Steinmetz suggested that perhaps M. de Chauxville had lunched sparsely, and the Frenchman admitted that such was the case, but that he loved afternoon tea above all meals.
“It is so innocent and simple—I know. I have the same feeling myself,” concurred Steinmetz courteously.
“Do you ride about the country much alone?” asked Paul, while the servants were setting before this uninvited guest a few more substantial delicacies.
“Ah, no, prince! This is my first attempt, and if it had not procured me this pleasure I should say that it will be my last.”
“It is easy to lose yourself,” said Paul; “besides”—and the two friends watched the Frenchman’s face closely—“besides, the country is disturbed at present.”
De Chauxville was helping himself daintily to pbti de foie gras.
“Ah, indeed! Is that so?” he answered. “But they would not hurt me—a stranger in the land.”
“And an orphan, too, I have no doubt,” added Steinmetz, with a laugh. “But would the moujik pause to enquire, my very dear De Chauxville?”
“At all events, I should not pause to answer,” replied the Frenchman, in the same, light tone. “I should evacuate. Ah, mademoiselle,” he went on, addressing Maggie, “they have been attempting to frighten you, I suspect, with their stories of disturbed peasantry. It is to keep up the lurid local color. They must have their romance, these Russians.”
And so the ball was kept rolling. There was never any lack of conversation when Steinmetz and De Chauxville were together, nor was the talk without sub-flavor of acidity. At length the centre of attention himself diverted that attention. He inaugurated an argument over the best cross-country route from Osterno to Thors, which sent Steinmetz out of the room for a map. During the absence of the watchful German he admired the view from the window, and this strategetic movement enabled him to say to Etta aside:
“I must see you before I leave the house; it is absolutely necessary.”
Not long after the return of Steinmetz and the final decision respecting the road to Thors, Etta left the room, and a few minutes later the servant announced that the baron’s horse was at the door.
De Chauxville took his leave at once, with many assurances of lasting gratitude.
“Kindly,” he added, “make my adieux to the princess; I will not trouble her.”
Quite by accident he met Etta at the head of the state staircase, and expressed such admiration for the castle that she opened the door of the large drawing-room and took him to see that apartment.
“What I arranged for Thursday is for the day after to-morrow—Tuesday,” said De Chauxville, as soon as they were alone. “We cannot keep them back any longer. You understand—the side door to be opened at seven o’clock. Ah! who is this?”
They both turned. Steinmetz was standing behind them, but he could not have heard De Chauxville’s words. He closed the door carefully, and came forward with his grim smile.
“@ nous trois!” he said, and the subsequent conversation was in the language in which these three understood each other best.
De Chauxville bit his lip and waited. It was a moment of the tensest suspense.
“@ nous trois!” repeated Steinmetz. “De Chauxville, you love an epigram. The man who overestimates the foolishness of others is himself the biggest fool concerned. A lame horse—the prince’s generosity—making your adieux. Mon Dieu! you should know me better than that after all these years. No, you need not look at the door. No one will interrupt us. I have seen to that.”
His attitude and manner indicated a complete mastery of the situation, but whether this assumption was justified by fact or was a mere trick it was impossible to say. There was in the man something strong and good and calm—a manner never acquired by one who has anything to conceal. His dignity was perfect. One forgot his stoutness, his heavy breathing, his ungainly size. He was essentially manly, and a presence to be feared. The strength of his will made itself felt.
He turned to the princess with the grave courtesy that always marked his attitude toward her.
“Madame,” he said, “I fully recognize your cleverness in raising yourself to the position you now occupy. But I would remind you that that position carries with it certain obligations. It is hardly dignified for a princess to engage herself in a vulgar love intrigue in her own house.”
“It is not a vulgar love intrigue!” cried Etta, with blazing eyes. “I will not allow you to say that! Where is your boasted friendship? Is this a sample of it?”
Karl Steinmetz bowed gravely, with outspread hands.
“Madame, that friendship is at your service, now as always.”
