“I am not accusing him,” rejoined the other impatiently, “but the trusted messenger of our brotherhood had no right to blunder.”
“Well, we know very little so far, do not let us imagine the worst. He writes hopefully after all.”
“I had better start to-night,” said Mirkovitch. “Can you let me have the funds? He says much may be wanted; for bribery, I suppose.”
“Come and see me at my house before you start, and I will have everything ready for you.… And… Mirkovitch,” he added, “do not condemn unheard. Remember, Iván is young, and has our cause just as much at heart as you have.”
“Well, if he has, he certainly has it in a different way,” said Mirkovitch as he shook the president’s hand, and prepared to leave.
The latter sighed as he tried to read the Russian’s thoughts through his deeply sunken eyes, tried to fathom if there lurked some danger there for his young friend. Then, half reassured, he gave Mirkovitch a parting handshake, and watched the old fanatic’s figure slowly disappearing down the stairs.
“By Order of the Executors of the LateMr. James Hudson.“Messrs. Phillips and Phillipswill sell on the premises the whole of the contents of the superb mansion known as 108, Curzon Street, Mayfair, consisting of antique and modern furniture, piano, china, glass, pictures, and a rare and valuable collection of antiquities, gold and silver plate, jewels, etc. The sale will take place on Thursday next, the 12th inst., at eleven o’clock precisely. To view, by cards only, the day prior to and morning of the sale. Cards from Messrs. Gideon, Eyre, and Blackwell, Solicitors, 97, Bedford Row, W.C., or from the Auctioneers.”
“By Order of the Executors of the LateMr. James Hudson.
“Messrs. Phillips and Phillipswill sell on the premises the whole of the contents of the superb mansion known as 108, Curzon Street, Mayfair, consisting of antique and modern furniture, piano, china, glass, pictures, and a rare and valuable collection of antiquities, gold and silver plate, jewels, etc. The sale will take place on Thursday next, the 12th inst., at eleven o’clock precisely. To view, by cards only, the day prior to and morning of the sale. Cards from Messrs. Gideon, Eyre, and Blackwell, Solicitors, 97, Bedford Row, W.C., or from the Auctioneers.”
It was some ten days since Volenski, stricken down by illness, had had enforced rest and captivity in a London hotel, and he now sat convalescent, yet still ailing, bodily and mentally, with that day’sTimes, containing the above announcement, in his hand.
He had now become almost accustomed to his ill-luck, which had been pursuing him so steadily without break or respite, landing him at last on a bed of sickness in a hotel—in a strange land, far from all his friends.
The long-enforced rest the doctor had prescribed for him had enabled him to collect his energies for a final struggle, which he knew was inevitable. Matters, he knew, could not remain as they were. The sacred trust that had been placed in his charge, and which he had so unwittingly betrayed into alien hands, must become his again, if at the cost of the last remnant of energy left in him after so protracted a struggle. Vainly, during the long hours of enforced idleness, he had tried to conjecture where the scene of his next battle would be laid, the decisive battle he would yet have to fight.
And there it was, announced in the columns of theTimes. The scene would be an auction room, the battle one of money. He had written to Lobkowitz, asking for his help, and now was waiting anxiously to know what the president had decided to do. He believed that Lobkowitz would continue to trust him to the last, and hoped he would not find it necessary to ask the help and counsel of some more determined members of the committee. Volenski felt that they would never forgive, and look upon his blunder as twin-brother to a crime.
In the midst of his reflections the waiter interrupted him, telling him that a gentleman, a foreigner, desired to speak with him.
“Show him up at once,” said Volenski eagerly.
He hoped it would be Lobkowitz, longed to grasp his old friend’s hand, tell him all he had suffered, and revel in his sympathy. But it was Mirkovitch, sullen, grim, half menacing, who refused to take his hand, and would not sit, but stood firm and silent till Iván had explained, had told him all.
And it was to this stern judge, this man whose unerring hand would inevitably punish the guilty, if guilt there be, that Iván Volenski had to tell the history of his relentless fate.
