"What do you mean?" she whispered. "What do you mean?"

"Sydney Bamborough is your husband," said the Frenchman, without taking his dull eyes from her face.

"He is dead!" she hissed.

"Prove it!"

He walked past her and leaned against the mantelpiece in the pose of easy familiarity which he had maintained during the first portion of their interview.

"Prove it, madame!" he said again.

"He died at Tver," she said; but there was no conviction in her voice. With her title and position to hold to, she could face the world. Without these, what was she?

"A local newspaper reports that the body of a man was discovered on the plains of Tver and duly buried in the pauper cemetery," said De Chauxville indifferently. "Your husband—Sydney Bamborough, I mean—was, for reasons which need not be gone into here, in the neighborhood of Tver at the time. A police officer, who has since been transferred to Odessa, was of the opinion that the dead man was a foreigner. There are about twelve thousand foreigners in Tver—operatives in the manufactories. Your husband—Sydney Bamborough, bien entendu—left Tver to proceed eastward and cross Siberia to China in order to avoid the emissaries of the Charity League, who were looking out for him at the western frontier. He will be due at one of the treaty ports in China in about a month. Upon the supposition that the body discovered on the plains of Tver was that of your husband, you took the opportunity of becoming a princess. It was enterprising. I admire your spirit. But it was dangerous. I, madame, can suppress Sydney Bamborough when he turns up. I have two arrows in my quiver for him; one is the Charity League, the other the Russian Government, who want him. Your husband—I beg your pardon, the prince—would perhaps take a different view of the case. It is a pretty story. I will tell it to him unless I have your implicit obedience."

Etta stood dry-lipped before him. She tried to speak, but no words came from her lips.

De Chauxville looked at her with a quiet smile of triumph, and she knew that he loved her. There is no defining love, nor telling when it merges into hatred.

"Thursday evening, before dinner," said De Chauxville.

And he left her standing on the hearth-rug, her lips moving and framing no words.



CHAPTER XXXIV

AN APPEAL

"Have you spoken to the princess?" asked Steinmetz, without taking the cigar from his lips.

They were driving home through the forest that surrounded Osterno as the sea surrounds an island. They were alone in the sleigh. That which they had been doing had required no servant. Paul was driving, and consequently the three horses were going as hard as they could. The snow flew past their faces like the foam over the gunwale of a boat that is thrashing into a ten-knot breeze. Yet it was not all snow. There were flecks of foam from the horses' mouths mingled with it.

"Yes," answered Paul. His face was set and hard, his eyes stern. This trouble with the peasants was affecting him more keenly than he suspected. It was changing the man's face—drawing lines about his lips, streaking his forehead with the marks of care. His position can hardly be realized by an Englishman unless it be compared to that of the captain of a great sinking ship full of human souls who have been placed under his care.

"And what did she say?" asked Steinmetz.

"That she would not leave unless we all went with her."

Steinmetz drew the furs closer up round him.

"Yes," he said, glancing at his companion's face, and seeing little but the eyes, by reason of the sable collar of his coat, which met the fur of his cap; "yes, and why not?"

"I cannot leave them," answered Paul. "I cannot go away now that there is trouble among them. What it is, goodness only knows! They would never have got like this by themselves. Somebody has been at them, and I don't think it is the Nihilists. It is worse than that. Some devil has been stirring them up, and they know no better. He is still at it. They are getting worse day by day, and I cannot catch him. If I do, by God! Steinmetz, I'll twist his neck."

Steinmetz smiled grimly.

"Yes," he answered, "you are capable of it. For me, I am getting tired of the moujik. He is an inveterate, incurable fool. If he is going to be a dangerous fool as well, I should almost be inclined to let him go to the devil in his own way."

"I dare say; but you are not in my position."

"No; that is true, Pavlo. They were not my father's serfs. Generations of my ancestors have not saved generations of their ancestors from starvation. My fathers before me have not toiled and slaved and legislated for them. I have not learnt medicine that I might doctor them. I have not risked my health and life in their sties, where pigs would refuse to live. I have not given my whole heart and soul to their welfare, to receive no thanks, but only hatred. No, it is different for me. I owe them nothing, mein lieber; that is the difference."

"If I agree to make a bolt for Petersburg to-morrow will you come?" retorted Paul.

"No," answered the stout man.

"I thought not. Your cynicism is only a matter of words, Steinmetz, and not of deeds. There is no question of either of us leaving Osterno. We must stay and fight it right out here."

"That is so," answered Steinmetz, with the Teutonic stolidity of manner which sometimes came over him. "But the ladies—what of them?"

Paul did not answer. They were passing over the rise of a heavy drift. It was necessary to keep the horses up to their work, to prevent the runners of the sleigh sinking into the snow. With voice and whip Paul encouraged them. He was kind to animals, but never spared them—a strong man, who gave freely of his strength and expected an equal generosity.

"This is no place for Miss Delafield," added Steinmetz, looking straight in front of him.

"I know that!" answered Paul sharply. "I wish to God she was not here!" he added in a lower tone, and the words were lost beneath the frozen mustache.