De Chauxville gave a scornful little laugh. He was biting the end of his mustache as he watched Etta’s face. For a moment the woman stood—not the first woman to stand thus—between two fears. Then she turned to Steinmetz. The victory was his—the greatest he had ever torn from the grasp of Claude de Chauxville.
“You know,” she said, “that this man has me in his power.”
“You alone. But not both of us together,” answered Steinmetz.
De Chauxville looked uneasy. He gave a careless little laugh.
“My good Steinmetz, you allow your imagination to run away with you. You interfere in what does not concern you.”
“My very dear De Chauxville, I think not. At all events, I am going to continue to interfere.”
Etta looked from one to the other. She had at the first impulse gone over to Steinmetz. She was now meditating drawing back. If De Chauxville kept cool all might yet be well—the dread secret of the probability of Sydney Bamborough being alive might still be withheld from Steinmetz. For the moment it would appear that she was about to occupy the ignominious position of the bone of contention. If these two men were going to use her as a mere excuse to settle a lifelong quarrel of many issues, it was probable that there would not be much left of her character by the time that they had finished.
She had to decide quickly. She decided to assume the role of peacemaker.
“M. de Chauxville was on the point of going,” she said. “Let him go.”
“M. de Chauxville is not going until I have finished with him, madame. This may be the last time we meet. I hope it is.”
De Chauxville looked uneasy. His was a ready wit, and fear was the only feeling that paralyzed it. Etta looked at him. Was his wit going to desert him now when he most needed it? He had ridden boldly into the lion’s den. Such a proceeding requires a certain courage, but a higher form of intrepidity is required to face the lion standing before the exit.
De Chauxville looked at Steinmetz with shifty eyes. He was very like the mask of the lynx in the smoking-room, even to the self-conscious, deprecatory smile on the countenance of the forest sneak.
“Keep your temper,” he said; “do not let us quarrel in the presence of a lady.”
“No; we will keep the quarrel till afterward.”
Steinmetz turned to Etta.
“Princess,” he said, “will you now, in my presence, forbid this man to come to this or any other house of yours? Will you forbid him to address himself either by speech or letter to you again?”
“You know I cannot do that,” replied Etta.
“Why not?”
Etta made no answer.
“Because,” replied De Chauxville for her, “the princess is too wise to make an enemy of me. In that respect she is wiser than you. She knows that I could send you and your prince to Siberia.”
Steinmetz laughed.
“Nonsense!” he said. “Princess,” he went on, “if you think that the fact of De Chauxville numbering among his friends a few obscure police spies gives him the right to persecute you, you are mistaken. Our friend is very clever, but he can do no harm with the little that he knows of the Charity League.”
Etta remained silent. The silence made Steinmetz frown.
“Princess,” he said gravely, “you were indignant just now because I made so bold as to put the most natural construction upon the circumstances in which I found you. It was a prearranged meeting between De Chauxville and yourself. If the meeting was not the outcome of an intrigue such as I mentioned, nor the result of this man’s hold over you on account of the Charity League, what was it? I beg of you to answer.”
Etta made no reply. Instead, she raised her eyes and looked at De Chauxville.
“Without going into affairs which do not concern you,” said the Frenchman, answering for her, “I think you will recognize that the secret of the Charity League was quite sufficient excuse for me to request a few minutes alone with the princess.”
Of this Steinmetz took no notice. He was standing in front of Etta, between De Chauxville and the door. His broad, deeply lined face was flushed with the excitement of the moment. His great mournful eyes, yellow and drawn with much reading and the hardships of a rigorous climate, were fixed anxiously on her face.
Etta was not looking at him. Her eyes were turned toward the window, but they did not see with comprehension. She was stony and stubborn.
“Princess,” said Steinmetz, “answer me before it is too late. Has De Chauxville any other hold over you?”
Etta nodded, and the little action brought a sudden gleam to the Frenchman’s eyes.
“If,” said Steinmetz, looking from one to the other, “if you two have been deceiving Paul I will have no mercy, I warn you of that.”