He told him of the Cardinal’s mission, of the Emperor’s candlesticks with the mysterious, hidden receptacles, into which, believing he was acting for the best, he had hidden the compromising papers. Then of the Cardinal’s sudden caprice in entrusting these candlesticks into the hands of a friend—a lady. He told him of the robbery at Oderberg, the escape of the thief, his own cautious interview with the chief of the police. He described his fruitless search in Grete Ottlinger’s room, his loathsome experience with the coarse woman in the “Kaiser Franz,” his interview with Grünebaum, his journey to London, then his visit to Davies; all fruitless, all leading to more disappointments, more hopeless entanglements. Then finally and, worst of all, the crushing of all his hopes at the door of Mr. James Hudson, who, by some fatality in which the superstitious Pole saw the hand of diabolical agency, had died suddenly that very night.
Mirkovitch had listened attentively and silently through this long narrative of misery and struggle. A kinder look had perhaps replaced the habitual grimness of his face, and when Iván paused at last exhausted he drew a chair near the sick man’s couch, and said almost gently—
“My poor friend, you must have suffered much.”
Iván thanked him with a look, and eagerly grasped the hand the old Socialist now held out towards him.
“I suppose you are quite aware where you committed the great, the only real fault in all this long history of misfortunes?” said Mirkovitch at last, still quite kindly.
“You mean that I did not communicate, with either Lobkowitz or yourself, the moment those candlesticks passed out of my possession?”
Mirkovitch assented.
“Remember, I gathered from the Cardinal’s speech that the lady had never touched the one which contained our papers. It was damaged, and in his Eminence’s own presence she had packed it up and placed it on one side.”
“I notice, Iván, that you have not told me the name of the lady who had charge of the Emperor’s candlesticks, and therefore like yourself has some right to claim them?”
Volenski paused awhile, and then the name came from his lips like a whisper—
“It was Anna Demidoff.”
Mirkovitch jumped up, the gentleness, the sympathy he had assumed for a brief space was gone in a moment, and once more there stood the judge, ready to punish and to condemn.
“Iván Stefanovitch Volenski,” he said, “you were then content to allow that spy, that agent of our bitterest foes, to have even for an hour our dearest secrets under her roof, close to her very hand, without sweeping her out of our path, or, if you were too faint-hearted, asking those who are strong to clear the way from such a powerful foe?”
Iván did not reply. What could he say? The reproach was true enough, but he had meant well; it was fate that had been too strong. He watched Mirkovitch now as the grim Nihilist paced up and down the narrow room, with thoughts of vengeance written on his stern, rugged face.
“If only the Tsarevitch were under my hands still,” he muttered, “all might yet have been saved.”
“Then…?” asked Iván eagerly, “Dunajewski——?”
“Is in England safely to-day, and the Tsarevitch back in Petersburg.”
“I do not understand,” said Iván, bewildered. “How, then, were the negotiations conducted?”
“In the simplest way imaginable,” said Mirkovitch, “by a woman, my daughter.”
“Maria Stefanowna?”
“She, it appears, had some womanish scruples, shared, by the way, by many of our comrades, as to the advisability of doing away with our prisoner as I had proposed all along, and accomplishing by terror what we could not do by diplomacy. When you were not heard of, and it became clear that some untoward fate had reached you, we all voted Nicholas’ death sentence.
“She, on her own initiative, thought out the daring plan of making that old fool Lavrovski be the bearer of our manifesto to the Tsar, in exactly the same terms as on the letter you were yourself taking to Taranïew. Without consulting the committee she sought him out, for we had previously ascertained that through sheer terror he had persistently put off communicating with the government at Petersburg. With the dagger, so to speak, at his master’s heart, Lavrovski had no chance but to accept, and he became the bearer of our ultimatum. What passed at Petersburg between himself and the authorities we, of course, do not know, but three days ago the official papers announced the liberation of the convicted Nihilist Dunajewski, and his comrades, and their safe conduct across the frontier. Some of our committee met them there with money and clothes, and Maria went with them, as we all thought it would be safer for us all if she stayed in England for a while.