Steinmetz made no answer. They drove on through the gathering gloom. The sky was of a yellow gray, and the earth reflected the dismal hue of it. Presently it began to snow, driving in a fine haze from the north. The two men lapsed into silence. Steinmetz, buried in his furs like a great, cumbrous bear, appeared to be half asleep. They had had a long and wearisome day. The horses had covered their forty miles and more from village to village, where the two men had only gathered discouragement and foreboding. Some of the starostas were sullen; others openly scared. None of them were glad to see Steinmetz. Paul had never dared to betray his identity. With the gendarmes—the tchinovniks—they had not deemed it wise to hold communication.

"Stop!" cried Steinmetz suddenly, and Paul pulled the horses on to their haunches.

"I thought you were asleep," he said.

There was no one in sight. They were driving along the new road now, the high-way Paul had constructed from Osterno to Tver. The road itself was, of course, indistinguishable, but the telegraph posts marked its course.

Steinmetz tumbled heavily out of his furs and went toward the nearest telegraph post.

"Where is the wire?" he shouted.

Paul followed him in the sleigh. Together they peered up into the darkness and the falling snow. The posts were there, but the wire was gone. A whole length of it had been removed. They were cut off from civilization by one hundred and forty miles of untrodden snow.

Steinmetz clambered back into the sleigh and drew up the fur apron. He gave a strange little laugh that had a ring of boyish excitement in it. This man had not always been stout and placid. He too had had his day, and those who knew him said that it had been a stirring one.

"That settles one question," he said.

"Which question?" asked Paul.

He was driving as hard as the horses could lay hoof to ground, taken with a sudden misgiving and a great desire to reach Osterno before dark.

"The question of the ladies," replied Steinmetz. "It is too late for them to go now."

The village, nestling beneath the grim protection of Osterno, was deserted and forlorn. All the doors were closed, the meagre curtains drawn. It was very cold. There was a sense of relief in this great frost; for when Nature puts forth her strength men are usually cowed thereby.

At the castle all seemed to be in order. The groom, in his great sheepskin coat, was waiting in the doorway. The servants threw open the vast doors, and stood respectfully in the warm, brilliantly lighted hall while their master passed in.

"Where is the princess?" Steinmetz asked his valet, while he was removing the evidences of a long day in the open air.

"In her drawing-room, Excellency."

"Then go and ask her if she will give me a cup of tea in a few minutes."

And the man, a timorous German, went.

A few minutes later Steinmetz, presenting himself at the door of the little drawing-room attached to Etta's suite of rooms, found the princess in a matchless tea-gown waiting beside a table laden with silver tea appliances. A dainty samovar, a tiny tea-pot, a spirit-lamp and the rest, all in the wonderful silver-work of the Slavonski Bazaar in Moscow.

"You see," she said with a smile, for she always smiled on men, "I have obeyed your orders."

Steinmetz bowed gravely. He was one of the few men who could see that smile and be strong. He closed the door carefully behind him. No mention was made of the fact that his message had implied, and she had understood, that he wished to see her alone. Etta was rather pale. There was an anxious look in her eyes—behind the smile, as it were. She was afraid of this man. She looked at the flame of the samovar, busying herself among the tea-things with pretty curving fingers and rustling sleeves. But the tea was never made.

"I begin to think," said Steinmetz, coming to the point in his bluff way, "that you are a sort of beautiful Jonah, a graceful stormy petrel, a fair Wandering Jewess. There is always trouble where you go."

She glanced at his broad face, and read nothing there.

"Go on," she said. "What have I been doing now? How you do hate me, Herr Steinmetz!"

"Perhaps it is safer than loving you," he answered, with his grim humor.

"I suppose," she said, with a quaint little air of resignation which was very disarming, "that you have come here to scold me—you do not want any tea?"

"No; I do not want any tea."

She turned the wick of the spirit-lamp, and the peaceful music of the samovar was still. In her clever eyes there was a little air of sidelong indecision. She could not make up her mind how to take him. Her chiefest method was so old as to be biblical. Yet she could not take him with her eyelids. She had tried.

"You are horribly grave," she said.

"The situation," he replied, "is horribly grave."

Etta looked up at him as he stood before her, and the lamp-light, falling on the perfect oval of her face, showed it to be white and drawn.

"Princess," said the man, "there are in the lives of some of us times when we cease to be men and women, and become mere human beings. There are times, I mean, when the thousand influences of sex die at one blow of fate. This is such a time. We must forget that you are a beautiful woman; I verily believe that there is none more beautiful in the world. I once knew one whom I admired more, but that was not because she was more beautiful. That, however, is my own story, and this"—he paused and looked round the little room, furnished, decorated for her comfort—"this is your story. We must forget that I am a man, and therefore subject to the influence of your beauty."

She sat looking up into his strong, grave face, and during all that followed she never moved.

"I know you," he said, "to be courageous, and must ask you to believe that I exaggerate nothing in what I am about to tell you. I tell it to you instead of leaving Paul to do so because I know his complete fearlessness, and his blind faith in a people who are unworthy of it. He does not realize the gravity of the situation. They are his own people. A sailor never believes that his own ship is unseaworthy."

"Go on!" said Etta, for he had paused.

"This country," he continued, "is unsettled. The people of the estate are on the brink of a revolt. You know what the Russian peasant is. It will be no Parisian emeute, half noise, half laughter. We cannot hope to hold this old place against them. We cannot get away from it. We cannot send for help because we have no one to send. Princess, this is no time for half-confidences. I know—for I know these people better even than Paul knows them—I am convinced that this is not the outcome of their own brains. They are being urged on by some one. There is some one at their backs. This is no revolt of the peasants, organized by the peasants. Princess, you must tell me all you know!"