Etta turned on him.
“Can you not believe me?” she cried. “I have practised no deception in common with M. de Chauxville.”
“The Charity League is quite enough for you, my friend,” put in the Frenchman hurriedly.
“You know no more of the Charity League than you did before—than the whole world knew before—except this lady’s share in the disposal of the papers,” said Steinmetz.
“And this lady’s share in the disposal of the papers will not be welcome news to the prince,” answered De Chauxville.
“Welcome or unwelcome, he shall be told of it to-night.”
Etta looked round sharply, her lips apart and trembling.
“By whom?” asked De Chauxville.
“By me,” replied Steinmetz.
There was a momentary pause. De Chauxville and Etta exchanged a glance. Etta felt that she was lost. This Frenchman was not one to spare either man or woman from any motive of charity or chivalry.
“Even if that is so,” he said, “the princess is not relieved from the embarrassment of her situation.”
“No?”
“No, my astute friend. There is a little matter connected with Sydney Bamborough which has come to my knowledge.”
Etta moved, but she said nothing. The sound of her breathing was startlingly loud.
“Ah! Sydney Bamborough,” said Steinmetz slowly. “What about him?”
“He is not dead; that is all.”
Karl Steinmetz passed his broad hand down over his face, covering his mouth for a second.
“But he died. He was found on the steppe, and buried at Tver.”
“So the story runs,” said De Chauxville, with easy sarcasm. “But who found him on the steppe? Who buried him at Tver?”
“I did, my friend.”
The next second Steinmetz staggered back a step or two as Etta fell heavily into his arms. But he never took his eyes off De Chauxville.
Steinmetz laid Etta on a sofa. She was already recovering consciousness. He rang the bell twice, and all the while he kept his eye on De Chauxville. A quick touch on Etta’s wrist and breast showed that this man knew something of women and of those short-lived fainting fits that belong to strong emotions.
The maid soon came.
“The princess requires your attention,” said Steinmetz, still watching De Chauxville, who was looking at Etta and neglecting his opportunities.
Steinmetz went up to him and took him by the arm.
“Come with me,” he said.
The Frenchman could have taken advantage of the presence of the servant to effect a retreat, but he did not dare to do so. It was essential that he should obtain a few words with Etta. To effect this, he was ready even to face an interview with Steinmetz. In his heart he was cursing that liability to inconvenient fainting fits that make all women unreliable in a moment of need.
He preceded Steinmetz out of the room, forgetting even to resent the large, warm grasp on his arm. They went through the long, dimly lit passage to the old part of the castle, where Steinmetz had his rooms.
“And now,” said Steinmetz, when they were alone with closed doors, “and now, De Chauxville, let us understand each other.”
De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders. He was not thinking of Steinmetz yet. He was still thinking of Etta and how he could get speech with her. With the assurance which had carried him through many a difficulty before this, the Frenchman looked round him, taking in the details of the room. They were in the apartment beyond the large smoking room—the ante-room, as it were, to the little chamber where Paul kept his medicine-chest, his disguise, all the compromising details of his work among the peasants. The broad writing-table in the middle of the room stood between the two men.
“Do you imagine yourself in love with the princess?” asked Steinmetz suddenly, with characteristic bluntness.
“If you like,” returned the other.
“If I thought that it was that,” said the German, looking at him thoughtfully, “I would throw you out of the window. If it is any thing else, I will only throw you down stairs.”
De Chauxville bit his thumb-nail anxiously. He frowned across the table into Steinmetz’s face. In all their intercourse he had never heard that tone of voice; he had never seen quite that look on the heavy face. Was Steinmetz aroused at last? Steinmetz aroused was an unknown quantity to Claude de Chauxville.
“I have known you now for twenty-five years,” went on Karl Steinmetz, “and I cannot say that I know any good of you. But let that pass; it is not, I suppose, my business. The world is as the good God made it. I can do nothing toward bettering it. I have always known you to be a scoundrel—a fact to be deplored—and that is all. But so soon as your villany affects my own life, then, my friend, a more active recognition of it is necessary.”
