pipe dream by fritz leiber _simon grue found a two-inch mermaid in his bathtub. it had arms, hips, a finny tail, and (here the real trouble began) a face that reminded him irresistibly of grushenka stulnikov-gurevich...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, february . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it wasn't until the mermaid turned up in his bathtub that simon grue seriously began to wonder what the russians were doing on the roof next door. the old house next door together with its spacious tarpapered roof, which held a sort of pent-shack, a cylindrical old water tank, and several chicken-wire enclosures, had always been a focus of curiosity in this region of greenwich village, especially to whoever happened to be renting simon's studio, the north window-cum-skylight of which looked down upon it--if you were exceptionally tall or if, like simon, you stood halfway up a stepladder and peered. during the 's, old-timers told simon, the house had been owned by a bootlegger, who had installed a costly pipe organ and used the water tank to store hooch. later there had been a colony of shaven-headed buddhist monks, who had strolled about the roof in their orange and yellow robes, meditating and eating raw vegetables. there had followed a _commedia dell' arte_ theatrical group, a fencing salon, a school of the organ (the bootlegger's organ was always one of the prime renting points of the house), an arabian restaurant, several art schools and silvercraft shops of course, and an existentialist coffee house. the last occupants had been two bony-cheeked swedish blondes who sunbathed interminably and had built the chicken-wire enclosures to cage a large number of sinister smoke-colored dogs--simon decided they were breeding werewolves, and one of his most successful abstractions, "gray hunger", had been painted to the inspiration of an eldritch howling. the dogs and their owners had departed abruptly one night in a closed van, without any of the dogs ever having been offered for sale or either of the girls having responded with anything more than a raised eyebrow to simon's brave greetings of "skoal!" the russians had taken possession about six months ago--four brothers apparently, and one sister, who never stirred from the house but could occasionally be seen peering dreamily from a window. a white card with a boldly-inked "stulnikov-gurevich" had been thumbtacked to the peeling green-painted front door. lafcadio smits, the interior decorator, told simon that the newcomers were clearly white russians; he could tell it by their bushy beards. lester phlegius maintained that they were red russians passing as white, and talked alarmingly of spying, sabotage and suitcase bombs. simon, who had the advantages of living on the spot and having been introduced to one of the brothers--vasily--at a neighboring art gallery, came to believe that they were both red and white and something more--solid, complete slavs in any case, double dostoevsky russians if one may be permitted the expression. they ordered vodka, caviar, and soda crackers by the case. they argued interminably (loudly in russian, softly in english), they went on mysterious silent errands, they gloomed about on the roof, they made melancholy music with their deep harmonious voices and several large guitars. once simon though they even had the bootlegger's organ going, but there had been a bad storm at the time and he hadn't been sure. they were not quite as tight-lipped as the swedish girls. gradually a curt front-sidewalk acquaintance developed and simon came to know their names. there was vasily, of course, who wore thick glasses, the most scholarly-looking of the lot and certainly the most bibulous--simon came to think of vasily as the vodka breather. occasionally he could be glimpsed holding erlenmayer flasks, trays of culture dishes, and other pieces of biological equipment, or absentmindedly wiping off a glass slide with his beard. then there was ivan, the dourest of the four, though none of them save vasily seemed very amiable. simon's private names for ivan were the nihilist and the bomber, since he sometimes lugged about with him a heavy globular leather case. with it and his beard--a square black one--he had more than once created a mild sensation in the narrow streets of the village. next there was mikhail, who wore a large crucifix on a silver chain around his neck and looked like a more spiritual rasputin. however, simon thought of him less as the religious than as the whistler--for his inveterate habit of whistling into his straggly beard a strange tune that obeyed no common harmonic laws. somehow mikhail seemed to carry a chilly breeze around with him, a perpetual cold draught, so that simon had to check himself in order not to clutch together his coat collar whenever he heard the approach of the eerie piping. finally there was lev, beardless, shorter by several inches, and certainly the most elusive of the brothers. he always moved at a scurry, frequently dipping his head, so that it was some time before simon assured himself that he had the stulnikov-gurevich face. he did, unmistakably. lev seemed to be away on trips a good deal. on his returns he was frequently accompanied by furtive but important-looking men--a different one on each occasion. there would be much bustle at such times--among other things, the shades would be drawn. then in a few hours lev would be off again, and his man-about-town companion too. and of course there was the indoors-keeping sister. several times simon had heard one of the brothers calling "grushenka", so he assumed that was her name. she had the stulnikov-gurevich face too, though on her, almost incredibly, it was strangely attractive. she never ventured on the roof but she often sat in the pent-shack. as far as simon could make out, she always wore some dark victorian costume--at least it had a high neck, long sleeves, and puffed shoulders. pale-faced in the greenish gloom, she would stare for hours out of the pent-shack's single window, though never in simon's direction. occasionally she would part and close her lips, but not exactly as if she were speaking, at least aloud--he thought of calling her the bubble blower. the effect was as odd as mikhail's whistling but not as unpleasant. in fact, simon found himself studying grushenka for ridiculously long periods of time. his mild obsession began to irk him and one day he decided henceforth to stay away altogether from his north window and the stepladder. as a result he saw little of the alterations the russians began to make on the roof at this point, though he did notice that they lugged up among other things a length of large-diameter transparent plastic piping. * * * * * so much for the russians, now for the mermaid. late one night simon started to fill his bathtub with cold water to soak his brushes and rags--he was working with a kind of calcimine at the time, experimenting with portable murals painted on large plaster-faced wooden panels. heavily laden, he got back to the bathroom just in time to shut off the water--and to see a tiny fish of some sort splashing around in it. he was not unduly surprised. fish up to four or five inches in length were not unheard-of apparitions in the cold-water supply of the area, and this specimen looked as if it displaced no more than a teaspoon of water. he made a lucky grab and the next moment he was holding in his firmly clenched right hand the bottom half of a slim wriggling creature hardly two inches long--and now simon was surprised indeed. to begin with, it was not greenish white nor any common fish color, but palely-pinkish, flesh-colored in fact. and it didn't seem so much a fish as a tadpole--at least its visible half had a slightly oversize head shaped like a bullet that has mushroomed a little, and two tiny writhing arms or appendages of some sort--and it felt as if it had rather large hips for a fish or even a tadpole. equip a two-months human embryo with a finny tail, give it in addition a precocious feminine sexiness, and you'd get something of the same effect. but all that was nothing. the trouble was that it had a face--a tiny face, of course, and rather goggly-ghostly like a planarian's, but a face nevertheless, a human-looking face, and also (here was the real trouble) a face that bore a grotesque but striking resemblance to that of grushenka stulnikov-gurevich. simon's fingers tightened convulsively. simultaneously the slippery creature gave a desperate wriggle. it shot into the air in a high curve and fell into the scant inch of space between the bathtub and the wall. the next half hour was hectic in a groveling sort of way. retrieving anything from behind simon's ancient claw-footed bathtub was a most difficult feat. there was barely space to get an arm under it and at one point the warping of the floor boards prevented even that. besides, there was the host of dust-shrouded objects it had previously been too much trouble to tease out--an accumulation of decades. at first simon tried to guide himself by the faint flopping noises along the hidden base of the wall, but these soon ceased. being on your knees and your chest with an ear against the floor and an arm strainingly outstretched is probably not the best position to assume while weird trains of thought go hooting through your head, but sometimes it has to happen that way. first came a remembered piece of neighborhood lore that supported the possibility of a connection between the house next door and the tiny pink aquatic creature now suffering minute agonies behind the bathtub. no one knew what ancient and probably larceny-minded amateur plumber was responsible, but the old-timers assured simon there was a link between the water supply of the russians' house with its aerial cistern and that of the building containing simon's studio and several smaller apartments; at any rate they maintained that there had been a time during the period when the bootlegger was storing hooch in the water tank that several neighborhood cold-water taps were dispensing a weak but nonetheless authoritative mixture of bourbon and branch water. so, thought simon as he groped and strained, if the russians were somehow responsible for this weird fishlet, there was no insuperable difficulty in understanding how it might have gotten here. but that was the least of simon's preoccupations. he scrabbled wildly and unsuccessfully for several minutes, and then realizing he would never get anywhere in this unsystematic manner, he began to remove the accumulated debris piece by piece: dark cracked ends of soap, washrags dried out in tortured attitudes, innumerable dark-dyed cigarette stumps, several pocket magazines with bleached wrinkled pages, empty and near-empty medicine bottles and pill vials, rusty hairpins, bobby pins, safety pins, crumpled toothpaste tubes (and a couple for oil paint), a gray toothbrush, a fifty-cent piece and several pennies, the mummy of a mouse, a letter from picasso, and last of all, from the dark corner behind the bathtub's inside claw, the limp pitiful thing he was seeking. it was even tinier than he'd thought. he carefully washed the dust and flug off it, but it was clearly dead and its resemblance to grushenka stulnikov-gurevich had become problematical--indeed, simon decided that someone seeing it now for the first time would think it a freak minnow or monstrous tadpole and nothing more, though mutation or disease had obviously been at work. the illusion of a miniature mermaid still existed in the tapering tail and armlike appendages, but it was faint. he tried to remember what he knew about salamanders--almost nothing, it turned out. he thought of embryos, but his mind veered away from the subject. he wandered back into the studio carrying the thing in his hand. he climbed the stepladder by the north window and studied the house next door. what windows he could see were dark. he got a very vague impression that the roof had changed. after he had strained his eyes for some time he fancied he could see a faint path of greenish luminescence streaming between the pent-shack and the water-tank, but it was very faint indeed and might only be his vision swimming. he climbed down the stepladder and stood for a moment weighing the tiny dead thing in his hand. it occurred to him that one of his friends at the university could dig up a zoologist to pass on his find. but simon's curiosity was more artistic than scientific. in the end he twisted a bit of cellophane around the thing, placed it on the ledge of his easel and went off to bed ... and to a series of disturbingly erotic dreams. * * * * * next day he got up late and, after breakfasting on black coffee, gloomed around the studio for a while, picking things up and putting them down. he glanced frequently at the stepladder, but resisted the temptation to climb up and have another look next door. sighing, he thumbtacked a sheet of paper to a drawing board and half-heartedly began blocking in a female figure. it was insipid and lifeless. stabbing irritably at the heavy curve of the figure's hip, he broke his charcoal. "damn!" he said, glaring around the room. abandoning all pretense, he threw the charcoal on the floor and climbed the stepladder. he pressed his nose against the glass. in daylight, the adjoining roof looked bare and grimy. there was a big transparent pipe running between the water tank and the shack, braced in two places by improvised-looking wooden scaffolding. listening intently, simon thought he could hear a motor going in the shack. the water looked sallow green. it reminded simon of those futuristic algae farms where the stuff is supposed to be pumped through transparent pipes to expose it to sunlight. there seemed to be a transparent top on the water tank too--it was too high for simon to see, but there was a gleam around the edge. staring at the pipe again, simon got the impression there were little things traveling in the water, but he couldn't make them out. climbing down in some excitement, simon got the twist of cellophane from the ledge of the easel and stared at its contents. wild thoughts were tumbling through his head as he got back up on the stepladder. sunlight flashed on the greenish water pipe between the tank and the shack, but after the first glance he had no eyes for it. grushenka stulnikov-gurevich had her face tragically pressed to the window of the shack. she was wearing the black dress with high neck and puffed shoulders. at that moment she looked straight at him. she lifted her hands and seemed to speak imploringly. then she slowly sank from sight as if, it horridly occurred to simon, into quicksand. simon sprang from his chair, heart beating wildly, and ran down the stairs to the street. two or three passersby paused to study him as he alternately pounded the flaking green door of the russians' house and leaned on the button. also watching was the shirt-sleeved driver of a moving van, emblazoned "stulnikov-gurevich enterprises," which almost filled the street in front of the house. the door opened narrowly. a man with a square black beard frowned out of it. he topped simon by almost a head. "yes?" ivan the bomber asked, in a deep, exasperated voice. "i must see the lady of the house immediately," simon cried. "your sister, i believe. she's in danger." he surged forward. the butt of the bomber's right palm took him firmly in the chest and he staggered back. the bomber said coldly, "my sister is--ha!--taking a bath." simon cried, "in that case she's drowning!" and surged forward again, but the bomber's hand stopped him short. "i'll call the police!" simon shouted, flailing his limbs. the hand at his chest suddenly stopped pushing and began to pull. gripped by the front of his shirt, simon felt himself being drawn rapidly inside. "let go! help, a kidnapping!" he shouted to the inquisitive faces outside, before the door banged shut. "no police!" rumbled the bomber, assisting simon upstairs. "now look here," simon protested futilely. in the two-story-high living room to his right, the pipes of an organ gleamed golden from the shadows. at the second landing, a disheveled figure met them, glasses twinkling--vasily the vodka breather. he spoke querulously in russian to ivan, who replied shortly, then vasily turned and the three of them crowded up the narrow third flight to the pent-shack. this housed a small noisy machine, perhaps an aerator of some sort, for bubbles were streaming into the transparent pipe where it was connected to the machine; and under the pipe, sitting with an idiot smile on a chair of red plush and gilt, was a pale black-mustached man. an empty clear-glass bottle with a red and gold label lay on the floor at his feet. the opposite side of the room was hidden by a heavy plastic shower curtain. grushenka stulnikov-gurevich was not in view. ivan said something explosive, picking up the bottle and staring at it. "vodka!" he went on. "i have told you not to mix the pipe and the vodka! now see what you have done!" "to me it seemed hospitable," said vasily with an apologetic gesture. "besides, only one bottle--" ducking under the pipe where it crossed the pent-shack, ivan picked up the pale man and dumped him crosswise in the chair, with his patent-leather shoes sticking up on one side and his plump hands crossed over his chest. "let him sleep. first we must take down all the apparatus, before the capitalistic police arrive. now: what to do with this one?" he looked at simon, and clenched one large and hairy fist. "_nyet-nyet-nyet_," said the vodka breather, and went to whisper in ivan's ear. they both stared at simon, who felt uncomfortable and began to back toward the door; but ivan ducked agilely under the pipe and grasped him by the arm, pulling him effortlessly toward the roof exit. "just come this way if you please, mr. gru-_ay_," said vasily, hurrying after. as they left the shack, he picked up a kitchen chair. crossing the roof, simon made a sudden effort and wrenched himself free. they caught him again at the edge of the roof, where he had run with nothing clearly in mind, but with his mouth open to yell. suspended in the grip of the two russians, with ivan's meaty palm over his mouth, simon had a momentary glimpse of the street below. a third bearded figure, mikhail the religious, was staring up at them from the sunny sidewalk. the melancholy face, the deep-socketed tormented eyes, and the narrow beard tangled with the dangling crucifix combined to give the effect of a tolstoy novel's dust-jacket. as they hauled simon away, he had the impression that a chilly breeze had sprung up and the street had darkened. in his ears was mikhail's distant, oddly discordant whistling. grunting, the two brothers set simon down on the kitchen chair and slid him across the roof until something hard but resilient touched the top of his head. it was the plastic pipe, through which, peering upward, he could see myriads of tiny polliwog-shapes flitting back and forth. "do us a kindness not to make noise," said ivan, removing his palm. "my brother vasily will now explain." he went away. * * * * * curiosity as much as shock kept simon in his chair. vasily, bobbing his head and smiling, sat down tailor-fashion on the roof in front of him. "first i must tell you, mr. gru-_ay_, that i am specialist in biological sciences. here you see results of my most successful experiment." he withdrew a round clear-glass bottle from his pocket and unscrewed the top. "ah?" said simon tentatively. "indeed yes. in my researches, mr. gru-_ay_, i discovered a chemical which will inhibit growth at any level of embryonic development, producing a viable organism at that point. the basic effect of this chemical is always toward survival at whatever level of development--one cell, a blastula, a worm, a fish, a four-legger. this research, which lysenko scoffed at when i told him of it, i had no trouble in keeping secret, though at the time i was working as the unhappy collaborator of the godless soviets. but perhaps i am being too technical?" "not at all," simon assured him. "good," vasily said with simple satisfaction and gulped at his bottle. "meanwhile my brother mikhail was a religious brother at a monastery near mount athos, my nihilist brother ivan was in central europe, while my third brother lev, who is of commercial talents, had preceded us to the new world, where we always felt it would some day be our destiny to join one another. "with the aid of brother ivan, i and my sister grushenka escaped from russia. we picked up mikhail from his monastery and proceeded here, where lev had become a capitalist business magnate. "my brothers, ivan especially, were interested in my research. he had a theory that we could eventually produce hosts of men in this way, whole armies and political parties, all nihilist and all of them stulnikov-gureviches. i assured him that this was impossible, that i could not play cadmus, for free-swimming forms are one thing, we have the way to feed them in the aqueous medium; but to make fully developed mammals placental nourishment is necessary--that i cannot provide. yet to please him i begin with (pardon me!) the egg of my sister, that was as good a beginning as any and perhaps it intrigued my vanity. ivan dreamed his dreams of a nihilist stulnikov-gurevich humanity--it was harmless, as i told myself." simon stared at him glassy-eyed. something rather peculiar was beginning to happen inside his head--about an inch under the point where the cool water-filled plastic pipe pressed down on his scalp. little ghostly images were darting--delightfully wispy little girl-things, smiling down at him impudently, then flirting away with a quick motion of their mermaid tails. the sky had been growing steadily darker and now there came the growl of thunder. against the purple-gray clouds simon could barely make out the semi-transparent shapes of the polliwogs in the pipe over his head; but the images inside his mind were growing clearer by the minute. "ah, we have a storm," vasily observed as the thunder growled again. "that reminds me of mikhail, who is much influenced by our finnish grandmother. he had the belief as a child that he could call up the winds by whistling for them--he even learned special wind musics from her. later he became a christian religious--there are great struggles in him. mikhail objected to my researches when he heard i used the egg of my sister. he said we will produce millions of souls who are not baptized. i asked him how about the water they are in, he replied this is not the same thing, these little swimmers will wriggle in hell eternally. this worried him greatly. we tried to tell him i had not used the egg of my sister, only the egg of a fish. "but he did not believe this, because my sister changed greatly at the time. she no longer spoke. she put on my mother's bathing costume (we are a family people) and retired to the bathtub all day long. i accepted this--at least in the water she is not violent. mikhail said, "see, her soul is now split into many unredeemed sub-souls, one each for the little swimmers. there is a sympathy between them--a hypnotic vibration. so long as you keep them near her, in that tank on the roof, this will be. if they were gone from there, far from there, the sub-souls would reunite and grushenka's soul would be one again." he begged me to stop my research, to dump it in the sea, to scatter it away, but lev and ivan demand i keep on. yet mikhail warned me that works of evil end in the whirlwind. i am torn and undecided." he gulped at his vodka. thunder growled louder. simon was thinking, dreamily, that if the soul of grushenka stulnikov-gurevich were split into thousands of sub-souls, vibrating hynotically in the nearby water tank, with at least one of them escaping as far as his bathtub, then it was no wonder if grushenka had a strange attraction for him. "but that is not yet the worst," vasily continued. "the hypnotic vibrations of the free-swimming ones in their multitude turn out to have a stimulating effect on any male who is near. their sub-minds induce dreams of the piquant sort. lev says that to make money for the work we must sell these dreams to rich men. i protest, but to no avail." "lev is maddened for money. now besides selling the dreams i find he plans to sell the creatures themselves, sell them one by one, but keep enough to sell the dreams too. it is a madness." the darkness had become that of night. the thunder continued to growl and now it seemed to simon that it had music in it. visions swam through his mind to its rhythm--hordes of swimming pygmy souls, of unborn water babies, migrations of miniature mermaids. the pipe hanging between water tank and pent-shack became in his imagination a giant umbilicus or a canal for a monstrous multiple birth. sitting beneath it, helpless to move, he focused his attention with increasing pleasure on the active, supple, ever more human girl-bodies that swam across his mind. now more mermaid than tadpole, with bright smiling lips and eyes, long lorelei-hair trailing behind them, they darted and hovered caressingly. in their wide-cheeked oval faces, he discovered without shock, there was a transcendent resemblance to the features of grushenka stulnikov-gurevich--a younger, milk-skinned maiden of the steppes, with challenging eyes and fingers that brushed against him with delightful shocks.... "so it is for me the great problem," vasily's distant voice continued. "i see in my work only the pure research, the play of the mind. lev sees money, ivan sees dragon teeth--fodder for his political cannon--mikhail sees unshriven souls, grushenka sees--who knows?