“The evening of the same day the Tsarevitch was led blindfold out of my house in the Heumarkt, and thus was terminated the finest plot ever invented by our great brotherhood.”
“Thank God for that,” said Iván fervently.
“Curse you for compromising us all and our cause, just after our glorious victory,” retorted Mirkovitch savagely, “and curse our folly for trusting you so much.”
The young Pole sprang up at the taunt.
“Your trust is not misplaced, Mirkovitch,” he said quietly, “and our cause and our comrades are not compromised. Give me the necessary funds, and the right to dispose of them, and I swear to you that three days hence I will hand over our papers safely in your keeping, to act with as you please after that, both with them… and with me.”
“You know, then, where the candlesticks are at this moment?” said Mirkovitch, somewhat pacified.
“They are to be sold by auction on Thursday next, and we can buy them easily enough.”
“Yes! unless fate or Madame Demidoff interposes.”
“Madame Demidoff cannot know where the candlesticks are. Grünebaum was arrested half an hour after I saw him. He is not likely to have betrayed his accomplice in London, and she was bound to lose trace of them.”
“You must act as you think best, Iván,” said Mirkovitch at last; “as you know we have ample funds, those of the fraternity; and Lobkowitz has placed them all at your disposal. We must trust you yet so far——”
And he added after a slight pause—
“After that your life is in our hands.”
That Iván knew full well. He knew that if harm came to the brotherhood after this, he would not be allowed to suffer or die with them. He knew that they would brand him as a traitor, disown him, revile him, and that he would die alone in the dark, stricken by the dagger of an avenger, and not be thought worthy the common death of the martyrs.
Mirkovitch handed him over the drafts and money Lobkowitz had given him. It represented a large sum, and Iván took it, feeling easy in his mind. The old Russian left him soon after, and Volenski was left alone and in peace to form what plans were needful. The interview with Mirkovitch had been very stormy, and it needed a strong effort of will to collect his faculties in the last great endeavour to save his comrades and himself from the dire catastrophe.
Obviously the first thing to do was to obtain a card to view the contents of 108, Curzon Street, and ascertain whether the Emperor’s candlesticks were included among the objects put up for sale. Having assured himself of that all-important fact, his last move was to go to the auction room on Thursday, and, with the help of the funds placed at his disposal, bid for the candlesticks till they became his property.
The first part of his programme he found very easy of execution; the next morning he obtained a card from Messrs. Gideon, Eyre, and Blackwell, and ascertained that the to him ill-fated candlesticks were to be among the objects put up for sale on the following day. So far, so good.
There were a great many people examining the furniture and artisticbibelots, of which there were many thousands, but those people were chiefly Jews—dealers probably—and Volenski knew that the sum of money the secret society had placed at his disposal was infinitely beyond what the richest dealer could afford for a singlebibelot. His mind, therefore, was perfectly at ease as to the result of next day’s sale. When he left the house he stopped on the doorstep one moment to light a cigar; at that moment a carriage stopped too. A lady got out with an admission card in her hand, and, without noticing him, brushed past him and walked into the house. It was Madame Demidoff!
As a matter of fact, it had never for one moment entered Volenski’s mind that either Madame Demidoff or the Cardinal could, by any possibility, hear of the whereabouts of the missing candlesticks, and the lady’s presence there fell upon him like a thunder-bolt. And yet, what more natural than that she should be here? Two weeks had elapsed since the robbery; Grünebaum had in the meanwhile, as Volenski well knew, been denounced by his accomplice. His premises and books must have been searched, the name of his London accomplice discovered, and Madame Demidoff had no doubt acted in precisely the same manner as he, Volenski, had done himself; and, either through threats or bribery, traced the stolen candlesticks from Davies’ shop to the house of Mr. James Hudson.
That her presence there meant the gravest danger to him, Volenski was at once aware. It was absolutely evident now that she had a secret personal interest in the recovery of the candlesticks, or she would never have come to London herself, but sent a clever agent to secure her stolen property.