"I—I," she stammered, "I know nothing!"

And then suddenly she burst into tears, and buried her face in a tiny, useless handkerchief. It was so unlike her and so sudden that Steinmetz was startled.

He laid his great hand soothingly on her shoulder.

"I know," he said quietly, "I know more than you think. I am no saint, princess, myself. I too have had my difficulties. I have had my temptations, and I have not always resisted. God knows it is difficult for men to do always the right thing. It is a thousand times more difficult for women. When we spoke together in Petersburg, and I offered you my poor friendship, I was not acting in the dark. I knew as much then as I do now. Princess, I knew about the Charity League papers. I knew more than any except Stepan Lanovitch, and it was he who told me."

He was stroking her shoulder with the soothing movements that one uses toward a child in distress. His great hand, broad and thick, had a certain sense of quiet comfort and strength in it. Etta ceased sobbing, and sat with bowed head, looking through her tears into the gay wood fire. It is probable that she failed to realize the great charity of the man who was speaking to her. For the capacity for evil merges at some point or other into incapability for comprehending good.

"Is that all he knows?" she was wondering.

The suggestion that Sydney Bamborough was not dead had risen up to eclipse all other fear in her mind. In some part her thought reached him.

"I know so much," he said, "that it is safest to tell me more. I offered you my friendship because I think that no woman could carry through your difficulties unaided. Princess, the admiration of Claude de Chauxville may be pleasant, but I venture to think that my friendship is essential."

Etta raised her head a little. She was within an ace of handing over to Karl Steinmetz the rod of power held over her by the Frenchman. There was something in Steinmetz that appealed to her and softened her, something that reached a tender part of her heart through the coating of vanity, through the hardness of worldly experience.

"I have known De Chauxville twenty-five years," he went on, and Etta deferred her confession. "We have never been good friends, I admit. I am no saint, princess, but De Chauxville is a villain. Some day you may discover, when it is too late, that it would have been for Paul's happiness, for your happiness, for every one's good to have nothing more to do with Claude de Chauxville, I want to save you that discovery. Will you act upon my advice? Will you make a stand now? Will you come to me and tell me all that De Chauxville knows about you that he could ever use against you? Will you give yourself into my hands—give me your battle to fight? You cannot do it alone. Only believe in my friendship, princess. That is all I ask."

Etta shook her head.

"I think not," she answered, in a voice too light, too superficial, too hopelessly shallow for the depth of the moment. She was thinking only of Sydney Bamborough, and of that dread secret. She fought with what arms she wielded best—the lightest, the quickest, the most baffling.

"As you will," said Steinmetz.



CHAPTER XXXV

ON THE EDGE OF THE STORM

A Russian village kabak, with a smoking lamp, of which the chimney is broken. The greasy curtains drawn across the small windows exclude the faintest possibility of a draught. The moujik does not like a draught; in fact, he hates the fresh air of heaven. Air that has been breathed three or four times over is the air for him; it is warmer. The atmosphere of this particular inn is not unlike that of every other inn in the White Empire, inasmuch as it is heavily seasoned with the scent of cabbage soup. The odor of this nourishing compound is only exceeded in unpleasantness by the taste of the same. Added to this warm smell there is the smoke of a score of the very cheapest cigarettes. The Russian peasant smokes his cigarette now. It is the first step, and it does not cost him much. It is the dawn of progress—the thin end of the wedge which will broaden out into anarchy. The poor man who smokes a cigarette is sure to pass on to socialistic opinions and troubles in the market-place. Witness the cigarette-smoking countries. Moreover, this same poor man is not a pleasant companion. He smokes a poor cigarette.

There is also the smell of vodka, which bottled curse is standing in tumblers all down the long table. The news has spread in Osterno that vodka is to be had for the asking at the kabak, where there is a meeting. Needless to say, the meeting is a large one. Foolishness and thirst are often found in the same head—a cranium which, by the way, is exceptionally liable to be turned by knowledge or drink.

If the drink at the kabak of Osterno was dangerous, the knowledge was no less so.

"I tell you, little fathers," an orator was shouting, "that the day of the capitalist has gone. The rich men—the princes, the nobles, the great merchants, the monopolists, the tchinovniks—tremble. They know that the poor man is awakening at last from his long lethargy. What have we done in Germany? What have we done in America? What have we done in England and France?"

Whereupon he banged an unwashed fist upon the table with such emphasis that more than one of the audience clutched his glass of vodka in alarm, lest a drop of the precious liquor should be wasted.

No one seemed to know what had been done in Germany, in America, in England, or in France. The people's orator is a man of many questions and much fist-banging. The moujiks of Osterno gazed at him beneath their shaggy brows. Half of them did not understand him. They were as yet uneducated to a comprehension of the street orator's periods. A few of the more intelligent waited for him to answer his own questions, which he failed to do. A vague and ominous question carries as much weight with some people as a statement, and has the signal advantage of being less incriminating.

The speaker—a neckless, broad-shouldered ruffian of the type known in England as "unemployed"—looked round with triumphant head well thrown back. From his attitude it was obvious that he had been the salvation of the countries named, and had now come to Russia to do the same for her. He spoke with the throaty accent of the Pole. It was quite evident that his speech was a written one—probably a printed harangue issued to him and his compeers for circulation throughout the country. He delivered many of the longer words with a certain unctuous roll of the tongue, and an emphasis indicating the fact that he did not know their meaning.