--madness. it is indeed one great problem." * * * * * thunder came again, crashingly this time. the door of the pent-shack opened. framed in it stood ivan the bomber. "vasily!" he roared. "do you know what that idiot is doing now?" as the thunder and his voice trailed off together, simon became aware at last of the identity of the other sound, which had been growing in volume all the time. simultaneously vasily struggled to his feet. "the organ!" he cried. "mikhail is _playing_ the whirlwind music! we must stop him!" pausing only for a last pull at the bottle, he charged into the pent-shack, following ivan. wind was shaking the heavy pipe over simon's head, tossing him back and forth in the chair. looking with an effort toward the west, simon saw the reason: a spinning black pencil of wind that was writing its way toward them in wreckage across the intervening roofs. the chair fell under him. stumbling across the roof, he tugged futilely at the door to the pent-shack, then threw himself flat, clawing at the tarpaper. there was a mounting roar. the top of the water tank went spinning off like a flying saucer. momentarily, as if it were a giant syringe, the whirlwind dipped into the tank. simon felt himself sliding across the roof, felt his legs lifting. he fetched up against the roof's low wall and at that moment the wind let go of him and his legs touched tarpaper again. gaining his feet numbly, simon staggered into the leaning pent-shack. the pale man was nowhere to be seen, the plush chair empty. the curtain at the other side of the room had fallen with its rods, revealing a bathtub more antique than simon's. in the tub, under the window, sat grushenka. the lightning flares showed her with her chin level with the water, her eyes placidly staring, her mouth opening and closing. simon found himself putting his arms around the black-clad figure. with a straining effort he lifted her out of the tub, water sloshing all over his legs, and half carried, half slid with her down the stairs. he fetched up panting and disheveled at the top landing, his attention riveted by the lightning-illuminated scene in the two-story-high living room below. at the far end of it a dark-robed figure crouched at the console of the mighty organ, like a giant bat at the base of the portico of a black and gold temple. in the center of the room ivan was in the act of heaving above his head his globular leather case. mikhail darted a look over his shoulder and sprang to one side. the projectile crashed against the organ. mikhail picked himself up, tearing something from his neck. ivan lunged forward with a roar. mikhail crashed a fist against his jaw. the bomber went down and didn't come up. mikhail unwrapped his crucifix from his fingers and resumed playing. with a wild cry simon heaved himself to his feet, stumbled over grushenka's sodden garments, and pitched headlong down the stairs. when he came to, the house was empty and the stulnikov moving van was gone. at the front door he was met by a poker-faced young man who identified himself as a member of the fbi. simon showed him the globular case ivan had thrown at the organ. it proved to contain a bowling ball. the young gentleman listened to his story without changing expression, thanked him warmly, and shooed him out. the stulnikov-gureviches disappeared for good, though not quite without a trace. simon found this item in the next evening's paper, the first of many he accumulated yearningly in a scrapbook during the following months: mermaid rain a hoax, scientist declares _milford, pa._--the "mermaid rain" reported here has been declared a fraud by an eminent european biologist. vasily stulnikov-gurevich, formerly professor of genetics at pire university, latvia, passing through here on a cross-country trip, declared the miniature "mermaids" were "albino tadpoles, probably scattered about as a hoax by schoolboys." the professor added, "i would like to know where they got them, however. there is clear evidence of mutation, due perhaps to fallout." dr. stulnikov directed his party in a brief but intensive search for overlooked specimens. his charming silent sister, grushenka stulnikov, wearing a quaint latvian swimming costume, explored the shallows of the delaware. after collecting as many specimens as possible, the professor and his assistants continued their trip in their unusual camping car. dr. stulnikov intends to found a biological research center "in the calm and tolerant atmosphere of the west coast," he declared. the prophet's mantle by fabian bland new york national book company , , and mission place copyright, , by belford, clarke & co. _contents._ chap. page prologue, i. father and sons, ii. a narrow escape, iii. the new masters, iv. a mysterious disappearance, v. an old acquaintance, vi. between two opinions, vii. sunday evening in soho, viii. 'you lie!'' ix. at spray's buildings, x. a socialist, xi. count litvinoff is sympathetic, xii. successful angling, xiii. a fair morning's work, xiv. a peacemaker, xv. the cleon, xvi. going home, xvii. an unexpected adherent, xviii. a mixed assembly, xix. an honest man and a brave one, xx. improving prospects, xxi. friends in council, xxii. a forlorn hope, xxiii. fire! xxiv. after the fire, xxv. at marlborough villa, xxvi. all a mistake, xxvii. making it up, xxviii. vengeance astray, xxix. back from the dead, xxx. talking things over, xxxi. 'my little girl,' xxxii. 'hand in hand,' the prophet's mantle. prologue. to be the son of a noble of high position, to be the heir to vast estates in a western province, and to a palace in the capital, to have large sums safely invested in foreign banks, to be surrounded by every luxury that to most men makes life worth living, to be carefully inoculated with all the most cherished beliefs of the territorial aristocracy, and as carefully guarded from all liberal influences; to be all this does not generally lead a man to be a social reformer as well. such causes, as a rule, do not produce a very revolutionary effect. but in russia, tyranny, officialism, and the supreme sway of ignorance and brutality, seem to have reversed all ordinary rules, and upset all ordinary calculations. there the 'gentlemen of the pavement' are nobles, with a longer lineage than the romanoffs, and progressive views find some of their most doughty champions in the ranks of the old nobility. so count michael litvinoff was not such a startling phenomenon, nor such a glaring anomaly, as he would have been in any other country. his parents died when he was about eighteen, and after their death he spent most of his time in close study of physics, philosophy, and of the 'dismal science,' as expounded by its most advanced apostles. he wrote, too, extensively, though most of his works were published in countries where the censorship was not quite so strict as in his own. when he was about twenty-five, and was deep in the heart of his great work, 'the social enigma,' he woke up one morning with a conviction that all his last chapters were utter nonsense, and, what was worse, he couldn't for the life of him make out what they meant even when he read them over. bewildered and anxious, he hastened to refer the matter to a personal friend and political ally, whose answer was brief and to the point. 'nonsense? why, the book's as clear as daylight, and as convincing as euclid. you've been working too hard--overdoing it altogether. go to the south of france for a month, and lose a few roubles at monte carlo. it will do you good.' michael litvinoff took the first part of this advice; and though he did not take the second part, he did sometimes spend an hour in watching others lose their money. one night he noticed a young man on whom fortune appeared to be frowning with more than her usual persistence and bitterness. again and again he staked, and again and again he lost. at last he collected the few coins that remained of the good-sized heap with which he had begun, and staked them all. he lost again. he got up and walked out. struck by the wild look in his eyes, litvinoff followed him into the gardens of the casino. at the end of a dark alley he stopped, pulled something from his breast, which might have been a cigar-case, opened it, and took out something which litvinoff saw was not a cigar. the count sprang forward, and knocked the other's hand up just in time to send a tiny bullet whizzing through the orange trees. 'damn you!' cried the other, in english, turning furiously on litvinoff. 'what the devil do you mean?' 'come to my rooms,' said the count simply; and the other, after a moment's hesitation and a glance of sullen defiance, actually obeyed, and in silence the two walked side by side out of the gardens. when the door of his sitting-room was closed upon them, count litvinoff waved his new acquaintance to an easy-chair, and, taking one himself, remarked,-- 'you're a nice sort of sportsman, aren't you? suppose you have some tea and a cigar.' 'the cigar with pleasure; but tea is not much in my line.' 'ah, i forgot; you english don't worship tea as we russians do. by-the-way, as there's no one else to perform the ceremony, i may as well introduce myself. my name is michael litvinoff.' the other looked up. 'let me withdraw my refusal of your offer just now. i must confess that it would be pleasant to me to drink tea, or anything else in reason, in the company of the man who has written "hopes and fears for liberty."' the tea was made, and before the cigar was finished litvinoff had learned not only that his new friend was a political sympathiser, but also the main facts in the young man's personal history. his name was armand percival; his father english, his mother french. he had been brought up in paris, and had been left an orphan with a small but sufficient property, which, with an energy and application worthy of a better cause, he had managed to scatter to the winds before a year was over. it was the last remnant of this little possession that he had brought to monte carlo in the desperate hope of retrieving his fallen fortunes, and with the fixed determination of accepting the ruling of fate and of ending his life, should that hope be unfulfilled. 'and really,' he ended, 'you would have done better to have been judiciously blind in the gardens just now, and have let the farce be played out. as it is, affairs are just as desperate as they were an hour ago, and i, perhaps thanks to your good tea, am not so desperate. when i leave you i must go and grovel under the orange trees till i find that pistol, for i haven't even the money to buy another.' 'it won't do to let the world lose a friend of liberty in this fashion. they are scarce enough. we can talk this over to-morrow. stay here to-night. we'll hunt for your little toy by daylight if you like.' they did find the pistol the next day. by that time they had had a good deal of talk together, and armand percival had become the private secretary of count michael litvinoff. * * * * * life on the ancestral estate of the litvinoffs was utterly different from anything percival had ever known before, but he had conceived an unbounded admiration and affection for his friend and employer, and he threw himself into his new duties with an ardour which made boredom simply impossible, and with a perseverance almost equalling that which he had displayed in the dissipation of his little fortune. he helped litvinoff in all his literary work, and was soon admitted to his fullest confidence. his new life was wrapped in an atmosphere of romance, and it contained a spice of danger which was perfectly congenial to his nature. the most commonplace action ceases to be commonplace when one knows that one risks one's life in doing it. he soon made rapid progress in the russian language--swinburne was given up for pouchkine, tchernychewsky displaced victor hugo, and percival revelled in the trenchant muscular style of bakounin as he had once delighted in the voluptuous sweetness of théophile gautier. he had always had a leaning towards democracy, and a fitful kind of enthusiasm for popular liberty. the strong personal influence, the much bigger enthusiasm, and the intense reality of michael litvinoff's convictions served to swell what had been a little stream into a flood with a tolerably strong current. both men worked hard, and at the end of some twenty months 'the social enigma' was published in london and paris. in this, litvinoff's great work, he managed to keep just on the right side of the hedge, but he indemnified himself for this self-denial by writing a little pamphlet, called 'a prophetic vision,' which was published by the revolutionary secret press, and circulated among the peasants, for whom it was specially written; and all those concerned in its publication flattered themselves that this time, at any rate, the chief of the secret police and his creatures, in spite of their having obtained a copy twenty-four hours after it was printed, were thoroughly off the track. one night in winter the secretary sat at his old-fashioned desk in the oak-panelled room in the east wing of the mansion. big logs glowed on the immense open hearth, in front of which a great hound stretched its lazy length. the secretary was correcting manuscripts in a somewhat desultory way, and varying the monotony of the penwork with frequent puffs of cigarette smoke. some wine stood at his elbow. count litvinoff had been away ten days, and would be away as long again. he had gone to a meeting of friends of the cause at odessa, and percival felt the strength of his enthusiasm beginning to give way before the appalling deadly dulness of his perfectly solitary life. there was not a creature to speak to within miles except the servants, and russian servants, as a class, are not much of a resource against _ennui_. he flung down his pen at last, leaned back in his chair, and poured himself out some more wine. he held it up to the light to admire its ruby colour, and then tasted it appreciatively. 'h'm! not bad. about the best thing in the place now its master's away. heigho!--heigho! this is very slow, which, by-the-way, is rhyme.' he spoke the words aloud, and the hound on the bearskin by the fire rose, stretched itself, and came slowly to lay its great head on his knee. 'well, old girl, i daresay you'd like a little hunting for a change. upon my soul it's almost a pity we're so very clever in keeping our literary achievements dark. we should have something exciting then at anyrate, and i'd give anything for a little excitement.' 'you're likely to have as much as you care about, then,' said another voice, which made percival leap to his feet as the purple curtains that hung across the arched entrance to the sleeping-room were flung back, and a tall figure, muffled in furs, strode forward. the dog sprang at it. 'down, olga! quiet, quiet, old lady!' the coat was thrown off, and fell with a flop to the ground; and litvinoff held out his hand to his secretary, who had started back and caught up the manuscripts, and was holding them behind him. 'good heavens!' said percival. 'litvinoff, what is it? are they after you? how did you come in?' 'i came in the way we must go out before another half-hour. they've found out the distinguished author of the "vision," and they're anxious to secure the wonder. lock that door; we don't want the servants.' 'it is locked. i don't do work of this sort with unlocked doors.' litvinoff glanced at the manuscript on the oak writing-table. 'we must collect all this and burn it, though i don't think we could be deeper damned than we are, even if we left it alone.' 'but where have you come from?' asked percival, laying his hand on the other's shoulder. 'you're wet through. have a drink,' and he poured out a tumbler of the burgundy. litvinoff took it, and as he set down the glass replied, 'i fell into some water. there was snow enough to hide the ice.' 'well, then, the very first thing is to change your clothes. shall i get you dry ones, or will you go?' 'no, no; neither of us must leave this room. there may be a traitor in the house for aught i know. no one saw me come in. i shall do well enough.' 'you may as well be executed at once as be frozen to death in the course of the night. you must make shift with some of my things. you change while i see to the papers. we can talk while you're changing.' each went deftly and swiftly about what he had to do, and neither seemed to be in the least thrown off his balance. there was much less fuss than there is in some families every morning when the 'city man' is hurrying to catch his train. drawer after drawer was emptied out on the wide hearthstones, and as stern denunciations of tyranny and eloquent appeals to the spirit of freedom vanished in smoke and sparks up the great chimney, percival, a little puffed by his exertions, asked, 'how soon _must_ we go? what's the exact state of things?' 'our friends at odessa were warned. there's an order for my arrest. i was to have been taken at odessa, and long before this they'll have found out that i'm not there, and will have started after me here.' 'but how are we to go? are we to walk, and fall into a succession of pools? can't we get some horses from the stable?' 'i have a sleigh not a quarter of a mile off. zabrousky is with it, waiting. we can reach kilsen to-night, and get horses for the frontier. there is a revolver in the desk. the one in my belt is full of water. i've got two passports that will carry us over. you are monsieur mericourt of paris, and i am herr baum of düsseldorf, friends travelling.' it was lucky that this room, the ordinary work-room of the friends, contained all their secrets and most of their 'portable property.' 'how about money?' asked the secretary. 'there are three hundred napoleons in the cash-box. those will be best to take. by-the-way, stick a french novel into your portmanteau, and throw in anything you can to fill it up. we have the frontier to pass. you know i am all right at paris or vienna.' 'oh, yes,' rejoined percival. 'if we get there we're all right. but these clothes of yours; we must hide them, or they'll tell tales.' 'oh, bring them with you, and leave the room in order.' 'yes, and i must take a revolver myself. we'll give a good account of a few of those brutes if they come too close.' 'are we ready? i'll take the portmanteau, you carry those clothes. now then, lights out. give me your hand.' the candles were blown out, and litvinoff led the way through the bedroom and through a tiny door in the panelled wall, of whose existence percival had been up to this moment ignorant. they passed down a narrow staircase, in a niche of whose wall they left the wet garments, and, passing through a stone passage or two, suddenly came out into the ice-cold air at an angle of the house quite other than that at which percival had expected to find himself. litvinoff shivered. 'i miss my cloak,' he said. 'however, there are plenty of skins in the sleigh.' the snow fell lightly on them as they hurried quietly away; it did its best with its cold feathery veil to hide the footsteps of the fugitives. 'is this exciting enough for you?' asked the count as they strode along under cover of the trees. 'quite, thanks--i think i should be able to submit to a little less excitement with equanimity. it won't be actually unpleasant to be out of the dominions of his sacred majesty.' 'this excitement is nothing to what we shall have in getting over the frontier,' said litvinoff; 'that's where the tug of war will come. percival,' he went on after a pause, 'i shall never forgive myself if you suffer in this business through me.' 'my dear fellow,' percival answered cheerfully, 'if it had not been for you i should have been out of it all long ago, and if the worst comes to the worst, there's still a way out of it. as long as i have my trusty little friend here,' tapping the revolver in his breast pocket, 'i don't intend to see the inside of st peter and st paul.' as he spoke they heard the sound of horses' restless hoofs. 'what's that?' 'all right!' returned litvinoff. 'they're our horses.' behind a clump of fir trees the sleigh was waiting, and beside it a man on a horse. the two friends entered the sleigh, and adjusted the furs about them, and litvinoff took the reins. 'good speed,' said zabrousky; 'a safe journey, and a good deliverance.' 'good-bye,' litvinoff said. 'don't stay here a moment. it may cost you your life.' in another instant the horseman had turned and left them, and the jingling of the harness and the noise of the fleet hoofs were the only sounds that broke the dense night silence as the sleigh sped forward. 'have you any idea what the time is?' said litvinoff, when they had travelled smoothly over three or four miles of snow. 'it's too cold to get watches out, and too dark to see them if we did.' 'it must be past two,' said percival. 'it must have been past midnight when you came in. i wonder what time those devils will reach the empty nest.' 'the later the better for us, and the servants will mix things a bit by telling them that i've not been home. at this rate we shall reach eckovitch's place about four. we can stretch our legs there while he rubs the horses down a bit.' 'will that be safe? is he to be trusted?' 'my dear percival, this line of retreat has been marked out a long time. eckovitch has been ready for me any time these three years.' nothing more was said. the situation was too grave for mere chatter, and there was nothing of importance that needed saying just then. percival leaned back among the furs, which were by this time covered with snow, and litvinoff seemed to be concentrating all his attention on his driving, using the horses as gently as possible, and continually leaning forward and peering into the darkness to make out the track, which was becoming no easy task, as the steady falling snow was fast obliterating the landmarks. the secretary, overcome by that drowsiness which results from swift movement through bitterly cold air, was almost asleep, when the horses slackened speed, and the change in the motion roused him. 'what's up? what's wrong?' he asked. 'all right. here's eckovitch!' and as he spoke the sleigh drew up in front of a long, low wooden building. he handed the reins to percival, sprang to the ground, and battered at the door. after a short pause a light could be seen within, and a voice asked,-- 'who's there?' the count answered with one word which had a russian sound, but which percival had never heard before. the door was opened at once, and after a few low-spoken words between litvinoff and someone within, a man came out and took the reins, and percival left the sleigh and followed his friend into the house. a woman was already busy in fanning into new life the red ashes that had been covered over on the hearth. she flung on some chips and fir cones, and soon the crackling wood blazed up and showed the homely but not uncomfortable interior. as the two travellers shook the snow off their furs, percival asked in english who this man was. 'a friend,' litvinoff answered. 'he's supposed to be an innkeeper, but there aren't many travellers on this road. we make up deficiencies in his income.' they drew seats up to the fire, and the woman brought them some glasses and a flask of vodka. 'you shall have some tea in a minute.' 'i hate this liquid fire,' said percival, 'and i like tea better than i did at monte carlo. i'll wait for that.' 'drink this, and don't be too particular. it'll help to keep us going, and we'll take the fag end of the flask with us,' litvinoff answered. when the tea was ready, and some sausage and bread were set before the strangers, the woman sat down on the other side of the hearth and looked at them as they ate, which they did with fairly good appetites. presently a low wailing cry arose from the further corner of the room, and the woman went and took up a funny old-fashioned looking little baby, and, returning to her seat by the fire, sat hushing it with low whispers of endearment. it was a strangely peaceful little scene, between two acts of a sufficiently exciting drama, which, for aught any of the actors knew, might end as a tragedy. the spell of silence which had been over them in the sleigh was broken now, and they chatted lightly over their hasty meal. the count's demeanour in the face of danger was a thing after percival's own heart, and he had never admired his friend so much as he did, when, the meal being over, litvinoff leaned back nonchalantly, stroking his long fair moustache and stirring his final cup of tea. the secretary's own calmness was really more remarkable, however, since he was in the position of a young soldier under fire for the first time, whereas litvinoff had known for eight years that at any moment he might be arrested, or might have to fly. 'your horses will do to get to kilsen now,' said the man, opening the door; 'you were wise to give them this rest. they'd not have done without it.' 'poor brutes,' said the count, 'i wish we could give them longer, but every minute's of consequence.' 'you'll cross the frontier at ergratz, i suppose,' said the innkeeper, as they came out into the air. the weather had changed in the little time they had been in shelter. the snow was no longer falling; through a break in the clouds one or two stars twinkled frostily, and the wind was blowing the snow off the road in drifts. as the sleigh glided away the man re-entered his house and bolted the door, and in five minutes the fire was raked together and covered over, the light was extinguished, and no sign left to show that wayfarers had been entertained there that night. 