If she intended to bid for them the next day Volenski felt it would mean the ruin of his hopes. He could now command a very large sum of money in an emergency like the present one, but if report spoke truly, and Madame Demidoffwasa paid agent of the Russian Government, then her credit would be practically unlimited, and the duel between him and her one for life and death.
Oh! for the power to look twenty-four hours ahead to know the worst at once! One moment he thought of inquiring at every hotel in London for Madame Demidoff, and hearing his fate from her own lips, but, apart from the hopelessness of such a task in a city of such magnitude as London, he felt that the lady might look upon this move as a sign of weakness, and, after all, so full of hope is the human heart, there was just a faint possibility yet that Madame Demidoff had not discovered the secret papers. In that case, the moment she recognised Volenski among the bidders, she would retire from the contest in the belief that he was acting for Cardinal d’Orsay. No! all was not yet lost, and Volenski heaved a deep sigh of relief as he thought that to-morrow would, in any case—whether for good or bad—end this terrible suspense, which, except for a few days of blissful unconsciousness, he had had to endure for two mortal weeks.
But what of Madame Demidoff? She, like Volenski, had been enduring tortures of uncertainty, fear, doubts, hopes, alternately for the last three weeks. Directly after Grünebaum’s arrest she had been communicated with by the police, but, to her horror, failed to discover the candlesticks among the articles seized in the Jew’s shop. With great difficulty, and only with the help of a large amount of Russian money, she obtained a private interview with the prisoner, who, deeply revengeful at what he thought was Volenski’s treachery, most willingly gave her every clue as to the whereabouts of the missing candlesticks.
A great deal more Russian money was needed to induce Isaac Davies to speak about them again; he felt suspicious, and did not like the mystery that seemed to gather round them. He flatly denied, for a long time, any knowledge of them, and it was only hard bribery that induced him to name the client to whom he had sold the candlesticks.
Like Volenski, Madame Demidoff went to the house of Mr. James Hudson, relying on her own often-tried powers of fascination to induce him to give up what she meant to describe as a compromising letter; and, like Volenski, she felt unutterably hopeless on hearing that Mr. Hudson was dead.
A week after that Madame Demidoff had seen the announcement in theTimes, and, quite unsuspecting that Volenski was on the same track as herself, felt quite relieved to see that the candlesticks were among the objects put up for sale at 108, Curzon Street. As far as she was concerned it would be a wonderfully easy matter to bid for them, and purchase them at any price.
A greatcrowd had already assembled in the dining-room, where the auction was to be held, when Volenski arrived upon the scene.
A number of dealers, mostly Jews, who all seemed to know each other, were quietly arranging among themselves as to which particular lot they each intended to purchase. The sale began punctually at eleven o’clock. Volenski looked round anxiously—the crowd in the room was very dense. He could not see Madame Demidoff. The larger pieces of furniture were first put up, and rapidly knocked down at varying prices to different dealers, who mostly got their purchases very cheaply. The only times that the prices ran at all high, was when some unfortunate outsider or private bidder attempted to compete against the clique of dealers, who stood closely packed near the desk of the auctioneer, and hurriedly ran the prices up till the poor, misguided, private bidder retired discomfited.
It was very late in the day when the curios and valuable knicknacks were at last in their turn put up for sale. Jewellery, gold and silver plate, Egyptian and other antiquities, and at last—
“A pair of unique, gold-mounted, china candlesticks,” shouted the auctioneer; “what shall we say, fifty pounds the pair?”
“Guineas,” said a voice.
“Sixty,” said another.
“Seventy,” “Eighty,” “Five,” came in rapid, successive bids from the various dealers.
In this preliminary skirmish Volenski had not joined. He waited till most bidders had fallen back, knowing full well that it had been arranged previously who should have the last bid for the candlesticks.
But when another voice had said “Ninety,” there was a pause, and the auctioneer began his customary—
“Now then, gentlemen. A pair of unique——”
“One hundred,” said Volenski, in a voice he hardly recognised as his own, so excited was it.
“And fifty,” came from a nasal tone in the front ranks.
“Two hundred,” said Volenski.
“And fifty,” said the nasal tones.