“Indeed!” sneered the Frenchman.
“Your villany has touched Paul’s life, and at that point it touches mine,” continued Karl Steinmetz, with slow anger. “You followed us to Petersburg—thence you dogged us to the Government of Tver. You twisted that foolish woman, the Countess Lanovitch, round your finger, and obtained from her an invitation to Thors. All this in order to be near one of us. Ach! I have been watching you. Is it only after twenty-five years that I at last convince you that I am not such a fool as you are pleased to consider me?”
“You have not convinced me yet,” put in De Chauxville, with his easy laugh.
“No, but I shall do so before I have finished with you. Now, you have not come here for nothing. It is to be near one of us. It is not Miss Delafield; she knows you. Some women—good women—have an instinct given to them by God for a defence against such men—such things as you. Is it I?”
He touched his broad chest with his two hands, and stood defying his life-long foe.
“Is it me that you follow? If so, I am here. Let us have done with it now.”
De Chauxville laughed. There was an uneasy look in his eyes. He did not quite understand Steinmetz. He made no answer. But he turned and looked at the window. It is possible that he suddenly remembered the threat concerning it.
“Is it Paul?” continued Steinmetz. “I think not. I think you are afraid of Paul. Remains the princess. Unless you can convince me to the contrary, I must conclude that you are trying to get a helpless woman into your power.”
“You always were a champion of helpless ladies,” sneered De Chauxville.
“Ah! You remember that, do you? I also—I remember it. It is long ago, and I have forgiven you; but I have not forgotten. What you were then you will be now. Your record is against you.”
Steinmetz was standing with his back to what appeared to be the only exit from the room. There were two other doors concealed in the oaken panels, but De Chauxville did not know that. He could not take his eyes from the broad face of his companion, upon which there were singular blotches of color.
“I am waiting,” said the German, “for you to explain your conduct.”
“Indeed!” replied De Chauxville. “Then, my friend, you will have to continue waiting. I fail to recognize your right to make enquiry into my movements. I am not responsible to any man for my actions, least of all to you. The man who manages his neighbor’s affairs mismanages his own. I would recommend you to mind your own business. Kindly let me pass.”
De Chauxville’s words were brave enough, but his lips were unsteady. A weak mouth is apt to betray its possessor at inconvenient moments. He waved Steinmetz aside, but he made no movement toward the door. He kept the table between him and his companion.
Steinmetz was getting calmer. There was an uncanny hush about him.
“Then I am to conclude,” he said, “that you came to Russia in order to persecute a helpless woman. Her innocence or her guilt is, for the moment, beside the question. Neither is any business of yours. Both, on the contrary, are my affair. Innocent or guilty, the Princess Howard Alexis must from this moment be freed from your persecution.”
De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders. He tapped on the floor impatiently with the toe of his neat riding-boot.
“Allons!” he said. “Let me pass!”
“Your story of Sydney Bamborough,” went on Steinmetz coldly, “was a good one wherewith to frighten a panic-stricken woman. But you brought it to the wrong person when you brought it to me. Do you suppose that I would have allowed the marriage to take place unless I knew that Bamborough was dead?”
“You may be telling the truth about that incident or you may not,” said De Chauxville. “But my knowledge of the betrayal of the Charity League is sufficient for my purpose.”
“Yes,” admitted Steinmetz grimly, “you have information there with possibilities of mischief in it. But I shall discount most of it by telling Prince Pavlo to-night all that I know, and I know more than you do. Also, I intend to seal your lips before you leave this room.”
De Chauxville stared at him with a dropping lip. He gulped down something in his throat. His hand was stealing round under the fur jacket to a pocket at the back of his trousers.
“Let me out!” he hissed.
There was a gleam of bright metal in the sunlight that poured in through the window. De Chauxville raised his arm sharply, and at the same instant Steinmetz threw a book in his face. A loud report, and the room was full of smoke.