'we'll take the horses easily a bit now,' said litvinoff; 'there'll be some stiffish hills by-and-by.' they seemed to have been on the road for about six nights instead of one, when, nearly half way up one of these same stiffish hills, percival laid his hand on litvinoff's shoulder. 'stop a moment,' he said, 'i heard hoofs behind.' they stopped, listened, and heard nothing. 'it must have been the echo of our own hoofs among these hills. if they are near enough to be heard, it's all up with us. they're sure to be well mounted. however, we'll do our best to get on to kilsen, and get mounted ourselves before morning.' but morning was beginning to break, and with it came fresh snow. at the foot of the next hill the secretary spoke again. 'litvinoff, i'm certain i hear hoofs, and a good many of them.' 'so do i. we'll whip on--they can't hear us, the wind blows from them. we'll try another chance presently. i don't think we can win by speed.' he urged on the tired horses with voice and whip, and the weary animals put forth their strength in a wilder gallop. they were now rushing very swiftly through the icy air, and every moment increased the pace. they had to slacken a little in going up the last and highest hill, near the crown of which they turned back their heads, and saw that what they had been flying from all night was close upon them now. over the brow of a lower hill immediately behind them came a band of horsemen, about a dozen strong as it seemed in the pale grey of the dawn. 'we must leave the sleigh,' said litvinoff. 'almost in a line across country to the left, not more than two versts off, is the house of teliaboff; there we are safe for a day or two, if we can get there unseen. it's a desperate chance, but we must try it. prop up the portmanteau and the furs to look like our figures. we'll tie the reins here, and get out just over the brow. they'll see us as we go over. those cossacks have eyes like eagles. we'll lash the horses on, and they'll go some distance without us; and when those devils find we're not in the sleigh they won't know exactly where to begin to search for us. thank god, it's snowing harder and harder. that will help to hide our traces; and over this broken ground to the left our legs will serve us better than their horses will them.' 'there's barely a chance,' said the secretary. 'let's stay and fight it out.' 'we'll fight if the worst comes to the worst; but as it is we've a very fair chance of escape. we have our revolvers.' as they crossed the brow of the hill a wild shout borne by the wind told them that the count had been right. they had been seen. litvinoff stopped the horses, and the two men got out, leaving the counterfeit presentment of themselves, which the secretary's deft hands had invested with a very real appearance. the count gave two tremendous lashes, the horses sprang madly forward at three times the pace they had made hitherto, and the two fugitives plunged through the snow to the left of the road. 'don't go too fast,' whispered litvinoff; 'you'll need all your wind presently. we've a fair start now, and they can't follow on horseback.' they had not gone two hundred yards before they heard the troop sweep by. 'we weren't a minute too soon,' the secretary said. 'there goes another of them,' said the count, as again they caught the sound of a horse's snow-muffled hoofs. on they went, struggling over rough ground, sometimes waist-deep in snowdrifts, sometimes tripping over concealed stones or broken wood. 'we shall do it now,' said litvinoff. 'they're on us, by god!' cried the secretary at the same instant. they turned; they had been tracked, but only by one man. one of the pursuers, who had been a little behind the others, either better trained in this sort of sport than his fellows, or guided by some sixth sense, seemed to have divined what they had done, and had dismounted just at the right place, and followed them on foot. he gave a yell of triumph as he saw a grey figure struggling up the incline before him. 'aha, mr secretary,' he cried, and, raising his carbine, fired; the grey figure stumbled forward into the snow. '_you're_ done for, at any rate!' the cossack's triumph was a short one. as he dashed forward to secure his fallen quarry, another figure sprang from the snowy brushwood a little ahead of him, walked calmly towards him, raised a revolver, and shot him through the heart. * * * * * a week or two later one of those short and inaccurate paragraphs which date from st petersburg appeared in several european papers. it was to the effect that count michael litvinoff had been captured, after a desperate struggle, near the frontier, and that his private secretary, a young englishman, had been shot in the fray. but the french papers knew better, and that report was promptly contradicted. the _débats_, while confirming the news of the secretary's death, asserted that count michael litvinoff was at that moment at the hôtel du louvre, and his bankers would have confirmed the statement. and in the rooms of the count at the hôtel du louvre a haggard, weary-faced man, almost worn out by the desperate excitement and the horrors of the last few weeks, was pacing up and down, unable to get away from the picture, that was ever before his eyes, of his friend's dead face, bloodstained and upturned from the snow, in the cold, grey morning light; unable to escape from that triumphant shout, 'aha, mr secretary, _you're_ done for, at any rate,' which seemed as if it would ring for ever in his ears. 'i would give ten years of my life to undo that night's work. i shall never meet another man quite like him. i wish the brute had shot me,' he said to himself over and over again. chapter i. father and sons. the light was fading among the derbyshire hills. the trees, now almost bare, were stirred by the fretful wind into what seemed like a passionate wail for their own lost loveliness, and on the wide bare stretch of moorland behind the house the strange weird cry of the plovers sounded like a dirge over the dead summer. the sharp, intermittent rain had beaten all the beauty out of the few late autumn flowers in the garden, and it was tender of the twilight to hasten to deepen into a darkness heavy enough to hide such a grey desolate picture. inside thornsett edge another and a deeper darkness was falling. old richard ferrier was sick unto death, and he alone of all the household knew it. he knew it, and he was not sorry. yet he sighed. 'what is it, richard? can i get you anything?' a woman sitting behind his bed-curtain leaned forward to put the question--a faded woman, with grey curls and a face marked with deep care lines. it was his sister. 'where are the boys?' 'gone to aspinshaw.' 'both of them?' 'yes; i asked dick to take a note for me, and roland said he'd go too.' the old man looked pleased. 'did you want either of them?' she asked. 'i want them both when they come in.' 'suppose you are asleep?' 'i shall not sleep until i have seen my sons.' 'art thee better to-night, richard?' she asked in a tone of tender solicitude, dropping back, as people so often do in moments of anxiety, into the soft sing-song accent that had once been habitual to her. 'ay, i'm better, lass,' he said, returning the pressure of the hand she laid on his. 'wilt have a light?' 'not yet a-bit,' he answered. 'i like to lie so, and watch the day right out,' and he turned his face towards the square of grey sky framed by the window. there was hardly more pleasantness left in his life than in the dreary rain-washed garden outside. and yet his life had not been without its triumphs--as the world counts success. he had, when still young, married the woman he passionately loved, and work for her sake had seemed so easy that he had risen from poverty to competence, and from competence to wealth. born in the poorest ranks of the workers in a crowded stockport alley, he had started in life as a mill 'hand,' and he was ending it now a millowner, and master of many hands. he had himself been taught in no school but that of life; but he did not attribute his own success to his education any more than he did the fatuous failure of some university men to their peculiar training; so he had sent his sons to cambridge, and had lived to see them leave their college well-grown and handsome, with not more than the average stock of prejudices and follies, and fit to be compared, not unfavourably, with any young men in the county. but by some fatality he had never tasted the full sweetness of any of the fruit his life-tree had borne him. his parents had died in want and misery at a time when he himself was too poor to help them. his wife, who had bravely shared his earlier struggles, did not live to share their reward. she patiently bore the trials of their early married life, but in the comfort that was to follow she had no part. she died, and left him almost broken-hearted. her memory would always be the dearest thing in the world to him; but a man's warm, living, beating heart needs something more than a memory to lavish its love upon. this something more he found in her children. in them all his hopes had been centred; for them all his efforts had been made. they were, individually, all that he had dreamed they might be, and they were both devoted to him; and yet, as he lay on his deathbed, his mind was ill at ease about them. did he exaggerate? was it weakness and illness, the beginning of the end, that had made him think, through these last few weeks, that there was growing up between these two beloved sons a coolness--a want of sympathy, an indisposition to run well in harness together--which might lead to sore trouble? there certainly had been one or two slight quarrels between them which had been made up through his own intervention. how would it be, he wondered, when he was not there any more to smooth things over? somehow he did not feel that he cared to live any longer, even to keep peace between his boys. that must be done some other way. truth to say, he was very tired of being alive. the october day faded, and presently the sick-room was lighted only by the red flickering glow of the fire, which threw strange fantastic shadows from the handsome commonplace furniture, and made the portraits on the walls seem to look out of their frames with quite new expressions. old ferrier lay looking at the pictures in a tremor of expectation that made the time seem very long indeed. at last his strained sense caught the faint click of the brahma lock as it was opened by a key from without, and the bang of the front door as it was closed somewhat hurriedly from within. 'there they are,' he said at once. 'send them up, letitia.' as she laid her hand on the door to open it, another hand grasped the handle on the other side, and a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow came in, with the glisten of rain still on his brown moustache, and on his great-coat, seeming to bring with him a breath of freshness and the night air. 'ah, dick! i was just coming down for you. where is roland?' 'he stayed awhile at aspinshaw. how's father?' 'awake, and asking for you,' said his aunt, and went away, closing the door softly. 'well, dad, how goes it?' said the new-comer, stepping forward into the glow of the firelight. 'light the candles,' said his father, without answering the question, and the young man lighted two in heavy silver candlesticks which stood on the dressing-table. as their pale light fell on the white face lying against the hardly whiter pillow, dick's eyes scrutinised it anxiously. 'you don't look any better,' he said, sitting down by the bed, and taking his father's hand. 'i wish i'd been at home when that doctor came yesterday.' 'i'm glad you weren't dick; i'd rather tell you myself. i wish your brother were here.' 'i daresay he won't be long,' said the other, frowning a little, while the lines about his mouth grew hard and set; 'but what did the doctor say? aunt letitia didn't seem to know anything about it.' 'he told me i shouldn't live to see another birthday,' said the old man. he had rehearsed in his own mind over and over again how he should break this news to his boys, and now he was telling it in a way quite other than any that had been in his rehearsals. 'not see another birthday!' echoed his son. 'nonsense! why, father,' he added, with a sudden start, 'your birthday's on wednesday. how could he? i'll write to him.' 'my dear boy, i felt it before he told me. he only put into words what i've known ever since i've been lying here. there's no getting over it. i'm going.' dick did not speak. he pressed his father's hand hard, and then, letting it fall, he walked over to the hearthrug, and stood with his hands behind him, looking into the fire. 'come back; come here!' said the wavering voice from the bed. 'i want you, dick.' 'can't i do something for you, dad?' he said, in very much lower tones than usual, as he sat down again by the bed. he kept his face in the shadow of the curtain. 'we've always got on very well together, dick.' 'yes--we've been very good friends.' 'i wish you were as good friends with your brother as you are with your old father.' 'i'm not bad friends with him; and, after all, your father's your father, and that makes all the difference.' 'your brother will soon be the nearest thing in the world to you. oh, my boy,' said old ferrier, suddenly raising himself on his elbow, and clasping dick's strong right hand in both his, 'for god's sake, don't quarrel with him! if you ever cared for me, keep friends with him. if you and he weren't friends, i couldn't lie easy in my grave. and it's been a long life--i should like to lie easy at last!' 'i don't quarrel with him, father.' 'well, lad--well, i've thought you did; perhaps i'm wrong. anyway, don't quarrel--if it's only for your old dad's sake. i've loved you both so dearly.' 'i will try to do everything you wish.' 'i know you will, dick. you always have done that. was that roland just came in? if it is, send him to me.' the young man stood silently for a few moments. then he bent down over his father and kissed his forehead twice. when he left the room he met a servant on the landing. 'is mr roland at home yet?' 'yes, sir; he's just come in.' 'tell him mr ferrier wishes to see him at once.' 'miss ferrier told him, sir, directly he came in.' he turned and went to his own room. a quarter of an hour later roland stood outside his father's door. he opened it gently, and entered, his slippered feet treading the floor of the sick-room as silently as a nurse's. as he stood a moment in the dim light, eyes less keen and less expectant than those looking at him from the bed might have easily mistaken him for his brother. the slight difference in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest was concealed by the loose indoor jacket he wore. there was no trace about him of his wet and muddy walk, and he looked altogether a much fitter occupant for the easy-chair that stood at the sick man's bedside than the stalwart, weather-stained, and unsympathetic-looking figure that had last sat in it. 'rowley, why didn't you come before?' began the old man. 'oh, i couldn't, father. it is a beastly night. i was awfully wet and muddy. i only waited to change my things, and make myself presentable. how are you to-night?' 'your brother came up wet enough,' was all the answer. 'did he? what a careless fellow he is. he never seems to think of that sort of thing.' 'oh, well, i suppose you didn't know.' 'know what, father?' 'how much i wanted to see you.' 'why, no, of course i didn't,' said roland in an altered tone, and with a look of new anxiety in his face. 'what is it, father? i thought you were better to-day.' 'i shall never be better, lad. doctor gibson told me so, and i know he's right. you and dick will soon be masters here. but don't worry, rowley,' he added, catching both his son's arms; 'it was bound to come some day.' for a moment the young man had hardly seemed to realise what the words meant; but now a long, anxious, eager look at his father's face made the truth clear to him. an intense anguish came into his face, and throwing his arms round the other's neck, he fell on his knees in a burst of passionate tears. 'oh, father, father, no, no--not yet--don't say that--i can't do without you. oh, why have i left you since you have been ill?' the old man caressed him silently. there was a sort of pleasure in feeling oneself regretted with this passion of sorrow and longing. after a while. 'rowley,' said he, as the sobs grew less frequent and less violent, 'i'm going to ask you to do something for me.' 'anything you like, father--the harder the better.' 'it ought not to be very hard to you, my son. promise me that you will always keep good friends with dick.' 'yes--yes--i will, indeed.' but little more was said. roland seemed unable to utter anything save incoherent protestations of love and sorrow. at last, warned by the weariness that was creeping into his father's face, he bade him a very tender and lingering good-night. 'have me called at once if you are worse--or if i can do anything,' were his last words as he left the room. the watchful woman's face was by the bed again in an instant. 'i want--' the old man began. 'you want your beef tea, richard, and here it is.' as he took it he asked,-- 'is it too late to send for gates?' 'oh, no; and it's such a little way for him to come.' mr gates was a member of a firm of stockport solicitors, and his country house was but a stone's-throw from thornsett edge. it was not long before he in his turn occupied that chair by the bed. he bore with him an atmosphere of jollity which even the hush of that sick-room was powerless to dispel. he was not unsympathetic either, by any means, but he seemed made up of equal parts of kindheartedness and high spirits, and looked much more like an ideal country squire than like the ordinary legal adviser. as a matter of fact, he was more at home on the moor side or in the stubble than among dusty documents and leather-bound acts of parliament. it was his boast that he only had eight clients, and that he lived on them, and, judging by his appearance, they furnished uncommonly good living. he had a genial, hearty way with him which made him a favourite with every man, woman and child he came across, and he knew quite enough law to fully justify the confidence of the eight above mentioned. 'what, mr ferrier, still in bed! why, we thought old gibson would have had you on your legs again in no time. i quite expected to see you driving over to the wirksvale wakes to-morrow.' 'i shall never go behind any but the black horses again, gates. it's no use. i'm settled, and i want you to alter my will.' 'i'll alter your will with pleasure, if you like. though i must say it's so much more sensible than most people's wills that i wonder you want to alter it; but you mustn't talk of black horses and that sort of thing for another ten years. don't lose heart; you'll live to alter your will a score of times yet.' in an eager, tremulous voice ferrier begged the other to believe that his fate was sealed, and that whatever was done must be done quickly. then he proceeded to explain the changes he wished to have made in the will. he told the lawyer, without any of that reserve which ordinarily characterised him, all his fears about his sons, and then unfolded the scheme by which he thought to bind the two together. he wished their worldly interests to be so strongly bound up in their relations to each other that a quarrel _à outrance_ would mean ruin to both of them; and to this end he proposed to leave the mill to them jointly, on condition that they worked it together, and both took an active part in the management of it. should they dissolve partnership before twenty-one years, or should either retire with consent of the other, the personal property was not to be touched by either, and at end of ten years--if they were both alive and still separated--the whole was to go to the manchester infirmary. mr gates noted this extraordinary scheme down on the back of an old letter, and when mr ferrier had ended, read his notes through and shook his head. 'far better leave it alone, mr ferrier; they seem the best of friends, and legacies like this never help matters much, anyhow.' 'i can't leave it alone, gates. i've very little time left. the will is in that despatch-box, and there are pen and ink somewhere about.' 'do be advised,' began gates, his jolly face considerably graver than usual. 'i tell you i must have it done, and done at once. i'm deadly tired, and i want it over.' mr gates shrugged his shoulders, got out the will, and settled himself at the round table, on whose crimson velvet-pile cloth stood a _papier-maché_ inkstand, a recent purchase of miss letitia's. he sat there biting his pen, and making aimless little scribbles on a sheet of blank paper. after some minutes he leaned forward, and for a little time no sound was heard but the squeak of his pen. at last he flung down the quill and rose. 'it is the only way it can be done, sir,' he said, and read it out. it carried out ferrier's plans, but placed the personal property in the hands of trustees, who were to pay to roland and richard the interest thereof so long as they worked the mill together. if at the end of twenty-one years there had been no dissolution between them, the money was to pass unconditionally to them, in equal shares, or to the survivor of them, or to their heirs if they were both dead. if they quarrelled, the interest was to be allowed to accumulate for ten years, and then, if the brothers were still not on friendly terms, it should go, with the capital, to the infirmary. 'that's right,' said old richard, in a voice so changed as to convince the solicitor that he was right in saying he had not much more time to spend. the codicil was signed, duly attested, and attached to the will, and ferrier lay back exhausted, but with a light of new contentment in his eyes. 'i'm right down tired out,' he said; 'i shall sleep now.' and sleep he did till the cold hour of the dawn, when there came a brief waking interval, before the longest, soundest sleep of all. he opened his eyes then. 'it's nearly over,' he said; 'my boys--my boys!' he called for them both, but it was dick on whose broad breast the dying head rested. it was dick who caught the last loving, whispered words, felt the last faint hand pressure, soothed the last pang, caught the last look. for when aunt letitia hurried to their rooms, it was dick who opened his door before she reached it, and, fully dressed, sprang to his father's bedside. roland was in the sound sleep that often follows violent emotion, and it was hard to rouse him. he came in softly just as his brother laid gently down on the pillow the worn old face, at rest at last, and closed the kindly eyes that would never meet roland's any more. never any more! chapter ii. a narrow escape. the curtain had fallen on the last scene of the most popular play in london. the appreciative criticism of the pit and the tearful sympathy of the upper boxes were alike merging in one common thought, that of 'something nice for supper.' the gallery was already empty. its occupants were thirstier and more prompt of action than the loungers in the stalls and boxes. ladies, a little flushed by the exertion of fighting their way through the ranks of their peers, were silently disputing for precedence in front of the looking-glasses in the cloak-rooms, while their cavaliers, already invested with overcoat and wrapper, were pacing the carpeted corridor outside with a very poor show of patience. the most impatient of them all was a stout, rubicund old gentleman in a dark coat, who trotted fretfully up and down, and now and then even ventured to peep in through the door at the chaos of silks and laces, raised shawls, and suspended bonnets, in some component part of which he evidently had an interest. his very manifest objection to being kept waiting made his fellow-sufferers glance at him with some amusement. a young man who had been going leisurely towards the outer door actually stopped and leaned against the wall while he rolled himself a cigarette, and from time to time glanced with a certain interest at him. he looked very handsome leaning there; his light overcoat was open, and showed the gleam of some rather good diamonds in his shirt front. his pose was graceful--his face had less of boredom in it than is usually worn by young men who go to theatres alone. this, with his large dark eyes, greek nose, and long drooping blonde moustache, gave him a rather striking appearance. he might have been a foreigner but for his want of skill in making cigarettes. the white hands seemed absolutely awkward in their manipulation. just as his persevering efforts were crowned with success, and the cigarette was placed between his lips, a white muffled figure emerged from the tossing rainbow sea, and a little hand was slipped through the old gentleman's arm. 'desperately tired of waiting, i suppose, papa?' said a very sweet voice. 'i should think so. what a time you've been, my dear! i thought i had lost you. all the cabs will be gone.' 'oh no, dear; the theatre isn't half empty. i was quite the first lady to come out, i'm sure.' 'you may have been the first to go in, but there have been lots of ladies come out while i've been waiting--dozens, i should say.' 