“Three hundred,” said Volenski, who, having recognised his antagonist as one of the dealers who had purchased a large collection of other things, knew that, though the man might run him up to a pretty stiff price, he would certainly not buybibelotsat what might prove a loss to himself. He had therefore quite recovered himself, and his intense excitement was somewhat subsiding; and when the nasal tones said again—
“And fifty.”
“Five hundred pounds,” said Volenski quietly.
The owner of the nasal tones thereupon shrugged his shoulders, and looked up at the ceiling, as if he expected it to give him some sign as to what his next course of action should be. He murmured once more, “And fifty,” but mechanically and without conviction. And when Volenski said “Six hundred” the nasal tones were heard no more.
“Now then, gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, “this pair of unique candlesticks going for the sum of six hundred pounds—six hundred pounds, gentlemen—going——”
“Seven hundred,” came from a musical voice—a lady’s.
All heads were turned in the direction whence the voice had come, and curious eyes were scanning the new bidder. Volenski did not turn round; he knew well enough whose voice it was—the soft voice with asoupçonof Russian intonation in the pronunciation of the consonants. He had turned deathly pale; his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth; his knees began to tremble under him; but in a second all this cowardice was over. Lashing himself into sudden energy he drew himself bolt upright, and in almost defiant tone shouted to the auctioneer, “One thousand pounds.”
“And five hundred,” came in equally defiant tones from his fair antagonist in the rear.
“Two thousand,” said Volenski.
“And five hundred,” was the reply.
“Three thousand,” “Four,” “Five,” “Six,” “Ten thousand pounds.”
The crowd, breathless, excited, listened and alternately gazed at the two bidders, who from opposite ends of the room, with dry, feverish voices, shouted defiance at each other. Everyone felt that there was some mystery here, some tragedy, the last act of which was being enacted before their eyes.
At this point the auctioneer leant forward, and addressing himself more particularly to Volenski, said—
“Unless some arrangement is very soon entered into I cannot keep all these gentlemen waiting. We shall have to proceed with the sale.”
“Do you hold my bid?” said Volenski. “I said ‘Ten thousand pounds.’ ”
“Twenty thousand,” said Madame Demidoff quietly, as if she were talking of so many pence.
“Twenty thousand pounds,” said the auctioneer, “for a pair of candlesticks. Both this gentleman and this lady are quite unknown to me. I shall have to have some guarantee from both that the money will be paid when the articles are ultimately knocked down, otherwise I must refuse to have the valuable time of these gentlemen taken up any longer. I think some arrangement should be entered into,” he repeated again. “In the meanwhile the last bid of twenty thousand holds good.”
Volenski was about to make an angry retort, for he was boiling over with suppressed excitement, when he felt a hand gently laid on his arm. He turned like an animal at bay and faced the enemy, who certainly at that moment did not seem very formidable. The enemy was beautifully dressed—all in black; it had dark eyes, which looked almost pleadingly into Volenski’s wild ones, as if they meant to read what was passing in his thoughts, and it had a voice which spoke with the softest Russian accent he had ever heard; it had, moreover, a tiny hand, exquisitely gloved, which was resting, like a timid bird, on Volenski’s coat-sleeve. At last the enemy spoke.
“Monsieur,” it said in Russian, “we seem to be fighting a terribly fierce battle, you and I. Suppose we have a few moments’ armistice; will you accept the white flag?”
Volenski gave a faint nod of acquiescence.
“We have, monsieur, you and I, evidently both set our hearts on being possessed of those candlesticks. I wonder if your motive is as pure as my own? Those candlesticks, monsieur, were confided to me by a friend; they were lost while under my charge. I wish to be the one to restore them to him, even if it is to cost me half my fortune.”
“Madame,” replied Volenski, “I honour your motive, but these candlesticks were originally entrusted to my master, the Cardinal, by his Majesty the Emperor himself. They shall be restored to his Eminence, but it shall be through my hands.”
“Ah!” said Madame Demidoff sneeringly, “you wish to claim a reward.”
“Yes, madame, that is my intention.”