"From afar," he went on, "we have long been watching you. We have noted your difficulties and your hardships, your sickness, your starvation. 'These men of Tver,' we have said, 'are brave and true and steadfast. We will tell them of liberty.' So I have come to you, and I am glad to see you. Alexander Alexandrovitch, pass the bottle down the table. You see, little fathers, I have not come begging for your money. No; keep your kopecks in your pocket. We do not want your money. We are no tchinovniks. We prove it by giving you vodka to keep your throats wet and your ears open. Fill up your glasses—fill up your glasses!"

The little fathers of Osterno understood this part of the harangue perfectly, and acted upon it.

The orator scratched his head reflectively. There was a certain business-like mouthing of his periods, showing that he had learnt all this by heart. He did not press all his points home in the manner of one speaking from his own brain.

"I see before me," he went on, without an overplus of sequence, "men worthy to take their place among the rulers of the world—eh—er—rulers of the world, little fathers."

He paused and drank half a tumbler of vodka. His last statement was so obviously inapplicable—what he actually did see was so very far removed from what he said he saw—that he decided to relinquish the point.

"I drink," he cried, "to Liberty and Equality!"

Some of the little fathers also drank, to assuage an hereditary thirst.

"And now," continued the orator, "let us get to business. I think we understand each other?"

He looked round with an engaging smile upon faces brutal enough to suit his purpose, but quite devoid of intelligence. There was not much understanding there.

"The poor man has one only way of making himself felt—force. We have worked for generations, we have toiled in silence, and we have gathered strength. The time has now come for us to put forth our strength. The time has gone by for merely asking for what we want. We asked, and they heard us not. We will now go and take!"

A few who had heard this speech or something like it before shouted their applause at this moment. Before the noise had subsided the door opened, and two or three men pushed their way into the already overcrowded room.

"Come in, come in!" cried the orator; "the more the better. You are all welcome. All we require, then, little fathers, is organization. There are nine hundred souls in Osterno; are you going to bow down before one man? All men are equal—moujik and barin, krestyanin and prince. Why do you not go up to the castle that frowns down upon the village, and tell the man there that you are starving, that he must feed you, that you are not going to work from dawn till eve while he sits on his velvet couch and smokes his gold-tipped cigarettes. Why do you not go and tell him that you are not going to starve and die while he eats caviare and peaches from gold plates and dishes?"

A resounding bang of the fist finished this fine oration, and again the questions were unanswered.

"They are all the same, these aristocrats," the man thundered on. "Your prince is as the others, I make no doubt. Indeed, I know; for I have been told by our good friend Abramitch here. A clever man our friend Abramitch, and when you get your liberty—when you get your Mir—you must keep him in mind. Your prince, then—this Howard Alexis—treats you like the dirt beneath his feet. Is it not so? He will not listen to your cry of hunger. He will not give you a few crumbs of food from his gold dishes. He will not give you a few kopecks of the millions of rubles that he possesses. And where did he get those rubles? Ah! where did he get them—eh? Tell me that!"

Again the interrogative unwashed fist. As the orator's wild and frenzied eye travelled round the room it lighted on a form near the door—a man standing a head and shoulders above any one in the room, a man enveloped in an old brown coat, with a woollen shawl round his throat, hiding half his face.

"Who is that?" cried the orator, with an unsteady, pointing finger. "He is no moujik. Is that a tchinovnik, little fathers? Has he come here to our meeting to spy upon us?"

"You may ask them who I am," replied the giant. "They know; they will tell you. It is not the first time that I tell them they are fools. I tell them again now. They are fools and worse to listen to such windbags as you."

"Who is it?" cried the paid agitator. "Who is this man?"

His eyes were red with anger and with vodka; his voice was unsteady. His outstretched hand shook.

"It is the Moscow doctor," said a man beside him—"the Moscow doctor."

"Then I say he is no doctor!" shouted the orator. "He is a spy—a Government spy, a tchinovnik! He has heard all we have said. He has seen you all. Brothers, that man must not leave this room alive. If he does, you are lost men!"

Some few of the more violent spirits rose and pressed tumultuously toward the door. The agitator shouted and screamed, urging them on, taking good care to remain in the safe background himself. Every man in the room rose to his feet. They were full of vodka and fury and ignorance. Spirit and tall talk, taken on an empty stomach, are dangerous stimulants.

Paul stood with his back to the door and never moved.

"Sit down, fools!" he cried. "Sit down! Listen to me. You dare not touch me; you know that."

It seemed that he was right, for they stopped with staring, stupid eyes and idle hands.

"Will you listen to me, whom you have known for years, or to this talker from the town? Choose now. I am tired of you. I have been patient with you for years. You are sheep; are you fools also, to be dazzled by the words of an idle talker who promises all and gives nothing?"

There was a sullen silence. Paul had lost his power over them, and he knew it. He was quite cool and watchful. He knew that he was in danger. These men were wild and ignorant. They were mad with drink and the brave words of the agitator.

"Choose now!" he shouted, feeling for the handle of the door behind his back.

They made no sign, but watched the faces of their leaders.

"If I go now," said Paul, "I never come again!"