Steinmetz placed one hand on the table and, despite his weight, vaulted it cleanly. This man had taken his degree at Heidelberg, and the Germans are the finest gymnasts in the world. Moreover, muscle, once made, remains till death. It was his only chance, for the Frenchman had dodged the novel, but it spoiled his aim. Steinmetz vaulted right on to him, and De Chauxville staggered back.
In a moment Steinmetz had him by the collar; his face was gray, his heavy eyes ablaze. If any thing will rouse a man, it is being fired at point-blank at a range of four yards with a .280 revolver.
“Ach!” gasped the German; “you would shoot me, would you?”
He wrenched the pistol from De Chauxville’s fingers and threw it into the corner of the room. Then he shook the man like a garment.
“First,” he cried, “you would kill Paul, and now you try to shoot me! Good God! what are you? You are no man. Do you know what I am going to do with you? I am going to thrash you like a dog!”
He dragged him to the fire-place. Above the mantelpiece a stick-rack was affixed to the wall, and here were sticks and riding-whips. Steinmetz selected a heavy whip. His eyes were shot with blood; his mouth worked beneath his mustache.
“So,” he said, “I am going to settle with you at last.”
De Chauxville kicked and struggled, but he could not get free. He only succeeded in half choking himself.
“You are going to swear,” said Steinmetz, “never to approach the princess again—never to divulge what you know of her past life.”
The Frenchman was almost blue in the face. His eyes were wild with terror.
And Karl Steinmetz thrashed him.
It did not last long. No word was spoken. The silence was only broken by their shuffling feet, by the startling report of each blow, by De Chauxville’s repeated gasps of pain.
The fur jacket was torn in several places. The white shirt appeared here and there. In one place it was stained with red.
At last Steinmetz threw him huddled into one corner of the room. The chattering face, the wild eyes that looked up at him, were terrible to see.
“When you have promised to keep the secret you may go,” said Steinmetz. “You must swear it.”
De Chauxville’s lips moved, but no sound came from them. Steinmetz poured some water into a tumbler and gave it to him.
“It had to come to this,” he said, “sooner or later. Paul would have killed you; that is the only difference. Do you swear by God in heaven above you that you will keep the princess’s secret?”
“I swear it,” answered De Chauxville hoarsely.
Steinmetz was holding on to the back of a high chair with both hands, breathing heavily. His face was still livid. That which had been white in his eyes was quite red.
De Chauxville was crawling toward the revolver in the corner of the room, but he was almost fainting. It was a question whether he would last long enough to reach the fire-arm. There was a bright patch of red in either liver-colored cheek; his lips were working convulsively. And Steinmetz saw him in time. He seized him by the collar of his coat and dragged him back. He placed his foot on the little pistol and faced De Chauxville with glaring eyes. De Chauxville rose to his feet, and for a moment the two men looked into each other’s souls. The Frenchman’s face was twisted with pain. No word was said.
Such was the last reckoning between Karl Steinmetz and the Baron Claude de Chauxville.
The Frenchman went slowly toward the door. He faltered and looked round for a chair. He sat heavily down with a little exclamation of pain and exhaustion, and felt for his pocket-handkerchief. The scented cambric diffused a faint, dainty odor of violets. He sat forward with his two hands on his knees, swaying a little from side to side. Presently he raised his handkerchief to his face. There were tears in his eyes.
Thus the two men waited until De Chauxville had recovered himself sufficiently to take his departure. The air was full of naked human passions. It was rather a grewsome scene.
At last the Frenchman stood slowly up, and with characteristic thought of appearances fingered his torn coat.
“Have you a cloak?” asked Steinmetz.
“No.”
The German went to a cupboard in the wall and selected a long riding-cloak, which he handed to the Frenchman without a word.
Thus Claude de Chauxville walked to the door in a cloak which had figured at many a Charity League meeting. Assuredly the irony of Fate is a keener thing than any poor humor we have at our command. When evil is punished in this present life there is no staying of the hand.