'couldn't we walk back, papa?' said the girl. 'it's a lovely night, and the streets are so interesting. it isn't far, is it?' 'no, no--the idea! make haste, and we'll get a cab right enough. mamma will never let us have a trip together again if i take you back with a cold.' by this time they had passed down the stairs, and the tall cigarette-maker sauntered streetwards also. but getting a cab was not so easy. that white chenille wrap had taken too long to arrange, and now there were so many people ready and waiting for cabs that a man not at home in this babel had hardly a chance. 'papa' was so intent on hailing a four-wheeler himself that he was deaf to the offers of assistance from the ragged battalions that infest the theatre doors, and seem to get their living, not by calling cabs, which they seldom if ever do, but by shutting the doors and touching their hats when people have called cabs for themselves. he was a little short-sighted, and made several attempts to get into other people's broughams, under the impression that they were unattached 'growlers,' and was only restrained by his daughter's energetic interference. at last, driven from the field by the crowds who knew their way about better than he did, he yielded to the girl's entreaties, and walked towards the strand, hoping to be able to hail a passing vehicle. they advanced slowly, for the pavement was crowded. 'we really had better walk,' she was saying again, when the crowd round them was suddenly thrown into a state of disturbance and excitement, and they were pushed backwards against the wall. 'oh, dear, what is it?' she cried. 'look out, miss!' said a rough-looking man, in a fur cap, catching her shoulders, and pulling her back so violently that her hand was torn from her father's arm, and at the same moment the crowd separated to right and left. then she saw what it was. a pair of spirited carriage horses had either taken fright, or had grown tired of the commonplace routine of wood pavement and asphalte, and had decided to try a short cut home through the houses, utterly regardless of the coachman, who was straining with might and main at the reins. their dreadful prancing hoofs were half-way across the pavement, and the pole of the carriage was close to someone's chest--good heavens! her father's--and he, standing there bewildered, seemed not to see it. she would have sprung forward, but the rough man held her back. 'papa! papa!' she screamed, and at the sound of her voice he started, and seemed to see for the first time what threatened him. he saw it too late--the pole was within six inches of his breast-bone. but someone else had seen it to more purpose, and at that instant the head of the off horse was caught in a grasp of iron, and the pair were dragged round, to the imminent danger of some score of lives, while the carriage was forced back on to a hansom cab, whose driver disappeared into the night in a cloud of blasphemy. 'well, i'm damned!' remarked the gentleman in the fur cap, who had snatched the girl out of danger; 'it's the nearest shave as ever i see.' it had been a near shave; but the old gentleman was unhurt, though considerably flustered, and immeasurably indignant. 'hurt? no, i'm not hurt--no thanks to that fool of a driver; such idiots ought to be hanged. but i ought to thank the gentleman who saved me.' as he spoke the young man came forward deadly pale and without a hat. 'i do hope you're not hurt,' he said, in a singularly low, soft voice, speaking with a little catching of the breath. it was he who had leaned against the wall in the theatre. his hands were evidently good for something better than twisting tobacco. 'i hope the pole did not touch you? i am afraid i was hardly quick enough, but i couldn't get through the people before.' 'my dear sir, you were quick enough to save me from being impaled against this wall; but i really feel quite upset. i must get my daughter home. she looks rather queer.' she was holding his arm tightly between her hands. 'do let's go home,' she whispered. 'i'll get you a cab,' said the hero. 'you'll probably get one easily now the mischief's done.' 'he's lost his hat,' observed the rescued one, as the other disappeared. 'do you feel very bad, my pet? pull yourself together. here he comes.' a hansom drew up in front of them, and their new acquaintance threw back the apron himself. 'you'd better take it yourself,' said papa. 'you seem rather lame, and your hat's gone.' 'it doesn't matter at all. i can get another cab in an instant. pray jump in.' 'no; but look here. i haven't half thanked you. after all, you saved my life, you know. come and see me to-morrow evening, will you, and let me thank you properly. here's my card--i'm at morley's.' 'i will come with pleasure to see if you are all right after it, but please don't talk any more about thanks, mr--stanley. here's my card. good night--morley's hotel,' he shouted to the cabman, and as they drove off he mechanically raised his hand to the place where his hat should have been. have you ever seen a man do that when hat there was none? the effect is peculiar--much like a rustic pulling a forelock when t'squire goes by. 'i hope he _will_ come to-morrow,' said mr stanley as the hansom drove off. 'why, i think he's staying at our hotel, papa. i am almost sure i've seen him at the _table d'hôte_.' 'dear, dear! how extraordinary.' clare was more than 'almost sure' in fact, she knew perfectly well that this handsome stranger was not only staying at the hotel, but that he in his turn was quite aware of their presence there. of her presence he could hardly be oblivious, since his eyes had been turned on her without much intermission all through dinner every evening since she had been in town. before clare went to her room that night she managed to possess herself of the slip of cardboard on which was engraved--michael litvinoff. what an uncommon name! how strange that he of all people should have been the one to come forward at the critical moment. yes, but not quite so strange as it seemed to miss stanley; for litvinoff had gone to the theatre for no other purpose than to be near her. it was not only to gaze at her fair face that he thus followed her; but because he was determined to catch at any straw which might lead to an introduction, and the fates had favoured him, as they had often done before, in a degree beyond his wildest hopes. he was well contented to have lost his hat, and did not care much about his bruised foot. these were a cheap price to pay for admittance to the acquaintance of the girl who had occupied most of his thoughts during the few days that had passed since he had first seen her. 'a very fair beginning. the gods have certainly favoured me so far; and now, o jupiter, aid us! or rather cupid, for i suppose he's the proper deity to invoke in an emergency like this.' and michael litvinoff stretched out his slippered feet to the blazing fire in his bedroom. 'by-the-way, i might as well look at the address. i know it's somewhere down north.' he rose, walked with some difficulty to the chair, where he had flung his great-coat, and took the card from one of its pockets. 'mr john stanley, aspinshaw, firth vale.' 'by jove!' he said, sinking into his chair again. 'firth vale--firth vale. that's in derbyshire. ah me!' he thrust his feet forward again to the warmth, and leaning back gazed long into the fire, but not quite so complacently as he had done before it had occurred to him to make that journey across the room to his great-coat. chapter iii. the new masters. the funeral was over, and thornsett mill was closed for the day. fortunately the 'spotted cow' was not closed, so that the majority of the hands did not find themselves without resources. added to the subtle pleasure which so many derive from drinking small beer in a sanded kitchen furnished with oak benches, there was to-day the excitement of discussing a great event, for to the average mind of thornsett the death and burial of old richard ferrier were great events indeed. and then there appears to be something inherent in the nature of a funeral which produces intense and continued thirst in all persons connected, however remotely, with the ceremony. so john bolt, the landlord, had his hands pretty full, and the state of the till was so satisfactory that it was a really praiseworthy sacrifice to the decencies of society for him to persist in not shortening by one fraction of an inch the respectfully long face which he had put on in the morning as appropriate to the occasion. 'well, for my part, i'm sorry he's gone,' he said, drawing himself a pot of that tap which seemed best calculated to assist moral reflections. 'that i am! he was always a fair dealer, if he wasn't a giving one.' 'he was more a havin' nor a givin' one,' said old bill murdoch. 'givin' don't build mills, my lad, nor yet muck up two acres o' good pasture wi' bits o' flowers wi' glass windows all over 'em. i never seen sic foolin'.' 'surely a man's a right to do what he will with his own,' ventured a meek-looking man, who had himself a few pounds laid by, and felt acutely the importance of leaving unchallenged the rights of property. 'i'm none so sure o' that,' remarked bill, who had a conviction which is shared by a few more of us, that one's superiority shows itself naturally and unmistakably in one's never agreeing with any statement whatever which is advanced by anyone else. 'there'll be more flowers than ever now, if mr roland has his way,' said sigley the meek. 'd'ye think, now, sigley, he'll be like to get that where mr richard is?' asked bill. 'mr roland thinks too much o' flowers and singin', and book learnin', to give much time to getten o' his own way.' 'mr roland may be this, or he may be that,' potters, the village grocer, observed, with the air of one clearly stating a case, 'but he can get his way where he cares to.' 'tha's fond o' saying words as might mean owt--or nowt, for that matter. can't tha say what tha does mean?' 'tha'd know what i mean if tha weren't too blind to see owt. how about alice hatfield?' 'gently, gently,' said bolt. 'tha was i' the right, potters, not to name names, but when it comes to namin' o' names i asks tha where's tha proof?' here there was a general 'movement of adhesion,' and an assenting murmur ran round, while the mild man repeated like an echo, 'where's your proof?' 'her father don't think ther's proof,' said sigley. 'a man doesn't want to prove the bread out of his mouth, and the roof off his children.' 'john hatfield wouldn't work for a man as had ruined his girl.' 'hungry dogs eat dirty pudding,' remarked potters. 'hatfield does na' deal o' thee, potters,' observed murdoch, drily. 'and it would be just one if he did,' answered potters, his large face growing crimson, 'and alice was a good lass and a sweet lass till she took up wi' fine notions and told a' the lads as none on 'em was good enough to tie her shoon, and as she'd be a lady, and i don't know what all, and mr roland was the only gentleman as ever took any notice of her, except mr richard; and mr roland, he went away when she went away, and it's all as plain as the nose on your face.' 'tha says too much,' said murdoch slowly, 'for't a' to be true.' 'now, now!' interposed bolt. 'enow said on all sides, i'm sure. the poor old master's gone, and the mill's got a holiday, and i think you'll all be better employed i' turning your thoughts on him as is gone than i' picking holes i' them as is to be your masters, and raking up yesterday's fires i' this fashion. and so i say, as i said before, i for one am sorry he's gone.' 'yes; and so am i,' said bill; 'for as long as he lived i always expected him to do summat for me, as worked alongside o' him when he were a lad i' carrington's mills, and now i know _that_ chance is ower.' 'well, he gave thee work here, and he'd always a kind word for thee.' 'kind words spread no butties, and when he was rolling in brass, work at the usual wages was a' he ever give me.' 'did'st thee ever gie him owt, lad?' 'i never had owt to give him, or anyone else for that matter.' a general laugh arose, and bill buried his face in his mug of beer. 'the next work-day the mill's closed'll be a wedden-day, i s'pose,' said sigley, after a pause. 'ay, and not long fust.' 'mr roland's always up at aspinshaw.' 'so's mr richard if you come to that.' 'they can't both marry the girl.' 'no, nor i shouldn't think either of them would yet a bit. miss clare's only just come home fro' endin' her schoolin'.' 'and a gradely lass she is.' 'ay, that's so,' cut in old murdoch. 'she thinks a sight more o' workin'-folk nor either o' they boys do.' 'where's your proof o' that, bill?' asked bolt, the village logician. 'proof,' snarled murdoch; 'don't 'ee call to mind two years agone when we had a kind o' strike like, and didn't she go about speakin' up for us like a good un?' a murmur of assent mingled with the gurgling of liquor down half-a-dozen throats. 'there's one i hope she'll never take to,' potters was beginning, but bolt interrupted him with-- 'whichever has her will have a fine wife. let's drink good luck to the new masters, lads.' 'or, so to say, to oursel', for their's'll be ours,' said sigley. 'their bad luck'll be ours; but their good luck's their own,' said bill murdoch sententiously. this startling economic theory meeting with no support, the original toast was drunk with a feeble attempt at honours. * * * * * the 'new masters' whose health had thus been unenthusiastically drunk found it hard to realise the peculiar position in which they found themselves. the will was a great surprise to them both. neither had thought that the slight breach which had come between them was sufficiently wide to be noticed, and the very fact of its having been noticed made it appear deeper and more serious than they had before considered it to be. it was a bitter thought to richard ferrier that the old man's last moments should have been made unquiet through any conduct of his, and he reproached himself for not having concealed his own feelings better, and for not having watched more keenly over those of his father. the most crushing part of bereavement is always the consciousness that so little more thought, so little more tact and tenderness, would have sufficed to spare that ended life many an hour of sorrow, that quiet heart many a pang of pain. it is then that we would give our heart's blood for one hour with the beloved in which to tell them all that we might have said so easily while they were here. this universal longing is responsible for that deeply rooted belief in the life beyond the grave which causes two-thirds of human-kind to dispense with evidence and to set reason at nought. so long as the sons and daughters of men weep by silent graves alone, so long will the priest find his penitent, the professor of modern spiritualism his open-mouthed dupe, and the shrine its devotee. the ages roll on, each year the old earth opens her bosom for our dearest, and still man--slow learner that he is--will not realise that (whatever may be the chances of another life in which to set right what has been here done amiss) in this life, which is the only one he can be sure of having, it rests with him to decide whether there shall be any acts of unkindness that will seem to need atonement. the consolation which so many find in the idea of a future life was a closed door to dick. he had belonged to the 'advanced' school of thought at college, and to him the gulf which separated him from his father was one that could never be bridged over. roland's grief was more absorbing than his brother's, though it was not so acute; and by its very nature could not be so lasting. yet through it all he felt rather--not vexed--but grieved that his father should have not only divined his inmost feelings, but should have published them to the world by means of this will. he had an uneasy consciousness that he was made to appear ridiculous, and for roland to be possibly absurd was to be certainly wretched. it was very irritating that two brothers could not have an occasional difference without having their 'sparring' made the subject of a solemn legal document; and without being themselves placed in such a situation that the eyes of all their acquaintances must be turned expectantly on them to see what they would do next. the differences arose from an only too complete agreement on one particular point. when they had come back from cambridge a year before, they had found a new and interesting feature in the social aspect of firth vale. clare stanley had come home from the german boarding-school where she had spent the last three years. the young men had not seen her since she was a child, and now they met her in the full blossom of very pretty and sufficiently-conscious young womanhood. for about two months they discussed her freely in their more sociable hours, admired her prodigiously, and congratulated each other on their good luck. then came reticence; then occasional half-hearted sarcasms, directed against her, varied by a criticism of each other, the sincerity of which was beyond a doubt. for some months before the old man's death the rivalry that had sprung up between them had been too strong to be always kept under, even in his presence, and he had seen the effect, though not guessed the cause. strangely enough, another cause of dissension between the brothers had been also touched on by their critics in the tap of the spotted cow: alice hatfield. when mrs. ferrier had died mrs. hatfield had been foster-mother to the two boys, and during their childhood they were the constant playfellows of little alice. of course as they grew older the distance between them increased, but richard was still very fond of alice, and it was a great blow to him when one day, about three months after their return from college, the girl suddenly disappeared, taking leave of no one, and leaving no word of explanation. all that anyone could gather was that during a visit she had recently paid to an aunt in liverpool she had been seen to talk more than once to a gentleman, and that she had left the firth vale station for manchester by an early train alone. but the worst of it was that roland had that very day abruptly announced his intention of taking a holiday, and had gone north without any apparent object; and village gossip busied itself rarely with this portentous coincidence. at the end of a month roland returned, looking worn and harassed. his brother asked him point blank where he had been, and for what. roland indignantly denied his right to question, and flatly refused to answer. a quarrel ensued--the first of many, which grew more frequent as they saw more of miss stanley. on the morning on which mr ferrier died, she and her father had gone to london to spend a month; and the time of her absence was the most peaceful the young men had known for some time. clare herself was glad to go to london, though not so glad to leave the scene of her conquests. one cannot blame her much for knowing that she was charming. the two ferriers were the most desirable young men the country-side could offer, and no girl could have wished a finer pair of captives to grace her chariot-wheels. and--aspinshaw was very dull. chapter iv. a mysterious disappearance. when miss stanley opened her hazel eyes the morning after the mischance on the way home from the theatre, her first waking impression was that something pleasant was to happen. she laughed at herself a little when complete wakefulness made her conscious that, after all, it was only count litvinoff's acquaintance and promised call which were answerable for that dreamy feeling of anticipated enjoyment. she let her thoughts stray in his direction several times that day, and at the _table d'hôte_ looked out for him with interest. but he was not there. bearing in mind mr stanley's invitation, count michael litvinoff had thought it as well to absent himself from the _table d'hôte_. it would have been rather awkward to meet his new acquaintances at dinner and then to call on them immediately afterwards. 'i don't see our russian friend, clare,' remarked mr stanley as the fish was removed. 'i think you must have been mistaken about his staying here.' 'perhaps i was, papa,' said clare, submissively, but with a sparkle in her eyes that contradicted her words. 'or perhaps his foot hurt him so much that he couldn't come down.' 'if he doesn't come up after dinner we'd better make inquiries.' but he did come up after dinner, and when he entered, limping slightly, mr stanley received him with as much effusion as could be shown by an old gentleman after a heavy meal. 'my daughter tells me you are staying in this hotel,' he began; and as litvinoff, taking this as an introduction, bowed low to her, with his eyes on the ground, she hoped he did not notice the sudden flush that swept over her face. but he did; there was, in fact, very little that went on within a dozen yards of him that count litvinoff did not notice. 'how strange that you should have been on the spot last night, and how fortunate.' 'it was fortunate for me, since it has procured for me this pleasure. may i hope that you are not any the worse for the shock?' 'no, i'm not; but i'm afraid you are; do sit down.' as litvinoff and her father went on talking, clare, who had not yet spoken a word, could not help thinking that this gentleman with the foreign name was somehow very different from any man she had hitherto met, not even excepting those fine specimens of young english manhood, the ferriers. there was about him that air of worldliness which is so attractive to young people. 'he looks as if he had a history,' she said to herself, with conviction; a remark which did credit to her powers of observation. she liked his voice and his way of speaking, for though his english was perfect, he spoke it with a precision not usual to englishmen. 'will you have tea or coffee?' asked clare presently, busying herself with the cups and saucers that had been brought in. 'mr litvinoff will have coffee, of course, my dear; young men don't like tea nowadays.' 'i can't claim to be very young,' said the other, smiling, 'but i do like tea.' 'ah! you would just please my wife; she says that a liking for tea in a young man is a sign of a good moral disposition.' 'i'm afraid in my case it's national instinct, not moral beauty.' 'national!' repeated mr stanley, 'national! why, god bless my soul, you aren't chinese, are you?' the guest threw his head back and laughed unaffectedly; and clare smiled behind the tea-tray. 'oh, no; i'm only a russian.' 'oh, ah,' said mr stanley, in a rather disappointed tone. for the moment he had been quite pleased at the thought that here was actually a chinese who could talk excellent english, and whose garments were not exactly the same, to the uninitiated, as those of his wife and mother. 'you speak english uncommonly well,' he went on. 'well, i've been in england some years now,' he said, with a rather sad smile, which confirmed clare in that fancy about his history. 'a turn for languages is like the taste for tea, one of our national characteristics. i suppose the ordinary tongue finds such a difficulty in twisting itself round russian, that if it can do that it can do anything. allow me!' springing forward to hand mr stanley his cup of coffee. 'my daughter always sings to me while i'm having my coffee,' said mr stanley, suppressing the fact that under these circumstances he generally went to sleep, and feeling a mistaken confidence, as slaves of habit always do, that his ordinary custom could be set at nought on the present occasion. 'i hope miss stanley will not deny me the privilege of sharing your pleasure,' said litvinoff, rising and making for the piano. clare followed him. 'what shall i sing, papa?' she said. 'whatever you like, my dear. "the ash grove."' clare sang it. her voice was not particularly powerful, but she made the most of it, such as it was, and sang with enough expression to make it pleasant to listen to her. after 'the ash grove' came one or two plaintive scotch airs, and before she was well through 'bonnie doon,' the accompaniment of her father's heavy breathing made her aware that her audience was reduced by one-half. the most appreciative half remained, and, when the last notes of the regretful melody had died out, preferred a request for schubert's 'wanderer.' this happened to be her favourite song, and she sang it _con amore_. 'it always seems to me,' he said when she had finished, 'that that music carries in it all the longing that makes the hearts of exiles heavy.' clare looked up at him brightly. 'oh, but their hearts ought not to be heavy, you know,' she said. 'the revolution is of no country--i thought banishment from one country ought merely to mean work in another for an exile for freedom. surely there is a fight to be fought here in england, for instance, too. i don't know much about it; i've scarcely seen anything, but it seems to me there is much to be put straight here--many wrongs to be redressed, much misery to be swept away.' the count's bold eyes fixed themselves on her with a new interest in them. 'yes, yes,' he returned with a little backward wave of his hand. 'exiles here do what they can, i think; but the wronged and miserable will not have long to wait, if there are many miss stanleys to champion their cause. still it does make one's heart heavy to know that horrors unspeakable, worse than anything here, take place daily in one's own country, which one is powerless to prevent. one feels helpless, shut out. ah, heaven! death itself is less hard to bear.' 