He opened the door. The men whom he had nursed and clothed and fed, whose lives he had saved again and again, stood sullen and silent.

Paul passed slowly out and closed the door behind him. Without it was dark and still. There would be a moon presently, and in the meantime it was preparing to freeze harder than ever.

Paul walked slowly up the village street, while two men emerged separately from the darkness of by-lanes and followed him. He did not heed them. He was not aware that the thermometer stood somewhere below zero. He did not even trouble to draw on his fur gloves.

He felt like a man whose own dogs have turned against him. The place that these peasants had occupied in his heart had been precisely that vacancy which is filled by dogs and horses in the hearts of many men. There was in his feeling for them that knowledge of a complete dependence by which young children draw and hold a mother's love.

Paul Howard Alexis was not a man to analyze his thoughts. Your strong man is usually ignorant of the existence of his own feelings. He is never conscious of them. Paul walked slowly through the village of Osterno, and realized, in his uncompromising honesty, that of the nine hundred men who lived therein there were not three upon whom he could rely. He had upheld his peasants for years against the cynic truths of Karl Steinmetz. He had resolutely refused to admit even to himself that they were as devoid of gratitude as they were of wisdom. And this was the end of all!

One of the men following him hurried on and caught him up.

"Excellency," he gasped, breathless with his haste, "you must not come here alone any longer. I am afraid of them—I have no control."

Paul paused, and suited his pace to the shorter legs of his companion.

"Starosta!" he said. "Is that you?"

"Yes, Excellency. I saw you go into the kabak, so I waited outside and watched. I did not dare to go inside. They will not allow me there. They are afraid that I should give information."

"How long have these meetings been going on?"

"The last three nights, Excellency, in Osterno; but it is the same all over the estate."

"Only on the estate?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes, Excellency."

Paul walked on in silence for some paces. The third man followed them without catching them up.

"I do not understand, Excellency," said the starosta anxiously. "It is not the Nihilists."

"No; it is not the Nihilists."

"And they do not want money, Excellency; that seems strange."

"Very!" admitted Paul ironically.

"And they give vodka."

This seemed to be the chief stumbling-block in the starosta's road to a solution of the mystery.

"Find out for me," said Paul, after a pause, "who this man is, where he comes from, and how much he is paid to open his mouth. We will pay him more to shut it. Find out as much as you can, and let me know to-morrow."

"I will try, Excellency; but I have little hope of succeeding. They distrust me. They send the children to my shop for what they want, and the little ones have evidently been told not to chatter. The moujiks avoid me when they meet me. What can I do?"

"You can show them that you are not afraid of them," answered Paul. "That goes a long way with the moujik."

They walked on together through the lane of cottages, where furtive forms lurked in door-ways and behind curtains. And Paul had only one word of advice to give, upon which he harped continually: "Be thou very courageous—be thou very courageous." Nothing new, for so it was written in the oldest book of all. The starosta was a timorous man, needing such strong support as his master gave him from time to time.

At the great gates of the park they paused, and Paul gave the mayor of Osterno a few last words of advice. While they were standing there the other man who had been following joined them.

"Is that you, Steinmetz?" asked Paul, his hand thrust with suspicious speed into his jacket pocket.

"Yes."

"What are you doing here?"

"Watching you," answered Karl Steinmetz, in his mild way. "It is no longer safe for either of us to go about alone. It was mere foolery your going to that kabak."



CHAPTER XXXVI

A TROIS

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 pate 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.

"A 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.

"A 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.



CHAPTER XXXVII

A DEUX

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.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

A TALE THAT IS TOLD

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 not my privilege?" 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 Stepan 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 Stepan'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 Stepan 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."



CHAPTER XXXIX

HUSBAND AND WIFE

Karl Steinmetz had shown the depth of his knowledge of men and women when he commented on that power of facing danger with an unruffled countenance which he was pleased to attribute to English ladies above all women. During the evening he had full opportunity of verifying his own observations.

Etta came down to dinner smiling and imperturbable. On the threshold of the drawing-room she exchanged a glance with Karl Steinmetz; and that was all. At dinner it was Maggie and Paul who were silent. Etta talked to Steinmetz—brightly, gayly, with a certain courage of a very high order; for she was desperate, and she did not show it.

At last the evening came to an end. Maggie had sung two songs. Steinmetz had performed on the piano with a marvellous touch. All had played their parts with the brazen faces which Steinmetz, in his knowledge of many nations, assigned to the Anglo-Saxon race before others.

At last Etta rose to go to bed, with a little sharp sigh of great suspense. It was coming.

She went up to her room, bidding Maggie good-night in the passage. In a mechanical way she allowed the deft-handed maid to array her in a dressing gown—soft, silken, a dainty triumph in its way. Then, almost impatiently, she sent the maid away when her hair was only half released. She would brush it herself. She was tired. No, she wanted nothing more.

She sat down by the fire, brush in hand. She could hardly breathe. It was coming.

She heard Paul come to his dressing-room. She heard his deep, quiet voice reply to some question of his valet's. Then the word "Good-night" in the same quiet voice. The valet had gone. There was only the door now between her and—what? Her fingers were at the throat of her dressing-gown. The soft lace seemed to choke her.

Then Paul knocked at the door. It was coming. She opened her lips, but at first could make no sound.

"Come in!" she said at length hoarsely.