“Qu’ à cela ne tienne!I will promise you as boundless a reward as his Eminence’s munificence could never dream of, if you will grant me this whim.”
“Madame, were you to hold in your tiny hand the privy purse of the Shah of Persia I would not give up those candlesticks to you.”
“Thirty thousand for that pair of candlesticks,” he shouted to the auctioneer, who, with the crowd, was eyeing the antagonists, curiously straining their ears to catch the meaning of their conversation.
“Monsieur,” said Madame Demidoff excitedly, “could we not share those candlesticks?Mustyou have them both?”
So extraordinary was this proposal that for a moment Volenski hardly realised its full meaning. He looked half dazed at the fair Russian, who continued eagerly—
“Monsieur, there are two candlesticks there; one is slightly damaged, the other quite whole. I will abandon you the one if you will let me have the other. Thus we shall share the honour and glory of presenting the recovered treasures to his Eminence. I suppose, being the lady, I might have the undamaged, therefore superior, article?”
What was she saying? The undamaged candlestick? He to have the broken one. Why, that was the one that held his papers, and she wished for the other. But then he was saved! saved! He could not speak, he was too excited; but, taking Madame Demidoff’s hand, he dragged her through the crowd, who made way for them, to the auctioneer’s desk, where the candlesticks were displayed. He said—
“Yes, yes; I agree. You shall have the one, the best one of the two; leave me the broken one—I am satisfied. Why don’t you take it? I will pay for them both,” he added feverishly, taking a large bundle of banknotes from his pocket-book, and forcing them into the hand of the astonished auctioneer.
But Madame Demidoff had thrown but one glance at the twin candlesticks, then retreated, her eyes nearly starting out of her head with fear and dismay. The candlesticks were twins indeed, for, in the various vicissitudes through which they had passed in the last few weeks, the arm of the undamaged Cupid had, like its fellow, been chipped from the wrist to the elbow.
Madame Demidoff, vainly striving to appear calm, feverishly seized one of the two candlesticks, wildly hoping that luck would favour her in her choice, and left the room, followed by the astonished stare of the spectators, who instinctively made way to allow her to pass with her precious burden.
Volenski, who had not noticed the lady’s look of dismay, nor realised the cause of it, only saw what he thought was the identical candlestick that contained his secret papers standing there before his very eyes. Hardly crediting his senses, alternating between fear and hope, he took it up, and carried it away with him.
“Monsieur,—I feel sure that the receipt of this letter will cause you no surprise.“We are in each other’s power. Obviously it would not answer either of our purposes to fight out this duel. Shall we exchange ourpièces de conviction, monsieur, to-night at my hotel—after the walnuts and wine. I dine at 7.30.“Yours,“Anna Demidoff.”
“Monsieur,—I feel sure that the receipt of this letter will cause you no surprise.
“We are in each other’s power. Obviously it would not answer either of our purposes to fight out this duel. Shall we exchange ourpièces de conviction, monsieur, to-night at my hotel—after the walnuts and wine. I dine at 7.30.
“Yours,
“Anna Demidoff.”
Iván Volenski held the delicately scented little pink note in his hand, and read and re-read it till he knew its brief contents by heart. It was such a strange ending to his terrible adventures of the last fortnight, culminating in that fierce struggle under the auctioneer’s desk, and Iván, who was not thirty, and was a man before he became a Socialist, thought of that foe whom he had known and dreaded so long, as she stood imploringly by his side, with the tiny, gloved hand resting on his coat-sleeve.
Since that moment he seemed to remember every subsequent event but as a half-distinct dream. He had grasped the candlestick which he believed held the secret papers with a wild feeling of exultation, and carried it home to his hotel. Once there, and his door securely locked, he had touched the hidden spring and seen the papers resting within the depths of the receptacle. With trembling hands he took them out, and his aching eyes travelled over them feverishly.
Oh! the first feeling of nameless horror when he realised that that writing, those papers, were not the ones he had fought for so valiantly, now, after so bitter a struggle; the hopeless sensation of utter despair, that seemed to numb his faculties, and deaden them even to the extent of not realising the contents of the papers he held in his hands!