Steinmetz followed De Chauxville through the long passage they had traversed a few minutes earlier and down the broad staircase. The servants were waiting at the door with the horse put at the Frenchman’s disposal by Paul.
De Chauxville mounted slowly, heavily, with twitching lips. His face was set and cold now. The pain was getting bearable, the wounded vanity was bleeding inwardly. In his dull eyes there was a gleam of hatred and malice. It was the face of a man rejoicing inwardly over a deep and certain vengeance.
“It is well!” he was muttering between his clenched teeth as he rode away, while Steinmetz watched him from the doorstep. “It is well! Now I will not spare you.”
He rode down the hill and through the village, with the light of the setting sun shining on a face where pain and deadly rage were fighting for the mastery.
Karl Steinmetz walked slowly upstairs to his own room. The evening sun, shining through the small, deeply embrasured windows, fell on a face at no time joyous, now tired and worn. He sat down at his broad writing-table, and looked round the room with a little blink of the eyelids.
“I am getting too old for this sort of thing,” he said.
His gaze lighted on the heavy riding-whip thrown on the ground near the door where he had released Claude de Chauxville, after the terrible punishment meted out to that foe with heavy Teutonic hand. Steinmetz rose, and picking up the whip with the grunt of a stout man stooping, replaced it carefully in the rack over the mantelpiece.
He stood looking out of the window for a few moments.
“It will have to be done,” he said resolutely, and rang the bell.
“My compliments to the prince,” he said to his servant, who appeared instantly, “and will he come to me here.”
When Paul came into the room a few minutes later Steinmetz was standing by the fire. He turned and looked gravely at the prince.
“I have just kicked De Chauxville out of the house,” he said.
The color left Paul’s face quite suddenly.
“Why?” he asked, with hard eyes. He had begun to distrust Etta, and there is nothing so hard to stop as the growth of distrust.
Steinmetz did not answer at once.
“Was it notmyprivilege?” asked Paul, with a grim smile. There are some smiles more terrible than any frown.
“No,” answered Steinmetz, “I think not. It is not as bad as that. But it is bad enough, mein lieber!—it is bad enough! I horsewhipped him first for myself. Gott! how pleasant that was! And then I kicked him out for you.”
“Why?” repeated Paul, with a white face.
“It is a long story,” answered Steinmetz, without looking at him. “He knows too much.”
“About whom?”
“About all of us.”
Paul walked away to the window. He stood looking out, his hands thrust into the side-pockets of his jacket, his broad back turned uncompromisingly upon his companion.
“Tell me the story,” he said. “You need not hurry over it. You need not trouble to—spare me. Only let it be quite complete—once for all.”
Steinmetz winced. He knew the expression of the face that was looking out of the window.
“This man has hated me all his life,” he said. “It began as such things usually do between men—about a woman. It was years ago. I got the better of him, and the good God got the better of me. She died, and De Chauxville forgot her. I—have not forgotten her. But I have tried to do so. It is a slow process, and I have made very little progress; but all that is my affair and beside the question. I merely mention it to show you that De Chauxville had a grudge against me—”
“This is no time for mistaken charity,” interrupted Paul. “Do not try to screen any body. I shall see through it.”
There was a little pause. Never had that silent room been so noiseless.
“In after-life,” Steinmetz went on, “it was our fate to be at variance several times. Our mutual dislike has had no opportunity of diminishing. It seems that, before you married, De Chauxville was pleased to consider himself in love with Mrs. Sydney Bamborough. Whether he had any right to think himself ill-used, I do not know. Such matters are usually known to two persons only, and imperfectly by them. It would appear that the wound to his vanity was serious. It developed into a thirst for revenge. He looked about for some means to do you harm. He communicated with your enemies, and allied himself to such men as Vassili of Paris. He followed us to Petersburg, and then he had a stroke of good fortune. He found out—who betrayed the Charity League!”