She wondered whether he would kill her. She wondered whether she was in love with her husband. She had begun wondering that lately; she was wondering it when he came in. He had changed his dress-coat for a silk-faced jacket, in which he was in the habit of working with Steinmetz in the quiet room after the household had gone to bed.

She looked up. She dropped the brush, and ran toward him with a great rustle of her flowing silks.

"Oh, Paul, what is it?" she cried.

She stopped short, not daring to touch him, before his cold, set face.

"Have you seen any one?" she whispered.

"Only De Chauxville," he answered, "this afternoon."

"Indeed, Paul," she protested hastily, "it was nothing. A message from Catrina Lanovitch. It was only the usual visit of an acquaintance. It would have been very strange if he had not called. Do you think I could care for a man like that?"

"I never did think so until now," returned Paul steadily. "Your excuses accuse you. You may care for him. I do not know; I—do—not—care."

She turned slowly and went back to her chair.

Mechanically she took up the brush, and shook back her beautiful hair.

"You mean you do not care for me," she said. "Oh, Paul! be careful."

Paul stood looking at her. He was not a subtle-minded man at all. He was not one of those who take it upon themselves to say that they understand women—using the word in an offensively general sense, as if women were situated midway between the human and the animal races. He was old-fashioned enough to look upon women as higher and purer than men, while equally capable of thought and self-control. He had, it must be remembered, no great taste for fictional literature. He had not read the voluminous lucubrations of the modern woman writer. He had not assisted at the nauseating spectacle of a woman morally turning herself inside out in three volumes and an interview.

No, this man respected women still; and he paid them an honor which, thank Heaven, most of them still deserve. He treated them as men in the sense that he considered them to be under the same code of right and wrong, of good and evil.

He did not understand what Etta meant when she told him to be careful. He did not know that the modern social code is like the Spanish grammar—there are so many exceptions that the rules are hardly worth noting. And one of our most notorious modern exceptions is the married woman who is pleased to hold herself excused because outsiders tell her that her husband does not understand her.

"I do not think," said Paul judicially, "that you can have cared very much whether I loved you or not. When you married me you knew that I was the promoter of the Charity League; I almost told you. I told you so much that, with your knowledge, you must have been aware of the fact that I was heavily interested in the undertaking which you betrayed. You married me without certain proof of your husband's death, such was your indecent haste to call yourself a princess. And now I find, on your own confession, that you have a clandestine understanding with a man who tried to murder me only a week ago. Is it not rather absurd to talk of caring?"

He stood looking down at her, cold and terrible in the white heat of his suppressed Northern anger.

The little clock on the mantel-piece, in a terrible hurry, ticked with all its might. Time was speeding. Every moment was against her. And she could think of nothing to say simply because those things that she would have said to others would carry no weight with this man.

Etta was leaning forward in the luxurious chair, staring with haggard eyes into the fire. The flames leaped up and gleamed on her pale face, in her deep eyes.

"I suppose," she said, without looking at him, "that you will not believe me when I tell you that I hate the man. I knew nothing of what you refer to as happening last week; his attempt to murder you, I mean. You are a prince, and all-powerful in your own province. Can you not throw him into prison and keep him there? Such things are done in Russia. He is more dangerous than you think. Please do it—please—"

Paul looked at her with hard, unresponsive eyes. Lives depended on his answer.

"I did not come here to discuss Claude de Chauxville," he said, "but you, and our future."

Etta drew herself up as one under the lash, and waited with set teeth.

"I propose," he said, in a final voice which made it no proposition at all, "that you go home to England at once with—your cousin. This country is not safe for you. The house in London will be at your disposal. I will make a suitable settlement on you, sufficient to live in accordance with your title and position. I must ask you to remember that the name you bear has hitherto been an unsullied one. We have been proud of our princesses—up to now. In case of any trouble reaching you from outside sources connected with this country, I should like you to remember that you are under my protection and that of Steinmetz. Either of us will be glad at any time to consider any appeal for assistance that you may think fit to make. You will always be the Princess Howard Alexis."

Etta gave a sudden laugh.

"Oh, yes," she said, and her face was strangely red, "I shall still be the Princess Alexis."

"With sufficient money to keep up the position," he went on, with the cruel irony of a slow-spoken man.

A queer, twisted smile passed across Etta's face—the smile of one who is in agony and will not shriek.

"There are certain stipulations which I must make in self-defence," went on Paul. "I must ask you to cease all communication of whatever nature with the Baron de Chauxville. I am not jealous of him—now. I do not know why."

He paused, as if wondering what the meaning of this might be. Etta knew it. The knowledge was part of her punishment.

"But," continued her husband. "I am not going to sacrifice the name my mother bore to the vanity of a French coxcomb. You will be kind enough to avoid all society where it is likely that you should meet him. If you disregard my desires in this matter, I shall be compelled to take means to enforce them."

"What means?"

"I shall reduce your allowance."

Their eyes met, and perhaps that was the bitterest moment in Etta's life. Dead things are better put out of sight at once. Etta felt that Paul's dead love would grin at her in every sovereign of the allowance which was to be hers. She would never get away from it; she could never shake off its memory.

"Am I to live alone?" asked Etta, suddenly finding her voice.

"That is as you like," answered Paul, perhaps purposely misunderstanding her. "You are at liberty to have any friend or companion you wish. Perhaps—your cousin."

"Maggie?"