'you speak as if you had felt it all yourself,' said clare, a little surprised at the earnestness of his tone. 'i did not mean to speak otherwise than generally. i believe in england it is considered "bad form" to show feeling of any sort--and you english hate sentiment, don't you?' 'i don't think we hate sincere feeling of any kind; but forgive me for asking--are you really an exile?' count litvinoff bowed. 'i have that misfortune--or that honour, as, in spite of all, i suppose it is. but won't you sing something else?' he added, with a complete change of manner, which made any return on her part to the subject of his exile impossible. 'i really think i've done my duty to-night,' she answered, rising. 'don't you sing?' 'yes, sometimes. music is a consolation. and one is driven to make music for oneself when one lives a very lonely life.' 'won't you make music for us?' she asked, ignoring the fact that her father was still snoring with vigour. 'yes, if you wish it.' he took her place at the piano, and, in a low voice, sang a hungarian air, wild and melancholy, with a despairing minor refrain. while her thanks were being spoken his fingers strayed over the keys, and, almost insensibly as it seemed, fell into a few chords that suggested the air of the marseillaise. 'oh, do sing that! i've never heard anyone but a schoolgirl attempt it, and i long so to hear it really sung. i think it's glorious.' without a word he obeyed her, and launched into the famous battle song of liberty. his singing of the other song had been a whisper, but in this he gave his voice full play, and sang it with a fire, a fervour, a splendid earnestness and enthusiasm, that made the air vibrate, and thrilled clare through and through with an utterly new emotion. she understood now how this song had been able to stir men to such deeds as she had read of--had nerved ragged, half-starved, untrained battalions to scatter like chaff the veteran armies of europe. she understood it all as she listened to the mingled pathos, defiance, confidence of victory, vengeance and passionate patriotism, which rouget de lisle alone of all men has been able to concentrate and to embody in one immortal song, in every note of which breathes the very soul of liberty. as the last note was struck and litvinoff turned round from the piano, he almost smiled at the contrasts in the picture before him--a girl leaning forward, her face lighted up with sympathetic fire, and her eyes glowing with sympathetic enthusiasm, and an old gentleman standing on the hearthrug, very red in the face, very wide awake, and unutterably astonished. the girl was certainly very lovely, and if the exile thought so, as he glanced somewhat deprecatingly at the old gentleman, who shall blame him? 'how splendid!' said clare. 'very fine, very fine,' said her father; 'but--er--for the moment i didn't know where i was.' this reduced the situation to the absurd--and they all laughed. 'i hope i haven't brought down the suspicions of the waiters upon you, mr stanley, by my boisterous singing; but it's almost impossible to sing that song as one would sing a ballad. i evidently have alarmed someone,' he added, as a tap at the door punctuated his remark. but the waiter, whatever his feelings may have been, gave them no expression. he merely announced-- 'mr roland ferrier,' and disappeared. 'i'm very glad to see you, my dear boy,' said mr stanley, as roland came forward; 'though it's about the last thing i expected. mr litvinoff--mr ferrier.' both bowed. roland did not look particularly delighted. 'we've come to london on business,' said he. 'we? then where is your brother?' questioned clare. 'well,' said roland, 'it is rather absurd, but i can't tell you where he is; he's lost, stolen, or strayed. we came up together, dined together, and started to come here together. we were walking through a not particularly choice neighbourhood between here and st pancras, when i suddenly missed him. i waited and looked about for something like a quarter of an hour, but as it wasn't the sort of street where men are garrotted, and as he's about able to take care of himself, i thought i'd better come on. i expect he'll be here presently.' but the evening wore on, and no richard ferrier appeared. clare felt a little annoyed--and roland more than a little surprised. perhaps, in spite of his _sang froid_, he was a trifle anxious when at eleven o'clock litvinoff and he rose to go, and still his brother had not come. chapter v. an old acquaintance. as a rule, it was not an easy matter to turn richard ferrier from any purpose of his, and when his purpose was that of visiting miss stanley and at the same time of putting a stop to any chance of a _tête-à-tête_ between his divinity and his brother, no ordinary red herring would have drawn him off the track. as he walked through the streets with roland all his thoughts were with the girl he was going to see--all his longing was to hasten as much as might be the moment of their meeting. in his mind just then she was the only woman in the world; and yet it was a woman's face in the crowd that made him start so suddenly--a woman's figure that he turned to follow with so immediate a decision as to give his brother no time to notice his going until he had gone. the street was one of those long, straight, melancholy streets, the deadly monotony and general seediness of which no amount of traffic can relieve--which bear the same relation to regent street and oxford street as the seamy side of a stage court suit does to the glitter and gaudiness that charm the pit, and stir the æsthetic emotions of the gallery. there are always plenty of people moving about in these streets whom one never sees anywhere else--and you may pass up and down them a dozen times a day without meeting anyone whose dress does not bear tokens, more or less pronounced, of a hand-to-hand struggle with hard-upness. it is a peculiarity of this struggle that in it those who struggle hardest appear to get least, or at any rate those who get least have to struggle hardest. this society recognises with unconscious candour--and when it sees a man or woman shabbily dressed and with dirty hands, it at once decides that he or she must belong to the 'working' classes; thus naïvely accepting the fact that those whose work produces the wealth are not usually those who secure it. the face which had attracted dick's notice was as careworn as any other in that crowd--the figure as shabbily clad as the majority. but the young man turned and followed with an interest independent of fair features or becoming raiment--an interest which had its rise in a determination to solve a problem, or at any rate to silence a doubt. yet it was a young woman he was following--more than that, a pretty young women; and the very evident fact that this handsome, well-dressed young man was openly following this shabby girl with a parcel inspired some of the loafers whom they passed to the utterance of comments, the simple directness of which would perhaps not have pleased the young man had he heard them. he heard nothing. he was too intent on keeping her in sight. presently she passed into a quieter street, and dick at once ranged alongside of her, and, raising his hat said, 'why, alice, have you forgotten old friends already?' the girl turned a very white face towards him. 'oh, mr richard! i never thought i should see you again, of all people.' 'why, everybody is sure to meet everyone else sooner or later. how far are you going? let me carry your parcel.' 'oh, no, it's not heavy,' she said; but she let him take the brown-paper burden all the same. 'not heavy!' he returned. 'it's too heavy for you.' 'i'm used to it,' she answered, with a little sigh. 'so much the worse. i'm awfully glad i've met you, my dear girl. why did you leave us like that? what have you been doing with yourself?' 'oh, mr richard, what does it matter now? and don't stand there holding that parcel, but say good-bye, and let me go home.' 'and where is home?' 'not a long way off.' 'well, i'll walk with you. come along.' they walked side by side silently for some yards. then he said,-- 'alice, i want you to tell me truly how it was you left home.' a burning blush swept over her face, from forehead to throat, and that was the only answer she gave him. 'come, tell me,' he persisted. 'can't you guess?' she asked in a low voice, looking straight before her. 'perhaps i can.' 'perhaps? of course you can. why do girls ever leave good homes, and come to such a home as mine is now?' 'then he has left you?' 'no,' she said, hurriedly; 'no, no, i've left him. but i can't talk about it to you.' 'why not to me, if you can to anyone?' he asked. 'because--because-- don't ask me anything else;' and she burst into tears. 'there, there,' he said, 'don't cry, for heaven's sake. i didn't mean to worry you; but you will tell me all about it by-and-by, won't you? what are you doing now?' 'working.' 'what sort of work? come, don't cry, alice. i hate to think i have been adding to your distress.' she dried her eyes obediently, and answered: 'i do tailoring work. it seems to be the only thing i'm good for.' 'that's paid very badly, isn't it?' he asked, some vague reminiscences of "alton locke" prompting the question. 'oh, i manage to get along pretty well,' she replied, with an effort at a smile, which was more pathetic in dick's eyes than her tears had been. he thought gloomily of the time, not so very long ago either, when her face had been the brightest as well as the fairest in thornsett village, and his heart was sore with indignant protest against him who had so changed her face, her life, her surroundings. he looked at her tired thin face, still so pretty, in spite of the grief that had aged and the want that had pinched it, and found it hard to believe that this was indeed the alice with whom he had raced through the pastures at firth vale--the alice who had taken the place in his boyish heart of a very dear little sister. ah, if she had only been his sister really, then their friendship would not have grown less and less during his school and college days, and his protection would have saved her, perhaps, from this. these foster-relationships are uncomfortable things. they inflict the sufferings of a real blood tie, and give none of the rights which might mitigate or avert such suffering. 'how's mother and father?' she said, breaking in among his sad thoughts. 'they were well when i saw them, but i've not seen them lately. we've been in great trouble.' 'yes. i saw in the papers. i was so sorry.' 'then you read the papers?' 'i always try to see a weekly paper,' she said a little confusedly. 'then you don't know how they are at home?' 'i only know they're grieving after you still.' 'they know i'm not dead. i let them know that, and i should think that's all they care to know.' 'you know better than that. my dear child, why not go home to them? i believe the misery you have cost them--forgive me for saying it--will shorten their lives unless you do go back.' 'go back? no! i've sowed and i must reap. i must go through with it. i live just down here. good-night.' it did not look a very inviting residence--a narrow street, leading into a court which was too dark and too distant to be seen into from the corner where she had stopped. 'i sha'n't say good-night till you say when i shall see you again.' 'what's the use? it only makes me more miserable to see you, though i can't help being glad i have seen you this once.' 'but i must try to do something for you. i think i've some sort of right to help you, alice.' 'but i've no right to be helped by you. besides, i really don't need help. i have all i want. i'd much better not see you again.' 'well, _i_ mean to see _you_ again, anyway. i shall be in london for some time. when shall i see you?' 'not at all.' 'nonsense!' he said, authoritatively. 'you must promise to write, at any rate, or i shall come down here and wait from eight to eleven every evening till i see you.' 'very well. i'll write, then. good-bye!' 'but how can you write? you don't know my address. here's my card;' and he scribbled the address in pencil. 'it's a promise, alice. you'll write and you'll see me again?' 'yes, yes; good-bye;' and she turned to leave him. 'why, you're forgetting your parcel.' 'so i am. thank you!' as she took it from him, he said suddenly, watching her keenly the while,-- 'roland is in town now. shall i bring him to see you?' 'no, no; for god's sake, don't tell _him_ you've seen me!' and she left him so quickly as to give no time for another word. as she sped down the street a loitering policeman turned to look sharply at her, and two tidy-looking women who were standing at the opposite corner exchanged significant glances. 'i never thought she was one of that sort!' said one. 'ah!' said the other, 'bad times drives some that way as 'ud keep straight enough with fair-paid work.' chapter vi. between two opinions. dick did not feel inclined to go to morley's after this _rencontre_, so he turned back towards his hotel. the problem was not actually solved, certainly; but he was disposed to take all that had passed as a confirmation of his worst suspicions--so much so, that he felt he could not meet his brother just then, as if nothing had happened. he took two or three turns up and down that festive promenade, the euston road, thinking indignantly that his position ought to have been roland's, and roland's his--that he was suffering for his brother's misdeeds, while his brother was enjoying bright glances from eyes that would hardly look so kindly on him could their owner have known how dick was spending the evening. for the first time, too, he saw, though only dimly, a few of the difficulties that would lie in his way. it would be harder than ever to keep on any sort of terms with his brother now that he could no longer respect him, and to respect a man who had brought misery into a family which he was bound by every law of honour to protect was not possible to dick. as his rival he had almost hated roland; as the man who had ruined alice hatfield he both hated and despised him, and he knew well enough that between partners in business these sort of feelings do not lead to commercial success. he did not care to follow out all the train of thought that this suggested; but the remembrance of his father's strange will was very present with him as he went to bed. in the morning things looked different. it is a way things have. colours seen by candle light will not look the same by day. after all, was it proved? when he came to think over what the girl had said there seemed to be nothing positively conclusive in it all. it was a strange contradiction--he had been very eager to trace the matter out--to prove to himself that roland was utterly unworthy to win clare stanley; and yet now he felt that he would give a good deal to believe that roland had not done this thing. and this was not only because of the grave pecuniary dilemma in which he must involve himself by any quarrel with roland. perhaps it was partly because blood is, after all, thicker than water. it did not seem to dick that his knowledge was much increased by his conversation with alice. the blackest point was still that mysterious holiday trip, taken at such an unusual time, and about which his brother had been so strangely reticent. and that might be accounted for in plenty of other ways. alice's disappearance at that particular time was very likely only a rather queer coincidence. dick had thought all this, and more, before he had finished dressing, and he was ready to meet his brother at breakfast with a manner a shade more cordial than usual--the reaction perhaps from his recent suspicions. roland was in particularly high spirits. 'wherever did you get to last night?' he asked. 'i was quite uneasy till i heard you were safe in your bed.' 'what time did you get home?' it seemed that roland's uneasiness had been shown by his not turning in till about two. 'good heavens!--you didn't stay there till that time?' asked dick, with an air of outraged propriety that would have amused him very much in anyone else. 'how old stanley must have cursed you!' 'oh, no; we left there at eleven.' 'we? you didn't take miss stanley for a walk on the embankment, i presume?' 'no such luck. didn't i tell you? i met an awfully jolly fellow there--a russian beggar--a real nihilist and a count, and we went and had a smoke together.' 'my dear fellow, all exiled russians are nihilists, and most of them are counts.' 'oh, no; he really is. i only found out he was a count quite by chance.' 'what's made old stanley take up with him? not community of political sentiments, i guess?' 'oh, no; he saved the old boy from being smashed by some runaway horses, and of course he's earned his everlasting gratitude. i didn't like him much at first, but when you come to talk to him you find he's got a lot in him. i'm sure you'll like him when you see him.' 'am i sure to have that honour?' asked dick, helping himself to another kidney. 'is he tame cat about the stanleys already.' 'why, he'd never been there before; what a fellow you are! i've asked him to come and have dinner with us to-night. i want you to see him. i'm sure you'll get on together. he seems to have met with all sorts of adventures.' 'a veritable baron munchausen, in fact?' 'i never met such a suspicious fellow as you are, dick,' said roland, a little huffily; 'you never seem to believe in any body.' this smote dick with some compunction, and he resolved not to dislike this _soi-disant_ count until he had cause to do so, which cause he did not doubt that their first meeting would furnish forth abundantly. but he was wrong. litvinoff came, and dick found his prejudices melting away. the count seemed a standing proof of the correctness of the parallels which have been drawn between russian and english character. he was english in his frankness, his modesty, his off-hand way of telling his own adventures without making himself the hero of his stories. before the evening was over dick began to realise that nihilists were not quite so black as they are sometimes painted, and that there are other countries besides england where progressive measures are desirable. the brothers were both interested, and tried very hard to get more particulars of nihilist doctrines, but as they grew more curious litvinoff became more reticent. as he rose to go he said,-- 'well, if you want to hear a more explicit statement of our wrongs, our principles, and our hopes, and you don't mind rubbing shoulders with english workmen for an hour or two--and if you're not too strict sabbatarians, by-the-way--you might come down to a radical club in soho. i am going to speak there at eight on sunday evening. i shall be very glad if you'll come; but don't come if you think it will bore you.' 'i shall like it awfully,' said dick. 'you'll go, won't you, roland?' 'of course i will.' 'we might have dinner together,' said litvinoff. 'come down to morley's; we'll dine at six.' this offer was too tempting to be refused. it presented an admirable opportunity for making an afternoon call on the stanleys, and the brothers closed with it with avidity, and their new acquaintance took his leave. when dick was alone he opened a letter which had been brought to him during the evening. he read:-- ' spray's buildings, porson street, w.c. 'dear mr richard,--i promised to write to you but i did not mean to see you again. but it was a great comfort to meet a face i knew, and i feel i must see you again, if it's only to ask you so many questions about them all at home. i do not seem to have said half i ought to have said the other night. if you really care to see me again, i shall be in on monday afternoon. go straight up the stairs until you get to the very top--it's the right-hand door. i beg you not to say you have seen me--to mr roland or to anyone else.--yours respectfully, 'alice hatfield.' this letter revived his doubts, but he was very glad of the chance of seeing her again, and he determined not to be deterred from pressing the question which he had at heart by any pain which it might cause her or himself. jealousy, curiosity, regard for the girl--all these urged him to learn the truth, and besides them all a certain sense of duty. if her sorrow had come to her through his brother it surely was all the more incumbent on him to see that her material sufferings, at any rate, were speedily ended. if not.... men almost always move from very mixed motives, and of these motives they only acknowledge one to be their spring of action. this sense of duty was the one motive which dick now admitted to himself. at any rate he did not mean to think any more about it till monday came, so he thrust the letter into his pocket, and let his fancy busy itself with clare stanley after its wonted fashion. it found plenty of occupation in the anticipation of that sunday afternoon call. when the call was made mr stanley was asleep, and though he roused himself to welcome them he soon relapsed into the condition which is peculiar to the respectable briton on sunday afternoons. miss stanley was particularly cheerful, but as soon as she heard where they intended to spend the evening, the conversation took a turn so distinctly russian, as to be almost a forestalment of the coming evening's entertainment. nihilism in general and nihilist counts in particular seemed to be the only theme on which she would converse for two minutes at a time. roland made a vigorous effort to lead the conversation to things english, but it was a dead failure. dick sought to elicit miss stanley's opinion of the reigning actress, but this, as he might have foreseen, only led to a detailed account of that adventure in which the principal part of hero had been played by a russian, a nihilist, or a count, and there were all the favoured subjects at once over again. the young men felt that the visit had not been a distinct success, and when clare woke her father up to beg him to take her to that radical club in soho, even his explosive refusal and anathematising of radicals as pests of society failed to reconcile the ferriers to their lady's new enthusiasm. the conversation at dinner, however, was a complete change. count litvinoff appeared to feel no interest in life, save in the question of athletics at the english universities; but on this topic he managed to be so entertaining that his guests quite forgot, in his charm as talker, the irritation he had caused them to feel when he was merely the subject of someone else's talk. when dinner was over, and the three started to walk to soho, they were all on the very best of terms with themselves and each other. would one of them have been quite so much at ease if he had known that the announcement of the coming lecture had been seen in the paper by alice hatfield, and that she--not being much by way of going to church--had made up her mind to be there? chapter vii. sunday evening in soho. the average english citizen and his wife have a certain method of spending sunday which admits of no variation, and is as essential to their religion as any doctrine which that religion inculcates. indeed, it is very often the only tribute which they pay to those supernatural powers who are supposed to smile upon virtue and to frown upon vice. when church and chapel--st waltheof's and little bethel--unite in teaching that ceremonial observance is at least as important as moral practice, is it to be wondered at that their congregations, feeling that it would be more than human to combine the two, choose to move along the line of least resistance? it is comparatively easy, though perhaps somewhat tiresome, especially in hot weather, to get up only a _little_ late on sunday mornings, instead of a good deal late, as the 'natural man' would prefer to do; to assume a more or less solemn aspect at the breakfast-table; to wear garments of unusual splendour, which do not see daylight during the week, and in assuming them to feel tremors of uneasiness lest they should be outshone by mr jones' wife, mr smith's daughter, mr brown's sister, or mr robinson's maiden aunt. it is not quite so easy, but still possible, to sit for two hours on a narrow seat, evidently made by someone who knew he would never have to sit on it, and to keep awake (in the old pews this was not imperative), while a preacher, whom one does not care for, talks, in language one does not understand, on subjects in which one takes not the slightest interest. and then, as a compensation, one has the heavy early dinner and the afternoon sleep, in itself almost a religious exercise. perhaps one's ungodly neighbours curse the day they were born as they hear one, after tea, playing long-drawn hymn tunes on a harmonium, till the bells begin to go for evening 'worship'; then one's wife goes to put on her bonnet (which has been lying in state all day on the best bed, covered with a white handkerchief), and one goes to one's 'sitting' again with a delicious sense that the worse of it is over. all this is not so difficult, and an eternity of bliss is cheap at the price--distinctly. but to refrain from sanding the sugar or watering the milk--especially for a 'family man,' who has 'others to think of besides himself'--to keep one's hand from this, and one's tongue from evil-speaking, lying and slandering, to keep one's body in temperance and soberness, to be true and just in all one's dealings--this would be not only difficult but absurd, nowadays. there are a good many who try to carry out the moral teachings and let the ceremonial observances alone, and there are far more who disregard the one and the other; and for both these classes there are ways of spending sunday evening of which the strict sabbatarian has no conception. among others are the entertainments provided by working men's clubs. these are not the wildest form of dissipation; but, as a rule, they have some practical bearing on this world and its affairs and, though rather solid pudding, are appreciated by the audiences, mostly working men, who have a strong and increasing taste for solids, and no small discernment in the matter of flavours. to-night the dish provided for the agora club was a russian one, and was likely to be highly spiced. 