Paul turned slowly round. In his eyes there burned a dull, hungering fire. Men have seen such a look in the eyes of a beast of prey, driven, famished, cornered at last, and at last face to face with its foe.
“Ah! He knows that!” he said slowly.
“Yes, God help us! he knows that.”
“And who was it?”
Steinmetz moved uneasily from one foot to the other.
“It was a woman,” he said.
“A woman?”
“A woman—you know,” said Steinmetz slowly.
“Good God! Catrina?”
“No, not Catrina.”
“Then who?” cried Paul hoarsely. His hands fell heavily on the table.
“Your wife!”
Paul knew before the words were spoken.
He turned again, and stood looking out of the window with his hands thrust into his pockets. He stood there for whole minutes in an awful stillness. The clock on the mantel-piece, a little travelling timepiece, ticked in a hurried way as if anxious to get on. Down beneath them, somewhere in the courtyards of the great castle, a dog—a deep-voiced wolf-hound—was baying persistently and nervously, listening for the echo of its own voice amid the pines of the desert forest.
Steinmetz watched Paul’s motionless back with a sort of fascination. He moved uneasily, as if to break a spell of silence almost unbearable in its intensity. He went to the table and sat down. From mere habit he took up a quill pen. He looked at the point of it and at the inkstand. But he had nothing to write. There was nothing to say.
He laid the pen aside, and sat leaning his broad head upon the palm of his hand, his two elbows on the table. Paul never moved. Steinmetz waited. His own life had been no great success. He had had much to bear, and he had borne it. He was wondering heavily whether any of it had been as bad as what Paul was bearing now while he looked out of the window with his hands in his pockets, saying nothing.
At length Paul moved. He turned, and, coming toward the table, laid his hand on Steinmetz’s broad shoulder.
“Are you sure of it?” he asked, in a voice that did not sound like his own at all—a hollow voice like that of an old man.
“Quite; I have it from Stipan Lanovitch—from the princess herself.”
They remained thus for a moment. Then Paul withdrew his hand and walked slowly to the window.
“Tell me,” he said, “how she did it.”
Steinmetz was playing with the quill pen again. It is singular how at great moments we perform trivial acts, think trivial thoughts. He dipped the pen in the ink, and made a pattern on the blotting-pad with dots.
“It was an organized plan between husband and wife,” he said. “Bamborough turned up at Thors and asked for a night’s lodging, on the strength of a very small acquaintance. He stole the papers from Stipan’s study and took them to Tver, where his wife was waiting for them. She took them on to Paris and sold them to Vassili. Bamborough began his journey eastward, knowing presumably that he could not escape by the western frontier, but lost his way on the steppe. You remember the man whom we picked up between here and Tver, with his face all cut to pieces?—he had been dragged by the stirrup. That was Sydney Bamborough. The good God had hit back quickly.”
“How long have you known this?” asked Paul, in a queer voice.
“I saw it suddenly in the princess’s face, one day in Petersburg—a sort of revelation. I read it there, and she saw me reading. I should have liked to keep it from you, for your sake as well as for hers. Our daily life is made possible only by the fact that we know so little of our neighbors. There are many things of which we are better ignorant right up to the end. This might have been one of them. But De Chauxville found it out, and it is better that I should tell you than he.”
Paul did not look around. The wolf-hound was still barking at its own echo—a favorite pastime of those who make a great local stir in the world.
“Of course,” said Paul, after a long pause, “I have been a great fool. I know that. But—”
He turned and looked at Steinmetz with haggard eyes.
“But I would rather go on being a fool than suspect any one of a deception like this.”
Steinmetz was still making patterns on the blotting-pad.
“It is difficult for us men,” he said slowly, “to look at these things from a woman’s point of view. They hold a different sense of honor from ours—especially if they are beautiful. And the fault is ours—especially toward the beautiful ones. There may have been temptations of which we are ignorant.”