"Yes," answered Paul. For the first time since he had entered the room his eyes were averted from Etta's face.

"She would not live with me," said the princess curtly.

Paul seemed to be reflecting. When he next spoke it was in a kinder voice.

"You need not tell the circumstances which have given rise to this arrangement."

Etta shrugged her shoulders.

"That," went on Paul, "rests entirely with yourself. You may be sure that I will tell no one. I am not likely to discuss it with any one whomsoever."

Etta's stony eyes softened for a moment. She seemed to be alternating between hatred of this man and love of him—a dangerous state for any woman. It is possible that, if he had held his hand out to her, she would have been at his feet in a wild, incoherent passion of self-hatred and abasement. Such moments as these turn our lives and determine them. Paul knew nothing of the issue hanging on this moment, on the passing softness of her eyes. He knew nothing of the danger in which this woman stood, of the temptation with which she was wrestling. He went on in his blindness, went on being only just.

"If," he said, "you have any further questions to ask, I shall always be at your service. For the next few days I shall be busy. The peasants are in a state of discontent verging on rebellion. We cannot at present arrange for your journey to Tver, but as soon as it is possible I will tell you."

He looked at the clock, and made an imperceptible movement toward the door.

Etta glanced up sharply. She did not seem to be breathing.

"Is that all?" she asked, in a dull voice.

There was a long silence, tense and throbbing, the great silence of the steppe.

"I think so," answered Paul at length. "I have tried to be just."

"Then justice is very cruel."

"Not so cruel as the woman who for a few pounds sells the happiness of thousands of human beings. Steinmetz advised me to speak to you. He suggested the possibility of circumstances of which we are ignorant. He said that you might be able to explain."

Silence.

"Can you explain?"

Silence. Etta sat looking into the fire. The little clock hurried on. At length Etta drew a deep breath.

"You are the sort of man," she said, "who does not understand temptation. You are strong. The devil leaves the strong in peace. You have found virtue easy because you have never wanted money. Your position has always been assured. Your name alone is a password through the world. Your sort are always hard on women who—who—What have I done, after all?"

Some instinct bade her rise to her feet and stand before him—tall, beautiful, passionate, a woman in a thousand, a fit mate for such as he. Her beautiful hair in burnished glory round her face gleamed in the firelight. Her white fingers clenched, her arms thrown back, her breast panting beneath the lace, her proud face looking defiance into his—no one but a prince could have braved this princess.

"What have I done?" she cried a second time. "I have only fought for myself, and if I have won, so much the greater credit. I am your wife. I have done nothing the law can touch. Thousands of women moving in our circle are not half so good as I am. I swear before God I am——"

"Hush!" he said, with upraised hand. "I never doubted that."

"I will do any thing you wish," she went on, and in her humility she was very dangerous. "I deceived you, I know. But I sold the Charity League before I knew that you—that you thought of me. When I married you I didn't love you. I admit that. But Paul—oh, Paul, if you were not so good you would understand."

Perhaps he did understand; for there was that in her eyes that made her meaning clear.

He was silent; standing before her in his great strength, his marvellous and cruel self-restraint.

"You will not forgive me?"

For a moment she leaned forward, peering into his face. He seemed to be reflecting.

"Yes," he said at length, "I forgive you. But if I cared for you, forgiveness would be impossible."

He went slowly toward the door. Etta looked round the room with drawn eyes; their room—the room he had fitted up for his bride with the lavishness of a great wealth and a great love.

He paused, with his hand on the door.

"And," she said, with fiery cheeks, "does your forgiveness date from to-night?"

"Yes!"

He opened the door.

"Good-night!" he said, and went out.



CHAPTER XL

STEPAN RETURNS

At daybreak the next morning Karl Steinmetz was awakened by the familiar cry of the wolf beneath his window. He rose and dressed hastily. The eastern sky was faintly pink; a rosy twilight moved among the pines. He went down stairs and opened the little door at the back of the castle.

It was, of course, the starosta, shivering and bleached in the chilly dawn.

"They have watched my cottage, Excellency, all night. It was only now that I could get away. There are two strange sleighs outside Domensky's hut. There are marks of many sleighs that have been and gone. Excellency, it is unsafe for any one to venture outside the castle to-day. You must send to Tver for the soldiers."

"The prince refuses to do that."

"But why, Excellency? We shall be killed!"

"You do not know the effect of platoon firing on a closely packed mob, starost. The prince does," replied Steinmetz, with his grim smile.

They spoke together in hushed voices for half an hour, while the daylight crept up the eastern sky. Then the starosta stole away among the still larches, like the wolf whose cry he imitated so perfectly.

Steinmetz closed the door and went upstairs to his own room, his face grave and thoughtful, his tread heavy with the weight of anxiety.

The day passed as such days do. Etta was not the woman to plead a conventional headache and remain hidden. She came down to breakfast, and during that meal was boldly conversational.

"She has spirit," reflected Karl Steinmetz behind his quiet gray eyes. He admired her for it, and helped her. He threw back the ball of conversation with imperturbable good humor.

They were completely shut in. No news from the outer world penetrated to the little party besieged within their own stone walls. Maggie, fearless and innocent, announced her intention of snow-shoeing, but was dissuaded therefrom by Steinmetz with covert warnings.