'do you expect a large audience?' richard ferrier asked litvinoff, as they walked along. 'i hope so,' he said. 'i can always speak better to a full room. perhaps the physical heat does something to grease one's tongue; and then, again, in a large audience, you're sure to have some people who agree with you, and you and they reflect enthusiasm backwards and forwards between you. we're close there now,' he added, as they turned down a narrow street of high, unhappy-looking houses. 'how in the world do you come to be lecturing at a place like this? how do you know anything about it?' asked roland. 'there is a freemasonry among the soldiers of liberty which holds good all over the world, and we who serve her are pledged to carry her light into the darkest corners.' if this seemed somewhat rhetorical to the young englishmen, they were ready enough to excuse it in a foreigner, and especially in a foreigner who was about to make a speech. it did occur to dick that the locality in which they were at the moment was a dark corner which stood as much in need of the services of the metropolitan gas company as of those of the torch-bearers of freedom; but there was light enough in the room into which count litvinoff soon led them. it was long and rather low, not unlike a certain type of dissenting meeting-room. at one end was a platform, on which stood two wooden chairs, and a deal table which had upon it a tumbler, a bottle of water, and a small wooden hammer, similar to those used by auctioneers. the room was well filled--so well filled that all the wooden forms and chairs were occupied, and even the standing room was so much taken up that the three young men found a little difficulty in working their way to the upper end of the room. roland noticed, with some surprise, that among the audience were several women, who seemed quite as much at home there as the husbands and brothers with whom they had come. the two ferriers were placed on a seat facing the platform, which litvinoff at once ascended, in company with the chairman. the two were received with cheers and applause, which redoubled when the chairman in his opening remarks referred to the count as 'one who had suffered and worked for years for the cause he was about to advocate.' much as the ferriers had already wondered at litvinoff's mastery of english, they wondered still more after the first ten minutes on his speech. it is one thing to carry on a social conversation in a tongue not one's own; it is another and a widely different thing to be able to hold a foreign audience, and to sway and move it, to rouse its enthusiasm and to thrill it with horror, at one's will and pleasure. yet such was the power of this young russian rebel. he spoke without notes, and without the slightest hesitation. his voice in the opening sentences was very low, but so clear as to be heard distinctly all over the room. the first part of his address was simply a narrative. in a calm, unimpassioned way he told his hearers the story, from its beginning, of a struggle for freedom; he told them how a movement which had begun in a spirit of love, enthusiasm, and self-sacrifice, had been turned by blind tyranny and brutal oppression into one of wild vengeance and bitter relentless hatred. he told them how, for a chance expression of sympathy with the down-trodden peasants; for the possession of a suppressed book; sometimes even for less than these offences, for having incurred the personal spite of some members of the police, aged men and tender girls had been, and were, at that moment while he spoke to them, being delivered over to the torture chambers of the russian monarch, to be scourged and starved, to be devoured by disease and riven by madness. he told them how tyranny always had treated--how while it exists, tyranny always will treat the sons of men. then, when many among his audience had broken out into groans of indignation and cries of 'shame!' the usual note of an indignant english audience, the speaker dropped the narrative tone and became argumentative. here, when he justified the nihilists' 'deeds of death' as the lawful punishment of criminals--punishment inflicted by the only power that has the right to execute vengeance, the outraged spirit of man--he seemed to lose for a moment the sympathy of some of his hearers, and certainly of the ferriers, who like most englishmen, believed in the efficacy of parliamentary reforms, and also forgot, like most englishmen, that these patent remedies for all the ills of life are hardly applicable to nations that have no parliament. with the ready apprehension of a true orator, litvinoff saw the slight shade of coldness as it passed over some of the upturned faces before him, and, with a consummate skill that was the result either of long practice or oratorical genius, he changed, without seeming to change, the argumentative and defensive attitude for one of stern and glowing denunciation. his voice rang through the room now like a trumpet-call. a very little of this sort of thing was sufficient to rouse the men before him to stormy approbation, and richard whispered to his brother that if any russian dignitary were to come in just then, while the speaker was in the full tide of his invective, he would have very much the sort of reception that was given to the austrian woman-flogging general some years ago by the stalwart draymen of messrs barclay & perkins. apparently satisfied with the applause of his audience, in which he seemed to delight and revel, litvinoff turned from the present and the past, and invited his hearers to look with him into the future, 'not only of russia, but of mankind,' he said; 'what the world might be--what it would be.' then were done into rhetorical english the concluding pages of that famous russian pamphlet, 'a prophetic vision'--the pamphlet for whose sake russian peasants had braved the spydom of the police, and to hear which read aloud by some of their fellows who _could_ read, they had crowded together at nights in outhouses and sheds, by the dim light of tallow candles--the pamphlet for whose possession st petersburg and moscow students had quarrelled and almost fought, knowing all the time that the mere fact of its being found upon their persons or among their belongings meant certain imprisonment, and possible death--the pamphlet, in short, the discovery of whose authorship three years back had sent count litvinoff and his luckless secretary flying for the austrian frontier. it was certainly a pleasant vision this of the russian noble, whether it was prophetic or no, a dream of a time when men would no longer sow for other men to reap, when the fruits of the earth would be the inheritance of all the earth's children, and not only of her priests and her rulers; when, in fact, rulers would be no more, for all would rule and each would obey; when every man would do as he liked, and every man would like to do well. all this seemed very high-flown and remote to the young university critics on the front seats, though even they were moved for a moment or two, by the vibrating tones of the speaker, out of the attitude of english stolidity which they had carefully kept up during the evening. but those behind them were less reserved, and perhaps more credulous--more given to believing in visions; and when litvinoff sat down, the walls of the agora rang again and again with the cheers of a sympathetic and delighted audience. when the chairman had announced that 'mr' litvinoff would be happy to answer any questions that might be suggested by the lecture, there was a moment or two of that awkward silence which always occurs on these occasions, when everyone feels that there are at least half-a-dozen questions he would like to ask, but experiences the greatest possible difficulty in putting even one into an intelligible shape. at length a man in one of the far corners of the room rose to put a question. his accent showed him to be a foreigner, but that was not a very remarkable thing in soho. he had a scrubby chin and dirty linen, two other characteristics not uncommon in that region. after a preliminary cough he explained that his question was rather personal than general, and he quite allowed that the lecturer was not bound to answer it; but he said that, having been in russia, he could bear testimony to the truth of all that had been said that evening, and that while in the south of russia he had come across a small pamphlet, called 'a prophetic vision,' which he had been told had been written by a count michael litvinoff. some parts of the address to-night had reminded him of that excellent pamphlet, and he thought it would be interesting to the audience to know whether the author of that pamphlet was the speaker of the evening. litvinoff rose at once. 'i had no idea,' he said, 'that the little _brochure_ would ever be heard of outside the country for whose children it was written; but since the question is asked me so frankly to-night, i will answer as frankly--yes, i wrote it.' an approving murmur ran through the room, and the foreigner rose again. he was sorry again to trouble citizen litvinoff, but was he right in supposing (it had been so reported) that the discovery of this pamphlet by the russian government had occasioned count litvinoff's exile? litvinoff was very pale as he answered,-- 'yes; it was that unhappy pamphlet which deprived me of the chance of serving my country on the scene of action, and which lost me a life i valued above my own--that of a fellow-countryman of the audience which i have the pleasure of addressing to-night--my secretary and friend, whom i loved more than a brother.' his voice trembled as he ended. there was another round of applause, and, no more questions being forthcoming, the meeting broke up, and people stood talking together in little groups. richard was discussing a knotty economic point with a sturdy carpenter and trades unionist, and roland, close by, was earnestly questioning a french communist to whom litvinoff had introduced him, and was receiving an account of the so-called murder of the hostages very different from any which had appeared in the daily papers of the period, when the count came up to them. 'excuse me,' he said, 'i am _désolé_; but i shall be unable to stay longer. you will be able, doubtless, to pilot yourselves back to civilisation, and will pardon my abrupt departure. i have just seen someone going out of the door whom i've been trying to catch for the last three months, and i'm off in pursuit.' and he was off. as he passed a small knot of youths outside the door they looked after him, and one of them said with a laugh, 'blest if i don't believe he's after that handsome gal. what chaps these foreigners are for the ladies.' the discerning youth was right. he was after that girl--but though he followed her and watched her into the house where she lived, he did not speak to her. 'think twice before you speak once is a good rule,' he said to himself, as he turned westwards, 'and i know where she lives, at any rate.' even discussions on political economy, and historical revelations by those who helped to make the history, must come to an end at last, and the ferriers came away, after dick had received a pressing invitation from the chairman to address the club, and to choose his own subject, and roland, who had suddenly conceived a passion for foreigners of a revolutionary character, had made an appointment with his communist acquaintance for an evening in the week. as they passed down the street, two men standing under a lamp looked at them with interest. one was the man who had put the questions regarding the pamphlet. the other was a foreigner too, though he was clean in his attire and had not a scrubby chin, but a long, light silky beard. he wore the slouch hat so much affected by the high church clergy, and which is popularly supposed to mark any non-clerical wearer as a man of revolutionary views. he was tall, and pale, and thin, and had very deeply-set hollow eyes, which he kept fixed on the retreating millowners till they turned the corner and went out of sight. then he said, in a hungarian dialect,-- 'our pamphlet-writing friend doesn't seem to choose his friends solely among the poor and needy; and that is politic to say the least of it.' 'money seeks money,' growled the other, 'and he has plenty.' 'not so much as you'd suppose. the greater part of the litvinoff property is quite out of his reach. our "little father" takes good care of that.' 'that which he has he takes care to keep,' said the other. 'i'm not so sure; at anyrate, he uses his tongue, which is a good one, in our cause. speeches like that are good. a man who can speak so is not to be sneered at, and i'm certain he could not speak like that unless he felt some of it at least. he has done us good service before, and he will again. the mantle of the prophet fits him uncommonly well.' chapter viii. 'you lie!' 'morley's hotel, _sunday evening_. 'dear mr ferrier,--you were so full of russia yesterday afternoon that you made me forget to say to you what might have saved you the trouble of answering this by post. will you and your brother dine with us (papa says) to-morrow evening at seven? i hope you enjoyed yourselves last night. i am sure i should have done if i had been there. with papa's and my kind regards to you and mr roland,--i am, dear mr ferrier, yours very truly, 'clare stanley. '_p.s._--count litvinoff, your interesting russian friend, will be here.' miss stanley smiled to herself rather wickedly as she folded this note. she had noticed that her interest in the russian acquaintance did not seem to enhance theirs, and she thought to herself that whatever the dinner might be at which those three assisted, it certainly would not be dull for her. in derbyshire, where her amusements were very limited, she would have thought twice before permitting herself to risk offending the masters of thornsett, but here that risk only seemed to offer a new form of amusement. but experimenting on the feelings of these gentlemen was an entertainment which was somehow not quite so enthralling as it had been, and she now longed, not for a fresh world to conquer--here was one ready to her hand--but for the power to conquer it. she would have given something to be able to believe that she had anything like the same power over this hero of romance, whom fate had thrown in her way, as she had over the excellent but commonplace admirers with whom she had amused herself for the last year. litvinoff had distinctly told her that the goddess of his idolatry, the one mistress of his heart, was liberty, and though this statement was modified in her mind by her recollection of certain glances cast at herself, she yet believed in it enough to feel a not unnatural desire to enter into competition with that goddess. her classical studies taught her that women had competed successfully with such rivals, and she was not morbidly self-distrustful, especially when a looking-glass was near her. with the letter in her hand she glanced at the mirror over the mantelpiece, and the fair vision of dark-brown lashes, gold-brown waving hair, delicate oval face, and well-shaped if rather large mouth, might have reassured her had she felt any doubts of her own attractions. but the glance she cast at herself over her shoulder was one of saucy triumph, and the smile with which she sealed her letter one of conscious power. would she have been gratified if she could have seen the effect of her note? it was not at all with the sort of expression you would expect to see on the face of a man who had just received a dinner invitation transmitted through the lady of his heart from that lady's papa, that richard ferrier passed the note over to his brother next morning. 'here you are,' he said. '_bouquet de nihilist_, trebly distilled.' 'well, don't let's go, then.' 'why, i thought you were so fond of the count. i wonder you don't jump at it. i thought it would please you.' 'so i do like him--he's a splendid speaker; but i didn't come to london to spend all my days and nights with him, any more than you did. besides, i'm engaged for to-night.' 'oh, are you? well, i think i shall go.' 'you'd better leave it alone. you won't stand much chance beside a man with such a moustache as that. besides, he sings, don't you know? and with all your solid and admirable qualities, richard, you're not a nightingale.' 'nor yet a runaway rebel.' 'i say, you'd better look a little bit after your epithets. litvinoff doesn't look much of the running-away sort. according to what i heard last night, he can use a revolver with effect on occasion. by the way, richard,' he went on, more seriously, 'i believe i saw a face at that club i knew, but it was only for a minute, and i lost sight of it, and i couldn't be sure.' 'who did you think it was?' 'little alice.' 'think--you think!' said his brother, turning fiercely on him. 'do you mean to say you didn't _know_?' 'know? of course not, or i should say so. what the deuce do you mean?' 'i should like to ask you what the deuce you mean by even debating whether or no to accept that invitation when you know you've no earthly right to go near miss stanley--' 'you'd better mention your ideas to mr stanley. i don't in the least know what you're driving at--and i don't care; but since you choose to bring _her_ name in, i shall throw over my other engagement and go to morley's to-night.' 'you can go to the devil if you choose!' said dick, who seemed to have entirely lost his self-control, and he flung out, slamming the door behind him. clare's note was bearing more fruit than she desired or anticipated in setting the brothers not so much against litvinoff as against each other, for what but her letter could have stirred dick's temper to this sudden and unpremeditated outbreak? what but her note and dick's comments thereon could have ruffled roland's ordinarily even nature in this way? it is always a mistake to play with fire; but people, girls especially, will not believe this until they have burned their own fingers, and, _en passant_, more of other people's valuables than they can ever estimate. * * * * * 'i wish i had spoken to that girl yesterday,' said count litvinoff to himself; 'it would have saved my turning out this vile afternoon. if fate has given england freedom, she has taken care to accompany the gift with a fair share of fog. i wish i could help worrying about other people's troubles. it is very absurd, but i can't get on with my work for thinking of that poor tired little face. hard up, she looked, too. ah, well! so shall i be very soon, unless something very unexpected turns up. i'll go now, and earn an easy conscience for this evening.' he threw down his pen and rose. the article on the ethics of revolution on which he was engaged had made but small progress that afternoon. he had felt ever since lunch that go out he must sooner or later, and the prospect was dispiriting. he glanced out of his window as he put on his fur-lined coat. from the windows of morley's hotel the view on a fine day is about as cheerful as any that london can present--though one may have one's private sentiments respecting the pepper-boxes which emphasise the bald ugliness of the national gallery, and though one may sometimes wish that the slave of the lamp would bring st george's hall from liverpool and drop it on that splendid site. but this was not a fine day. it was a gloomy, damp, foggy, depressing, suicidal day. the fog had, with its usual adroitness, managed to hide the beauties of everything, and to magnify the uglinesses. nelson was absolutely invisible, and the lions looked like half-drowned cats. litvinoff shuddered as he lighted a large cigar and pulled his gloves on. 'this is a detestable climate,' he said, as he drew the first whiffs; 'but london is about the only place i know where good cigars can be had at a price to fit the pocket of an exile. i suppose i shall soon have to leave this palatial residence, and become one of the out-at-elbows gentlemen who make life hideous in leicester square and soho.' like many men who have lived lonely lives, michael litvinoff had an inveterate habit of soliloquy. it had been strengthened by his life at the ancestral mansion on the litvinoff estate, and had not grown less in his years of solitary wanderings. his walk to-day was not a pleasant one, and more than once he felt inclined to turn back. but he persevered, and when he reached the house which he had seen her enter he asked a woman on the ground floor if miss hatfield lived there. 'there's a young person named hatfield in the front attic,' was the reply, as the informant stared with all her eyes at the count, who was certainly an unusual sort of apparition in spray's buildings. as he strode up the dirty, rotten stairs, stumbling more than once, he thought to himself, as dick had done, that alice did not make her new life profitable, whatever it was. 'poor girl!' he thought; 'if she's of the same mind now as she was when i saw her last, i suppose i must find an opportunity of doing good by stealth.' the house, though poor enough, did not seem to be one of those overcrowded dens of which we have heard so much lately, and which a royal commission is to set right, as a royal commission always does set everything right. or perhaps the lodgers were birds of prey, who only came home to roost at uncertain hours; or beasts of burden, who were only stabled at midnight to be harnessed again at sunrise. at anyrate, the count saw no one on the stairs, and he saw no one in the front attic either. not only no one, but no thing. the door and window were both open. the room appeared to have been swept and garnished, but was absolutely empty of everything but fog. there was another door opposite, but it was closed and locked. 'she's evidently not here. we'll try lower down.' but before he had time to turn he heard a foot on the stairs, coming up with the light and springy tread which is the result of good and well-fitting boots, and which does not mark those who walk through life, from the cradle to the grave, shod in boots several sizes too large and several pounds too heavy. he glanced over the broken banisters, and recoiled hastily. 'the gentle roland, by all that's mysterious!' he said, 'now, what on earth can _he_ want here? at anyrate, he'd better not see _me_.' the landing on which he stood was very dark, and there was a heap of lumber, old boxes, a hopelessly broken chair, a tub, and some boards. litvinoff crept behind them, and in his black coat and the obscurity of the dusky landing and the dark afternoon he felt himself secure. he had hardly taken up this position when roland ferrier's head appeared above the top stair, to be followed cautiously by the rest of him. he cast a puzzled look round the empty attic, tried the closed door, and, turning, went downstairs again. litvinoff was just coming out of his not over savoury lurking-place when he heard a voice on the landing below, which was not roland's. 'parbleu!' he said to himself; 'it rains ferriers here this afternoon. here's the engaging richard, and evidently not in the best of tempers.' he evidently was not--if one might judge by his voice, which was icy with contempt as he said sneeringly, 'so this was the engagement you were going to put off, was it?' 'yes, it was. at least i am here to put off an engagement; but i don't know what you know about it,' said roland, 'and i don't know what you mean by following me about like this. what business have _you_ here? this isn't aspinshaw, that you need dog my footsteps.' 'i came here to try and find out whether my father's son was a scoundrel or not, and you've answered the question for me by being here.' 'upon my word,' said roland's voice, 'i think you must be out of your mind.' it isn't often that the thought which would restrain comes into one's mind at the moment when restraint is most needed; but just then dick _did_ think of his father and his dying wishes, and the remembrance helped him to speak more calmly than he would otherwise have done. 'once for all, then, will you tell me why you are here, roland?' 'yes, i will, though i don't acknowledge your right to question me. i had an appointment, with that frenchman we met last night, for this evening, but i've lost his address. i knew it was in this court, and i was walking about on the chance of finding him, when i'm almost sure i saw litvinoff come in here. i made after him, feeling sure he was going to the same place as i was.' 'and where _is_ litvinoff?' 'he seems to have disappeared, or else i was mistaken. now, what have you got to say?' 'this. you lie!' it sounded hardly like richard's voice, so hoarse and choked with passion was it; and so full of insult and scorn that roland at last lost control of himself. 