It was not till fully half an hour afterwards, when he heard Mirkovitch’s heavy step on the stairs, that he succeeded in rousing himself from this strange apathy.
The old Socialist had tried Iván’s door, but finding it locked, had evidently gone away again. Iván did not want to see him then; he was beginning to think, and think he must alone, in peace, without fear, and with complete calm.
Madame Demidoff, the agent of the Russian Government, held the papers of the Socialistic brotherhood. True, but in exchange he, Volenski, held what would brand her before all the world as the spy of the Russian police, and for ever prevent her following that calling again. If made publicly known that her papers had fallen into wrong hands, her Government would, as is customary in such cases, disown their agent, and probably wreak vengeance upon her for her carelessness.
Obviously, then, though the brotherhood was at this moment in Madame Demidoff’s power, the fair Russian was equally in the power of the brotherhood, and——
It was at this point of his now calm reflections that the waiter brought Iván the pink, scented note, which had been left at the hotel for M. Volenski, while the bearer waited for an answer.
It was a triumph for Volenski. She had spoken truly; it would not serve either of their purposes to fight out so well-balanced a duel.
“Madame,—To-night at 7.30 o’clock I will wait on you as you graciously bid me, and trust that our enmity, after a mutual laying down of arms, will change into friendship over the walnuts and wine.“I am, Madame,“Your humble and devoted servant,“Iván Volenski.”
“Madame,—To-night at 7.30 o’clock I will wait on you as you graciously bid me, and trust that our enmity, after a mutual laying down of arms, will change into friendship over the walnuts and wine.
“I am, Madame,
“Your humble and devoted servant,
“Iván Volenski.”
He sent this note down, made a hasty toilet, and still purposely evaded his grim comrade, whom he did not wish to meet till he could lay the fateful papers in his hands.
Andthat night, in one of the daintily furnished sitting-rooms of Claridge’s Hotel, before a gaily blazing fire, a man and a woman sat discussing their late mutual adventures over the hunt after the Emperor’s candlesticks. They each had handed over to the other the respective compromising papers, and when that was done each heaved a sigh of relief, and a dainty white hand was stretched out in token of friendship and bond of mutual silence.
And the writer has been told, on the surest authority, that this compact has been most faithfully kept, for Lobkowitz and Mirkovitch never could afterwards induce Iván Volenski to join them in their numberless plots and plans; having handed the fateful papers back safely into the keeping of grim old Mirkovitch, the brotherhood looked to him in vain for help, and he never once joined in their meetings, up the back stairs of the dreary Vienna house; and as for Madame Demidoff, the Russian Government had soon to accept her resignation, in view of her approaching marriage.
Last winter, at the brilliant ball given by the Princess Marïonoff, in her palace at St. Petersburg, certainly the most admired among all the belles was Madame Volenski,néeDemidoff.
No one noticed, however, that she and her husband exchanged a meaning smile as the Princess displayed to her guests a pair of the rarestvieux Viennecandlesticks, which it was discreetly whispered had been presented to her by his Eminence the Papal Nuncio himself, on behalf of no less a person than his Catholic and Apostolic Majesty Franz Jozef I.
THE END.
Add title and author’s name to cover image.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g.buttonhole/button-hole, Hotel Imperial/Impérial, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Formatting: abandon the use of drop-caps.
[Chapter VII]
Change “no doubt, the PapalNunicowas, this was a false move” toNuncio.
[Chapter IX]
“Ivanpondered if he should communicate with her” toIván.
“lady resident in Petersburg, by the PapalNunico, on behalf” toNuncio.
[Chapter XI]
“He swallowed the last vestige of repulsion; he felt for this coarse” delete semicolon.
[Chapter XIV]
“MariaStefanovnawas with him.” toStefanowna.
(“Mirkovitch, have you heard fromVolenksi?”) toVolenski.
[Chapter XX]
(“And fifty,”) change comma to period.
[Chapter XXI]
((letter signature)IvanVolenski) toIván.
[End of text]