Paul was still looking at him. Steinmetz looked up slowly, and saw that he had grown ten years older in the last few minutes. He did not look at him for more than a second, because the sight of Paul’s face hurt him. But he saw in that moment that Paul did not understand. This strong man, hard in his youthful strength of limb and purpose, would be just, but nothing more. And between man and man it is not always justice that is required. Between man and woman justice rarely meets the difficulty.
“Comprendre c’est pardonner,” quoted Steinmetz vaguely.
He hesitated to interfere between Paul and his wife. Axioms are made for crucial moments. A man’s life has been steered by a proverb before this. Some, who have no religion, steer by them all the voyage.
Paul walked slowly to the chair he usually occupied, opposite to Steinmetz, at the writing-table. He walked and sat down as if he had travelled a long distance.
“What is to be done?” asked Steinmetz.
“I do not know. I do not think that it matters much. What do you recommend?”
“There is so much to be done,” answered Steinmetz, “that it is difficult to know what to do first. We must not forget that De Chauxville is furious. He will do all the harm of which he is capable at once. We must not forget that the country is in a state of smoldering revolt, and that we have two women, two English ladies, entrusted to our care.”
Paul moved uneasily in his chair. His companion had struck the right note. This large man was happiest when he was tiring himself out.
“Yes; but about Etta?” he said.
And the sound of his voice made Steinmetz wince. There is nothing so heartrending as the sight of dumb suffering.
“You must see her,” answered he reflectively. “You must see her, of course. She may be able to explain.”
He looked across the table beneath his shaggy gray eyebrows. Paul did not at that moment look a likely subject for explanations—even the explanations of a beautiful woman. But there was one human quantity which in all his experience Karl Steinmetz had never successfully gauged—namely, the extent of a woman’s power over the man who loves, or at one time has loved her.
“She cannot explain away Stipan Lanovitch’s ruined life. She can hardly explain away a thousand deaths from unnatural causes every winter, in this province alone.”
This was what Steinmetz dreaded—justice.
“Give her the opportunity,” he said.
Paul was looking out of the window. His singularly firm mouth was still and quiet—not a mouth for explanations.
“I will, if you like,” he said.
“I do like, Paul. I beg of you to do it. And remember that—she is not a man.”
This, like other appeals of the same nature, fell on stony ground. Paul simply did not understand it. In all the years of his work among the peasants it is possible that some well-spring of conventional charity had been dried up—scorched in the glare of burning injustice. He was not at this moment in a mood to consider the only excuse that Steinmetz seemed to be able to urge.
The sun had set long ago. The short twilight lay over the snow-covered land with a chill hopelessness. Steinmetz looked at his watch. They had been together an hour—one of those hours that count as years in a life time. He had to peer into the face of the watch in order to see the hands. The room was almost dark, and no servant ever came to it, unless summoned.
Paul was looking down at his companion, as if waiting to hear the time. At great moments we are suddenly brought face to face with the limits of human nature. It is at such moments that we find that we are not gods, but only men. We can only feel to a certain extent, only suffer up to a certain point.
“We must dress for dinner,” said Steinmetz. “Afterward—well, afterward we shall see.”
“Yes,” answered Paul. And he did not go.
The two men stood looking at each other for a moment. They had passed through much together—danger, excitement, and now they were dabbling in sorrow. It would appear that this same sorrow runs like a river across the road of our life. Some of us find the ford and plash through the shallows—shallow ourselves—while others flounder into deep water. These are they who look right on to the greater events, and fail to note the trivial details of each little step. Paul was wading through the deep water, and this good friend of his was not inclined to stand upon the bank. It is while passing through this river that Fortune sends some of us a friend, who is ever afterward different from all others.
Paul stood looking down at the broad, heavy face of the man who loved him like a father. It was not easy for him to speak. He seemed to be making an effort.
“I do not want you to think,” he said at last, “that it is as bad as it might have been. It might have been worse—much worse—had I not made a mistake in regard to my own feelings when I married her. I will try and do the right thing by her. Only at present there does not seem to be much left, except you.”
Steinmetz looked up with his quaintly resigned smile.
“Ah, yes,” he said, “I am there always.”