'stand back, you raving maniac,' he said, 'and let me pass! the same roof mustn't cover us two any longer, and don't speak again to me this side of the grave.' the listener, leaning forward eagerly to catch every word, heard roland's foot dash down the staircase. there was a moment of perfect silence, and then came a long-drawn sigh from richard ferrier. 'now then, young man, what's all this to-do about? i should like to know what you mean by quarrelling in places that don't belong to you, and terrifying respectable married women out of their seven senses.' it was a shrill woman's voice that spoke, and a door opened on the landing where young ferrier stood. 'i'm very sorry, madam,' said richard, in tones calm enough now. 'i didn't intend to disturb anyone. will you kindly tell me if anyone lives here named hatfield?' 'there was a young woman of that name in the front attic, but she left sudden this morning.' 'do you know where she's gone?' 'no, i don't.' 'does anyone in the house know?' 'no. i'm the landlady, and she'd have told me if she told anyone.' 'thank you,' he said, and turned to pass down the staircase. 'stay, though,' he said; 'have you any frenchmen lodging here?' 'i don't want no dratted furriners here, and i haven't got none, thank god!' 'of course not,' said ferrier to himself, and strode downstairs. 'no foreigners here? don't be too sure, my good woman,' litvinoff muttered to himself, as he heard the landlady's door close to a continued accompaniment of reiterated objections in that lady's shrill treble. 'i'd better get out of this house of mystery at once. i trust that the outraged female proprietor of this staircase will not demand my blood. well, whatever happens, i suppose we shall not see the amiable brothers to-night, and that will mean a _tête-à-tête_,' he added, as he came out from his dusty retirement, and carefully removed all traces of the same from his clothes. when he found himself once more in the chill, foggy, outside air, he looked up and down the court, and smiled. 'the situation becomes interesting,' he said to himself, 'and demands another of these very excellent cigars.' chapter ix. at spray's buildings. it seemed a very long walk home to alice hatfield, after that sunday evening lecture. she felt almost as though she could never reach her lodging. it was such weary work to keep putting one tired foot before the other. and somehow she was so much more easily tired now than she used to be in her derbyshire home, where she had been used to breast the steepest hills without even a quickened breath. she wished she had not gone; she had derived no pleasure from the evening, and had only gained a sharper heartache from the sight of a certain face, which had been, and was still for that matter, the dearest face in the world to her. she felt re-awakened too in her a liking for a different life among different surroundings; the life she had given up of her own free will three months ago. she had been much alone in that other life, it is true, and her thoughts had not made solitude sweet; but she had seen _him_ sometimes, and now she was quite alone--always--save for the few slight acquaintances she had made in the house where she lived. in that other life, which now looked brighter than it had ever done when it was hers, she had been racked and tortured by her conscience, which had at last forced her to try and silence it by renouncing what she had sacrificed everything to gain, and by voluntarily adopting this strange, hard way of living. but now that that gloomy monitor was on her side, it failed to give that comfort and support which one is taught to expect from it. 'be virtuous and you will be happy,' say the copy-books. a somewhat higher authority (professor huxley) thinks otherwise. 'virtue is undoubtedly beneficent,' he says, 'but the man is to be envied to whom her ways seem in any wise playful; and though she may not talk much about suffering and self-denial, her silence on that topic may be accounted for on the principle _ça va sans dire_. she is an awful goddess, whose ministers are the furies, and whose highest reward is peace.' alice hatfield hadn't read huxley, but if she had she would have agreed with him in this; and now it seemed as though the furies were driving her along the streets towards that miserable home of hers, where, so far, no dove of peace had folded its wings. it is given to all of us, at one time or another, to repent--more or less--of the evil; but many of us also know what it is to look back, with something like remorse, on what we believe to have been the good. and good and evil, get so mixed up sometimes, when we have often heard the world's 'right' skilfully controverted and made to seem wrong, by the tongue whose eloquence once made wrong seem to us right. alice had to collect all her energies to enable her to climb the steep dark stairs which led to her room, and when she had gained it at last, and had lighted her little benzoline lamp, she sank down on her chair bedstead, exhausted and breathless. what a hateful room it was; how cold, and cheerless, and wretched. the few poor articles of furniture did not relieve its bareness in the least. there was no fire, of course, and her little lamp quite failed to light up the dark corners. there must be something wrong with that lamp--it was going out surely--the room was growing so dark; or was it her eyes from which the power of seeing was going? the room seemed to swim before her sight, and a feeling of deadly faintness came over her, a horrible sensation of going through the floor. she staggered to her feet and drank some water, which gave her strength to go unsteadily down to the floor below, and to knock at the landlady's door. 'oh, i am so ill--so ill! i think i'm dying,' she said, holding out both hands as the woman appeared; 'help me.' then she knew no more. her troubles, her tiredness, her regrets, her very self, all were swallowed up in the horror of great darkness that overwhelmed her. 'here's a nice set out,' grumbled mrs fludger, as her lodger fell at her feet; 'as if one hadn't enough troubles o' one's own--what with jenny being out o' work, and the master on the booze since friday. jenny!' 'here i am.' miss jenny fludger, a muscular young woman, with her hair in a long beaded net, responded to the call, and lent her help in carrying alice back to her room. then the unsympathetic hands of the two women undressed the girl and laid her in her bed. then they looked meaningly at each other. 'if she don't soon come round i'll send joe for the doctor,' said the mother. 'you never knows what may happen.' then mrs fludger dashed cold water in the patient's face, slapped her hands with a vigour that would have brought tears to her eyes had she been conscious, and made a horrible smell with the benzoline lamp and a pigeon's feather hastily begged from a lodger who had leanings ornithological. alice showing no signs of being affected by the application of these generally efficacious remedies, mrs fludger decided that this was a case of 'going off' quite beyond her experience, and feeling the responsibility too much to be borne alone, she despatched her third son in quest of a doctor, regardless of miss jenny's opinion that the lodger was 'shamming.' joe fludger was not particularly pleased at being sent. he was busy just then shaking up a mangy kitten and a recently-acquired guinea-pig in a box, with a view of getting them to fight, which they showed no signs of doing, and he did not care to relinquish this enthralling pastime until he had compassed his end. he put his two 'pets' into one pocket, hoping that that position would urge them to fulfil their destiny and have it out, and as he met several friends, and felt it incumbent on him to exhibit his treasures to each of them, it was some time before he carried out his instructions, and brought medical science, as represented by dr moore, to spray's buildings. but even when the doctor did at last stand by her bedside, alice was still insensible. he raised her eyelids, felt her pulse, asked one or two brief questions, and then stood holding her hand till she sighed, and moved slightly. 'she's coming round,' he said. 'not married, i see,' he added, glancing at the hand he held, on which shone no golden circle, not even the brass substitute which takes its place occasionally, when times are very hard. 'not as i ever heard of,' said miss jenny with a toss of the net, which drew down upon her a glance of disapproval from the old doctor, and a sharp recommendation from her mother to go downstairs. 'give the girl air; there's too many of us here a'ready.' miss fludger withdrew with a gesture expressive of a sovereign contempt for faints in general, and this collapse in particular. 'how does this poor thing get her living?' asked the doctor; 'she looks as if she got it honestly.' he, being an observant man, glanced as he spoke at the roughened forefinger of her left hand, and then round the bare, dreary attic. 'lord! doctor, how should i know? do you think i puts all my lodgers through their cataclysm before i takes 'em in?' said mrs fludger, with some general recollection of the days when she went to sunday school. mrs fludger did not always manage to hit on the right word to express the meaning she intended to convey, but she always found a word something like the right one, and a word which really had a place in the english dictionary; she had a rare dexterity in the finding of such words, and a fine confidence in the use of them, which made them answer her purpose admirably. 'you're better now, aren't you?' said the doctor, as alice opened her eyes. 'here's a shilling, ma'am: can you send for some brandy?' mrs fludger would go herself. such an admirable opportunity for having 'two penn'orth' at the 'hope' was not to be let slip. 'don't be frightened,' he said, as the landlady left the room. 'it's only the doctor. you've been overdoing it--working too hard, and eating too little.' 'but i never felt like that before,' said alice slowly and faintly. 'i thought i was going to die.' 'haven't you anyone belonging to you? you ought to be with friends just now.' 'no. i'm quite alone, quite alone. why just now?' 'my dear child, don't you know why?' she did not answer, but looked at him with large, frightened, questioning eyes; and before mrs fludger returned with a shrunken shilling's-worth in a ginger-beer bottle, alice had learned that that which she had feared, till a sort of hope had grown out of the very intensity of her fear--that which had seemed almost too terrible to be possible--was to be. she now had that certainty which is a spring of secret happiness to so many women, to some only a fresh care and anxiety, and to some, alas! the sign and token of social banishment--the warrant of disgrace and despair. doctor moore spoke kindly, and with no note of censure in his voice. he had a naturally tender heart, and long years of practice in a poor neighbourhood had developed his sympathies, instead of blunting them, as, unfortunately, happens in too many cases. he was an old man now, and this was an old story to him; but his eyes were still sharp enough to see that the girl before him did not belong to that class of patients to whom such an announcement would have meant little more than a temporary inconvenience and a trifling subsequent expense. he thought to himself that he would look in in the morning and see the girl again. there had been a look in her eyes as she listened to him that made him feel that she wanted looking after. 'give her some hot brandy-and-water, and let her go to sleep--that's the best thing for her,' he said to mrs fludger as he came away. the landlady accompanied him downstairs in a halo of apology for having 'such like' in her house, and when she had lighted him out she climbed once more, protesting, to the attic, and having administered the brandy as prescribed, came away, after bidding the girl 'good-night' not unkindly. but, all the same, she made up her mind that alice must go. if the girl had come there as 'mrs' anybody--and worn a ring, no questions would have been asked by mrs fludger. there would then have been the alternative of supposing that the mr in the case was in the seafaring way, or was enjoying a holiday upon the breezy slopes of dartmoor. but as she had chosen to neglect the payment of that slight tribute to the proprieties which even this neighbourhood demanded, there was no help for it--she must go. besides, there might be difficulties about rent, and even a want of money for the necessaries of life--and mrs fludger was afraid to trust her tender heart. even forty years of being pinched and 'druv' had not quite dried up the milk of human kindness in her bosom, and she felt that she would rather not have a lodger who would excite her sympathy and possibly make demands upon her pocket. this habit of 'not trusting our tender hearts' is not confined to the class to which mrs fludger belonged. others who have larger means of meeting probable drafts on their 'tenderness' have also a way of pushing misery out of sight, or handing it over to the emollient remedies of a royal commission, which, of course, goes thoroughly into the matter. does it? the royal commissioners do not find their shoulders any easier under the burden we have shifted on to them than we found ours, and not being able to shift the weight again, they skilfully dissolve it, and give it us back in the solution of a wordy report. and for mrs fludger, who had to look sharp after every halfpenny, and who knew no higher morality than that taught in the precept, 'take care of number one,' which to her meant the number nine, of whom miss jenny was the eldest, there was more excuse than there is for the theoretical philanthropists who wear purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. but the landlady was not required to make the announcement which she had proposed to herself, for when she went up to alice's room the next morning, to say that she wished to have a few words with her (and when people say that, you may be sure the words are not going to be pleasant ones), she found the girl already dressed--with her little belongings arranged as for an immediate departure. so she changed her mind, and instead of that speech about the few words, she said simply,-- 'good morning. you're better, i see.' 'yes, thanks,' said alice, hurriedly; 'and i think i would like to leave this morning--and here is a week's money from last saturday.' mrs fludger rubbed her hands together in a little embarrassment. 'i don't say but you're in the right to go, and i hope you'll get on all right, and not let your trouble play upon your mind too much; but as for the money, never mind. it's only a couple of days, and i don't grudge that. an' if you'll take my advice you'll go home to your own folk, if you've got any. god-a'mighty knows it's hard lions with most of us.' which alice, listening sadly, interpreted to mean 'hard lines.' and so it happened that her worldly goods were taken away on a hand-barrow, she herself walking beside it--whither mrs fludger was careful not to inquire; and dr moore, coming at noon, received the comforting intelligence that the girl had gone home to her people; for mrs fludger, like so many others, thought that her advice once given could not fail to be taken. chapter x. a socialist. it was a bright, perfectly clear, moonlight night, one of those nights in which there seems to be no atmosphere, in which the smallest architectural details of every building show with even a greater distinctness than in mid-sunshine. the great full moon and the vast unfathomable expanse overhead seemed to have cast a spell of their own peace over even london's unpeaceful heart. the streets were empty, for the night had worn itself away to the only hour at which they are really deserted. the clocks had just expressed their different views on the subject of two a.m. the night was so clear that alice hatfield, though her eyes were smarting and aching, thought she could see the hands on the big clock of st paul's as she came on to blackfriars' bridge. she walked slowly, and when she reached the second arch she stopped and leaned her elbows on the parapet. how still the night was! the tide was high, and had just started on its journey seawards; it seemed to flow in one unbroken sheet save for the stir and fret that it made round the supports of the bridge. the lights along the embankment, with their perfect reflections, might have seemed almost venetian to anyone inclined to take a more rose-coloured view of things than she. to her they only brought a maddening remembrance of the time when she--not alone then--had first seen them from the windows of the arundel hotel. the noise of the water against the bridge was very like the sound of the waters rushing round the stones in the derbyshire streams--only those waters had always made a song that was to be enjoyed, not understood--and this dark tide, as it broke against the stone, seemed to be whispering constantly some message to her, which she as constantly, but vainly, tried to catch. it made her shiver. she turned and leaned back against the parapet. the other side of the bridge was in the ruthless hands of the paviors, who had literally left no stone unturned in order to produce that utter chaos in which the heart of the contractor delighteth. the large slabs of paving-stones, standing and lying about in all sorts of positions, made the place look--ugh!--like a graveyard, and the displaced earth and heaps of sand looked like half-made graves, in which the spade and pick of the sexton had ceased to clink. there was a bright red spot of fire about a hundred yards from her--someone was comfortable beside it, she supposed--and somehow she hated that patch of red light more than anything else in the whole picture. alice had found a fresh lodging easily enough, and this time she had adopted the badge of marital servitude, and had taken another name. the new room struck her as cheerless and unwelcoming, and her poor possessions looked less friendly than they had done in the old attic at spray's buildings. her bundle of work had been brought with the rest, but she seemed to have no heart to begin it, nor yet to get herself food, and she sat on there, hour after hour, till the sense of complete isolation grew too much for her. at spray's buildings she had had no friends, and had valued her few acquaintances but slightly, and she did not realise the amount of comfort that could be got out of a chance meeting with miss fludger on the stairs until such meetings were things of the past. 'i will go out,' she had said, rising at last with a feeling that even in strange and unregarding faces there would be companionship of a kind. so she had left her room and had wandered about, passing more than one spot hung thickly round with memories of her short day of sunshine. then when night fell she felt that she _could not_ go back to that new inhospitable room of hers. she pictured it dark, cheerless, and cold, shuddered as she thought of the broad streak of moonlight which would come through the uncurtained window, and lie on that bare floor. how dark the corners of the room would be. so she wandered on, and the people grew scarcer and scarcer, and she grew fainter and fainter. she would have been glad of food now, but all the shops were shut, and when she came to blackfriars' bridge she was too tired to go any further. and as she stood and looked at the river gleaming in the moonlight, the question came into her mind. 'need she go further? was not this the fitting end for such as she?' a spasm of madness caught her. what an easy way out of all her troubles; what an obvious solution of all her difficulties! she walked straight before her, stooping to pass under the protecting pole in the middle of the road, falling once over a block of stone and cutting her hands, she thought. she climbed the tomb-like stones, and in a moment was on her hands and knees partly on the parapet and partly on some stones that leaned against it. she looked over without changing her attitude for quite a minute. it made her giddy to look down. she could not stand up, as she had pictured herself doing when that madness first came upon her. she could drop over, though, and she would. courage! in another minute it would all be over. she had made a movement to turn her feet towards the water, when her shoulders were caught by two hands, and she was lifted bodily back on to the bridge. 'you little fool!' said the owner of the hands, which gave her a little shake before they loosened their hold of her. 'what do you want to go drinking of that poison for? it ain't fit to drown a cat in, let alone a human woman female.' alice's face was in her hands. she had sunk down against the stones on which she had climbed before. she shivered. 'oh, i am so cold!' she said, almost in a whisper, without taking her hands away. the madness had died out of her completely. 'you'd have been colder if it hadn't been for me; and oh, the taste in your mouth would have been something dreadful. come and have a drop of my missus's coffee, by my fire; it's a deal sweeter than wot you was after. the government ought to take it up,' he said, sententiously, but whether he meant the river, the coffee, or the fire, he did not explain. he helped her to rise, took her by the elbow in a sort of amateur-constable way, and led her over and round the snares and pitfalls which lay between them and that red eye which had seemed to watch them. it was a sort of openwork iron pot, full of hot coals, and a species of shelter was contrived round it by means of a judicious arrangement of paving stones and tarpaulin. when he had made her sit down on an inverted basket placed in the warmest corner by the fire, she glanced at him for the first time. he was a big, burly, black-bearded man; he had a kindly expression, and merry eyes, with a sort of cast in one of them which made it difficult to be sure which way he was looking. 'still cold?' he asked, with one eye on her and the other apparently on the pole star. 'have this coat; i'm warm enough. i had to hurry up so to catch you, young woman.' he threw a rough pea-jacket round her as she said, looking down,-- 'how did you catch me? where did you come from?' 'where did i come from? why, from here. directly i saw you cross the road i knew what was up. i never would let anyone go into that ditch if i could help it. it ought to belong to the commissioners of sewers,' he ended, having apparently changed his mind concerning the administrative functions of 'government.' 'the question is,' he went on, 'where did you come from, and what did you come for?' 'i've come from gray's inn road,' she said. 'how lucky, now. i live that way. i shall be able to see you home in an hour or two, when my mate comes to take his turn. you'll just have time to get warm. here, drink this coffee. had any tea?' she shook her head. 'any dinner?' 'no.' 'nor any breakfast neither, i'll back. i suppose you're hard up; that's enough to make anyone go anywhere but into that,' with a backward jerk of his thumb towards what seemed to be his pet aversion. he was a man whose occupation caused him to pass a good deal of his time on bridges, and he knew the river and the smells thereof. 'no,' said alice, 'i'm not very hard up, and i'm in work, too; but i moved into a new place to-day, and i felt too lonely to bother about dinner or anything, and i expect going without made me a bit wild and soft like.' 'have some of this,' was his answer, and soon alice began to feel a returning sense of physical comfort steal through her, as she sat resting by the cheering fire, drinking the hot coffee from a tin mug, with a slice of bread and cheese on her knee, while her companion kept up a constant ripple of somewhat inconsequent talk, which was his notion of 'making conversation' for his guest. she took her part in the dialogue with an ease which surprised herself. it seems very strange that people should not be more affected than they generally are by having been face to face with death. the fact is, that it is so impossible to realise subjectively what death is, that people feel less awestruck at having been so near it than they do at having been within an ace of having their leg broken, or of being marked with small-pox. perhaps this is why so many men sleep sound sleeps and eat hearty breakfasts just before execution. it was a long time since anyone had thought it worth while to talk so much to alice, and she felt so interested, and withal so comfortable, that it never occurred to her that this interlude of warmth and companionship must soon be over, and that then she would have to face the desolate streets and that cheerless room. of seeking again the chill refuge from which her new acquaintance had saved her she certainly never thought. that madness was over. her black-bearded preserver was in the midst of an economic dissertation of a somewhat confused character on the reasons of hard times and bad wages, when a black shadow falling on a moonlit slab of stone close by them made them both look up. 'why, if it isn't mr peter hitch,' said the pavior. 'so you're out again, sir? chilly night, ain't it? come and have a warm. this young woman's had a warm, and she feels better for it, i'll be bound.' the new-comer sat down on some boards near the fire with a graceful salutation towards alice. 'it _is_ cold,' he said, with a distinctly foreign accent. 