During the morning each was occupied in individual affairs. At luncheon time they met again. Etta was now almost defiant. She was on her mettle. She was so near to loving Paul that a hatred of him welled up within her breast whenever he repelled her advances with uncompromising reticence.

They did not know—perhaps she hardly knew herself—that the opening of the side-door depended upon her humor.

In the afternoon Etta and Maggie sat, as was their wont, in the morning-room looking out over the cliff. Of late their intercourse had been slightly strained. They had never had much in common, although circumstances had thrown their lives together. It is one of the ills to which women are heir that they have frequently to pass their whole lives in the society of persons with whom they have no real sympathy. Both these women were conscious of the little rift within the lute, but such rifts are better treated with silence. That which comes to interfere with a woman's friendship will not often bear discussion.

At dusk Steinmetz went out. He had an appointment with the starosta.

Paul was sitting in his own room, making a pretence of work, about five o'clock, when Steinmetz came hurriedly to him.

"A new development," he said shortly. "Come to my room."

Paul rose and followed him through the double doorway built in the thickness of the wall.

Steinmetz's large room was lighted only by a lamp standing on the table. All the light was thrown on the desk by a large green shade, leaving the rest of the room in a semi-darkness.

At the far end of the room a man was standing in an expectant attitude. There was something furtive about this intruder, and at the same time familiar to Paul, who peered at him through the gloom.

Then the man came hurriedly forward.

"Ah, Pavlo, Pavlo!" he said in a deep, hollow voice. "I could not expect you to know me."

He threw his arms around him, and embraced him after the simple manner of Russia. Then he held him at arm's length.

"Stepan!" said Paul. "No, I did not know you."

Stepan Lanovitch was still holding him at arm's length, examining him with the large faint blue eyes which so often go with an exaggerated philanthropy.

"Old," he muttered, "old! Ah, my poor Pavlo! I heard in Kiew—you know how we outlaws hear such things—that you were in trouble, so I came to you."

Steinmetz in the background raised his patient eyebrows.

"There are two men in the world," went on the voluble Lanovitch, "who can manage the moujiks of Tver—you and I; so I came. I will help you, Pavlo; I will stand by you. Together we can assuredly quell this revolt."

Paul nodded, and allowed himself to be embraced a second time. He had long known Stepan Lanovitch of Thors as one of the many who go about the world doing good with their eyes shut. For the moment he had absolutely no use for this well-meaning blunderer.

"I am afraid," he said, "that it has got beyond control. We cannot stamp it out now except by force, and I would rather not do that. Our only hope is that it may burn itself out. The talkers must get hoarse in time."

Lanovitch shook his head.

"They have been talking since the days of Ananias," he said, "and they are not hoarse yet. I fear, Pavlo, there will never be peace in the world until the talkers are hoarse."

"How did you get here?" asked Paul, who was always businesslike.

"I brought a pack on my back and sold cotton. I made myself known to the starosta, and he communicated with good Karl here."

"Did you learn any thing in the village?" asked Paul.

"No; they suspected me. They would not talk. But I understand them, Pavlo, these poor simple fools. A pebble in the stream would turn the current of their convictions. Tell them who is the Moscow doctor. It is your only chance."

Steinmetz grunted acquiescence and walked wearily to the window. This was only an old and futile argument of his own.

"And make it impossible for me to live another day among them," said Paul. "Do you think St. Petersburg would countenance a prince who works among his moujiks?"

Stepan Lanovitch's pale blue eyes looked troubled. Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders.

"They have brought it on themselves," he said.

"As much as a lamb brings the knife upon itself by growing up," replied Paul.

Lanovitch shook his white head with a tolerant little smile. He loved these poor helpless peasants with a love as large as and a thousand times less practical than Paul's.

In the meantime Paul was thinking in his clear, direct way. It was this man's habit in life and in thought to walk straight past the side issues.

"It is like you, Stepan," he said at length, "to come to us at this time. We feel it, and we recognize the generosity of it, for Steinmetz and I know the danger you are running in coming back to this country. But we cannot let you do it—No, do not protest. It is quite out of the question. We might quell the revolt; no doubt we should—the two of us together. But what would happen afterward? You would be sent back to Siberia, and I should probably follow you for harboring an escaped convict."

The face of the impulsive philanthropist dropped pathetically. He had come to his friend's assistance on the spur of the moment. He was destined, as some men are, to plunge about the world seeking to do good. And it has been decreed that good must be done by stealth and after deliberation only. He who does good on the spur of the moment usually sows a seed of dissension in the trench of time.

"Also," went on Paul, with that deliberate grasp of the situation which never failed to astonish the ready-witted Steinmetz; "also, you have other calls upon your energy. You have other work to do."

Lanovitch's broad face lightened up; his benevolent brow beamed. His capacity for work had brought him to the shoemaker's last in Tomsk. It is a vice that grows with indulgence.

"It has pleased the Authorities," went on Paul, who was shy of religious turns of phrase, "to give us all our own troubles. Mine—such as they are, Stepan—must be managed by myself. Yours can be faced by no one but you. You have come at the right moment. You do not quite realize what your coming means to Catrina."

"Catrina! Ah!"

The weak blue eyes looked into the strong face and read nothing there.

"I doubt," said Paul, "whether it is right for you to continue sacrificing Catrina for the sake of the little good that you are able to do. You are hampered in your good work to such an extent that the result is very small, while the pain you give is very great."