'you are the lucky one, mr toomey, with your warm fire.' alice glanced furtively at the stranger. he was tall, and was not dressed as she would have expected mr toomey's friends to be. he wore a grey military cloak with a high collar, and a large soft felt hat. the brim was turned up in a rather unusual way in front, and leaving exposed as it did a broad, well-shaped forehead and piercing grey eyes, gave to the whole face a bold and daring look. he did not seem to look at alice at all, and yet he had hardly been seated a minute before he turned to her and said,-- 'forgive me, but i feel as if you were a sort of acquaintance already. i sat just behind you at a lecture in soho last night. i am not mistaken--you were there, weren't you?' the introduction of a third person to the enjoyment of the fire and shelter had brought back to alice the full consciousness of her position, but the new-comer spoke to her so deferentially, and treated her so exactly as if they had met in quite an ordinary way, and there were nothing unusual in the situation, that she felt herself grow a little more at ease again as she answered, 'yes; i was there.' 'why, i'm blest if i wasn't there, too,' broke in toomey, 'and a rare good 'un he was as spoke. countryman o' yours too, eh, mr peter hitch? by the way,' he added, as the other nodded assent, 'i was wanting to have a word or two with you, if miss here will excuse us. it's on the subject as you knows on,' he explained, seeing the other's look of surprise, and embellishing his speech by sundry winks, to which his visual peculiarities imparted an unusually enigmatical character. the two men stepped a few paces away, and then toomey said,-- 'i say, mister, i'm in rather a tight place, and perhaps you can tell me a way out of it. that there young woman' (here he lowered his voice) 'would have been down somewhere off greenwich by this time if it hadn't been for me--the tide was just on the turn. i stopped her going over, and now i feel responsible, like. i did think of taking her home to the missus, but my mary jane, though she have the kindest heart, has a sharp tongue, and i don't know quite how she might take it, nor what she might say in the first surprise, like, before she could be got to listen to reason, and that pore young thing's in trouble enough, i know, without being jawed at, and i can't abide jaw myself neither. and yet i don't like to lose sight of her just yet, and what am i to do?' 'i will charge myself with her,' said the other, without the slightest hesitation. 'you can trust her to me, friend toomey, can you not?' 'i'd trust you with anything, sir,' said toomey. the other went straight back to the fire where alice sat, already deep again in her own bitter thoughts. 'i am going home now, and as i go i will see you to your house. come.' she rose at once, and held out her hand to mr toomey. 'thank you so much,' she said, 'for all your goodness. good-bye.' 'good-bye,' said toomey, shaking her hand vigorously. 'this gentleman will take good care of you.' 'take my arm,' said her escort, when they got on to the pavement. 'as you go to the agora, i suppose we are interested in the same subjects, and perhaps know some of the same people. do many of your friends go there?' 'i don't know anyone who goes there. i've never been there before myself.' 'did you go by chance?' 'no.' she hesitated a moment. 'i wanted to hear the lecture.' 'then we do take an interest in the same subjects. which way do you go?' he asked, as they reached ludgate circus. 'straight on; i am living near gray's inn road.' 'are you living with friends?' 'no, i am living alone.' 'are your parents living?' 'yes,' she answered. 'oh, yes.' from anyone else she could and would have resented such questioning, but there was something about this man that compelled her to answer him. 'were they unkind to you?' 'no, no!' cried alice. 'they have always been the best of the best to me.' 'kind parents living,' he said musingly, 'and you are not with them. our good friend yonder told me how he met you. tell me--what does it all mean? it will be to your good to tell me.' 'what do you want to know?' 'everything.' he laid his hand on the hand that was on his arm. 'i know you will tell me.' and very much to her own bewilderment, she found herself telling him, not all, but enough for him to be able easily enough to guess all. she laid most stress upon the sense of desolation which had come over her in her new lodgings, and on the resistless impulse that had driven her out into the streets. when once she had begun to speak, she found a quite unexpected relief in the telling of this story which had never passed her lips before. 'it is the loneliness i mind now,' she ended; 'not the work, though that is hard enough.' 'the greater part of life is hard,' said her companion, 'and the best thing in it for some of us is to be able to make the lives of others a little less hard. i think it possible i may be able to make your life somewhat easier for you. at any rate i think i could manage to get you work which would be better paid for than your tailors' sewing.' 'thank you,' was all alice said. 'you are very kind.' 'i shall do that for you with much pleasure, but in return you must do something for me. i cannot part from you until you have promised me never again to attempt what you were prevented in to-night.' 'i cannot promise never to do it. all i can say is, i do not mean to now.' 'at any rate, promise that you will do nothing till you have seen me again.' 'yes, i will promise that. i wonder whether the house door will be unlocked. we are close there now. if it is not, i must walk about till morning.' 'i must walk with you in that case, so we will see before i leave you whether it is or not.' she looked at him, and for the first time realised that her companion was not of her own class. 'no; don't come further than here. i only came here to-day, you know, and i must not be seen walking with a--a--_gentleman_.' 'am i a gentleman? i am afraid all your countrymen would not give me that title; men call me a socialist. ho-la--you've heard that name before? does it frighten you?' 'no, i am not frightened.' 'i will wait here,' he said, 'till i see if your house receives you. if not, come back to me, and we will walk together till it can. i will come and see you to-morrow--or rather this--evening, and i hope to bring good news. do not be down-hearted; things will look brighter this time to-morrow.' 'oh, i must not forget to ask your name. did mr toomey call you right?' 'ah, no,' he said, smiling; 'our good toomey is not a linguist. my name is petrovitch. what is yours? i must know that, because of asking for you when i come. i will come in the evening.' 'my name is--mrs--mrs litvinoff. good-bye.' 'good-bye,' he said, with a start and quite a new expression on his face. 'i will come at _noon_.' chapter xi. count litvinoff is sympathetic. at the moment when mrs fludger's sense of propriety was being outraged by what she termed, in a subsequent recital of her wrongs to her first-floor front, 'that shindy on the stairs,' miss stanley was lying on the sofa in the sitting-room at morley's hotel, reading the novel that had taken the last season by storm, and pushed everything else out of sight on the bookstalls. but even the thrilling interest of this work did not keep her from falling fast asleep in the middle of the fourth chapter; and she passed the next half hour in a dreamland more pleasant than morley's hotel; for that hostelry, especially when her father was, as usual, in the city, seemed to her to be deadly dull. she had just come back to the world of solid furniture and characterless window curtains; her first waking thought was that some tea would be worth anything to her just then--except the trouble of getting up to ring for it--and she wished dreamily that waiters could know by intuition when they were wanted. it almost seemed as if they did, for a tap came at the door, and she had to stop her reflections to say,-- 'come in.' 'mr richard ferrier,' said the waiter who appeared. 'are you at home, ma'am?' 'oh, yes; show him up,' she said; and to herself, wonderingly, 'how funny of him to come at this time.' then, as he entered, 'good afternoon, mr ferrier. what a dreadful day! papa has not come home yet.' 'i am very sorry to say,' said richard, as he took her offered hand, 'that i shall not be able to come this evening.' 'oh, i'm so sorry!' she said, cheerfully. 'i hope there's nothing wrong. can't your brother come, either?' 'i don't know, miss stanley,' he answered, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, and looking down, but not at her, though she had seated herself in a low chair near the fire, and was quite within easy visual range. 'i am not likely to know much more about my brother.' 'not know much more about your brother, mr richard?' she said, opening her eyes very wide. 'what can you mean? surely you haven't quarrelled?' 'i suppose we have quarrelled. at anyrate, my brother told me half an hour ago never to speak to him again on this side of the grave.' clare felt that this promised to be several degrees more interesting even than her book. she couldn't help wondering what they had quarrelled about. was it perhaps-- 'what did you say to him?' 'i said nothing--he went away, and i came here.' he spoke in that particularly even and monotonous voice which, with some people, is always the token of suppressed agitation. 'i mean what had you said to make him say that?' 'i told him the truth.' 'but perhaps you said the truth too sharply, and, besides, you ought to make it up with him--especially as you're the eldest. it's so terrible for brothers to quarrel.' she ended with a little didactic air which became her very well. 'i am afraid this is one of the quarrels that can't be made up. i can't alter facts; neither can he, unfortunately.' 'is it so very serious?' she asked. 'oh--papa will be so sorry. but you'll feel differently when you have had time to think it over.' 'circumstances don't change by being thought over.' 'no, but our view of them does.' 'well, i can say this, miss stanley; if ever i could change my opinion of my brother's conduct i should be only too glad, and i should be the first to make advances towards reconciliation.' 'why, surely, mr roland's done nothing wrong?' 'you may be sure he has, in my opinion at least, or i should not have spoken to him as i did; knowing, too, all that it involved,' he added in a lower voice. 'oh, yes,' said clare in quite an awestruck tone--all that her father had told her about old mr ferrier's will coming into her mind with a rush. 'why, i had forgotten that.' 'yes,' said richard, looking straight at her for the first time that afternoon, 'i shall lose my living, and more, the hope of my life; but at anyrate, thank god, i keep my honour, and he has lost even that.' clare returned his gaze steadily. 'you have no right to say that, unless you are quite, quite, quite sure,' she said rather haughtily. she had no motive for that little speech, save a natural love for fair play, but he read in it a desire to champion his brother against his attack, and he was goaded to the point of indiscretion. 'i am so sure,' he answered bitterly, 'that sooner than touch hands in friendship with him again, i am giving up all my chances in life, and with them the hope of winning you. don't say anything,' he went on, seeing that she was about to speak. 'i had no right to say that. i did not mean to annoy you with any hint of my vain devotion, but i couldn't help saying it. consider it unsaid if you like, but don't be vexed with me. there is one thing i must ask you. i should be untrue to my love for you if i did not ask it. do not let my brother win what his fault forbids me to try for.' she rose. 'i have given you no right to talk in that way, nor to ask me any such promise, and i will promise nothing since i know nothing,' she said, indignantly. 'then at least it shall not be my fault,' said richard with equal fire, 'if you do not know what every woman he comes near ought to know. he is not free to offer love to any woman. he owes all the love he is capable of to a woman he has ruined and deserted.' miss stanley looked at him coldly and contemptuously. he stood silent a moment, and in that moment felt the utter falseness of the step he had taken. she turned slightly away from him, and he knew that there were no more words to be said on either side. 'good-bye,' he said; 'i shall not be at all likely to trouble you again.' 'good afternoon,' she said, without moving; and he went out. now, indeed, everything was over. clare, left to herself, sank down again in her low chair, and knitted her brows in annoyed meditation. quarrels, separations, and crushing impertinent people with 'dynamic glances' were all very well in novels, but in real life it was much nicer to have things go smoothly. she could not quite foresee all the complications that this quarrel might lead to, but she knew that it would make a great difference at firth vale. aspinshaw would be duller than ever. would roland come this evening? could what dick had said be true? if it was, she thought, he had no right to say it to her; and it was mean of him to say it to anyone behind his brother's back. count litvinoff would be sure to come, at anyrate. 'let's hope _he'll_ be entertaining,' she said to herself. when a woman is bored, or tired, or vexed, or perplexed, or worried, after a quarrel, or before a journey, there is one resource to which she always flies. miss stanley rang for tea. the waiter who announced mr ferrier had quite settled in his own mind that in so doing he was ushering in one of the chief characters in a love scene, but when he caught sight of the young man's face as he came from miss stanley's presence, he decided that the scene in which mr ferrier had just played his part, had not had much love-sweetness about it, at anyrate. count litvinoff, coming up the stairs a moment afterwards, met dick going down, and thought so too. 'ah! mr ferrier,' he said genially; 'we are to be fellow guests to-night, i believe.' 'i think not,' said dick, shaking hands; 'i shall not be able to come.' litvinoff's face fell, and he looked quite naturally grieved. 'how unfortunate,' he said. 'i say,' said richard, after a minute's pause, 'were you in a place called spray's buildings, a turning out of porson street, about an hour ago? you'll think it strange of me to ask, but i have a particular reason for wanting to know.' 'porson street--porson street. i've heard the name somewhere, but i certainly haven't been there this afternoon.' the court of st petersburg had evidently missed a good diplomatist in count michael litvinoff. the lie was admirably told. 'no,' said richard, 'i didn't suppose you had, but i thought i'd just set my mind at rest about it.' 'may i ask,' said litvinoff, leaning on the banisters and idly swinging his eyeglass by the guard, 'why your mind was disturbed concerning my incomings and outgoings?' 'you are quite right. it is no business of mine; but i asked, in order to verify or disprove a statement of my brother's.' 'so your brother, at anyrate, honours me with his interest, does he?' 'you'd better ask him--good afternoon.' 'a sweet disposition that,' observed litvinoff, when, having watched the other out of sight, he turned towards his room. 'they ought to teach politeness at cambridge, and put it down among the extras. by the way, there may be something to be got out of our brother. things are getting too mixed to be pleasant. wonder whether he'll turn up to-night?' he did turn up, in such a state of depression as to promise to be a thorough wet blanket on all the fires of social gaiety. in fact, none of the little party which assembled round mr stanley's dinner-table were in a state of mind to make them what is called good company. roland was thoroughly unhinged by the events of the afternoon, which to him had been so utterly unexpected, and were so completely unexplained. it needed a determined effort on his part to listen to mr stanley's commonplaces instead of thinking out some means of compassing a reconciliation with his brother. he felt sure that their quarrel hinged on a mistake, but what that mistake was, or what its subject was, he was at a loss to conjecture. clare was listless and _distraite_. she was intensely annoyed by the remembrance of that little episode with richard, and, though she told herself that she did not believe a word he had said, she found it hard to forget it and to treat roland as usual. she had not had a chance of telling her father anything about richard, for litvinoff had been punctual, and mr stanley had come back from the city late, and cross as well as late; and the old gentleman's continued references to the absentee, and his regrets for the 'sudden business' which had prevented him from being present, made matters several degrees more uncomfortable than they would otherwise have been. litvinoff had his own reasons for not feeling very joyous on this occasion, but he had not had three years of wandering in exile among all sorts and conditions of men for nothing, and he was able to put his own personal feelings on one side, and to do what was exacted by the proprieties. no one could have told from his manner that he had a care in the world. more than this, he succeeded after a while in inspiring the others with some of his own powers of self-repression; and though they did not perhaps feel more festive, they made a successful effort to seem so, in order to be not out of harmony with what seemed to them to be his gaiety and light-heartedness. during the earlier part of the evening he devoted himself entirely to mr stanley, a real act of self-abnegation in any young man, when mr stanley's daughter was in the room. but mr stanley was interested in the financial condition of united states railways, and count litvinoff--odd thing in an exile--knew absolutely everything that was to be known about the financial condition of united states railways, and, what was better, he had a friend who knew even more than that, and whose knowledge was quite at mr stanley's service. if during the long conference on these entrancing topics he cast occasional glances across the room to where clare and young ferrier sat talking, they were certainly not envious ones, for 'the gentle roland' did not seem to be having a good time of it. litvinoff took pity on him presently, and came to the rescue. 'are we to have no music, miss stanley?' he asked, when the subject of the financial condition of the united states railways was exhausted for the time being, and his host showed decided symptoms of a desire to descant on the beauties of 'our great conservative institutions, sir,' and 'the glorious constitution which,' etc. miss stanley felt that singing to three people would be better than talking to one, and in the intervals between the songs that followed she and litvinoff seemed to conspire to keep the conversation general. 'penny napoleon,' so often a refuge of the bored and the uncongenial, helped the long evening to its end, and though the last state of it was better than the first, everyone was glad to say good-night to everyone else. the two young men, by the way, did not say good-night to each other when they left the stanleys. 'come and have a cigar,' said litvinoff, precisely as he had done on the last occasion of their meeting there. and roland, nothing loth to defer the moment of being alone again with his own perplexities, consented. but even in the count's comfortable little sitting-room his perplexities pursued him, and in more objectionable shape, too. for the first words his companion uttered, after he had supplied his guest with one of his special cigars and a tumbler of something unexceptionable, with lemon, hot, were-- 'your brother tells me you're taking an interest in my movements, mr ferrier.' 'how do you mean?' 'i had the felicity to meet him to-day, and he asked me--rather bluntly, perhaps--if i had been this afternoon in some street, the name of which escapes me at the moment--morford street, was it? i told him no, and begged to know the reason of his question. he then said he wished to verify (i think those were his exact words) a statement of yours. i asked him, did you take an interest in my movements? he then said, in a manner _tant soit peu_ abrupt, 'you'd better ask him,' and vanished into the ewigkeit. _voilà_, i _have_ asked you.' roland took two or three puffs at his cigar, and surrounded himself with a little cloud of smoke. then he rose and stood with his back to the fire, and in that attitude he looked, litvinoff thought, uncommonly like his brother. 'look here,' he said slowly, 'according to the laws of etiquette and all that sort of thing, i have known you far too short a time to think of talking to you about my relations with my brother, but i am horribly perplexed about him; and since he has let you know that there is something wrong between us, i may as well tell you all i know about it. i need hardly say that all i say to you is said in strict confidence.' the count bowed. 'for some time we have not been upon the very best of terms; but that's neither here nor there. there was nothing seriously wrong between us. this morning, without any apparent cause, he made a kind of veiled accusation against me, which i could not understand, and even went so far as to tell me i ought not to go near--' he hesitated. litvinoff made an interrogatory movement, which prevented his stopping short, as he seemed inclined to do. 'miss stanley,' he ended. 'ah, so?' said the other, raising his eyebrows, and looking sympathetically interested. 'we had a sharp word; but i should not have thought much more of it if it hadn't been for what came later. this afternoon i was going to see a man you introduced me to the other night, lenoir, who, i thought, i remembered lived in porson street.' 'ah, yes, it was porson street your brother named,' interrupted litvinoff. 'as i was looking about for him i fancied i caught sight of _you_, but it was foggy, and when i followed the man into a house, it turned out not to be you. at least, i suppose not.' 'no, no; it certainly was not i.' 'well, as i was looking about, bewildered, on a staircase, i met my brother, who, i suppose, had followed me. he asked me what i wanted there. i told him. he said i was a scoundrel and a liar. of course, i couldn't stand that, so i let out at him, and came away--and there the matter stands. what do you make of it?' 'excuse me,' said the other, 'does your brother drink?' 'certainly not; he's one of the most temperate men i know.' 'could he have done it because--but ah, no, that is quite impossible.' 'i beg your pardon?' 'is your brother in love with miss stanley?' said litvinoff, slowly and directly. 'i think he is. what made you think so?' 'it was coming from her presence that i met him.' 'by god! that may account for her manner to-night,' said roland in a low tone, but not so low but that litvinoff heard him, and read his thought almost before he heard his word. 'no, no, that is quite impossible; dismiss that from your mind. he would never be so base as to traduce you to her. besides, where is the motive, unless he fears you? is there perhaps some other lady in the case?' 'no.' 'he told you you were not worthy to go near miss stanley,' said the other, lowering his voice deferentially at her name. 'that can only mean one thing.' 'it may mean that he is mad, or--by jove!--it may mean one other thing. but of that other thing i am as innocent as you are.' if he was as innocent as count litvinoff looked, he was innocent indeed. 'perhaps it will arrange itself. quarrels about ladies often adjust themselves--or rather the lady usually adjusts them.' 'this,' said roland, 'is more serious than most quarrels for both of us, and more serious than i can tell you; but i think i've troubled you enough with our family affairs. i'll say good-night.' litvinoff came down to the door with him, and helped him on with his coat. as he did so, he said softly,-- 'if it is any comfort to you, your brother did not seem to have prospered in his suit. he looked distressed, and, fancied, remorseful. good-night. ah, what a lovely night. the fog has quite cleared up. how lucky for you. _au revoir!_' chapter xii. successful angling. 'the only good thing about life is that it's interesting, but it's quite possible to have too much interest at once, and then it begins to be irritating and depressing, and the best sedative is tobacco, and the best stimulant is whisky.' so said the count when he returned to his room, and he accordingly acted on his convictions. but both whisky and tobacco seemed to fail of the effect expected of them. he sat looking broodingly at the fire for a moment or two; then he got up, paced the length of the room, and, turning sharply, stamped his foot on the ground, muttered a curse or two, and flung his hands out with a vigorous gesture of annoyance. 'so, these sons of the millowner--these playfellows of childhood, these friends of innocence--are _men_, not ugly, not fools, and not better than their fellows. this richard is apparently so much interested as to go nearly mad about her disappearance; and as for roland, there must have been pretty strong grounds before his brother would have started that charming scene on the staircase. i wonder if conscience had as much to do with her conduct as i believed. as a rule, when a woman gives up the substantial goods of this life, it's as well to look for some more commonplace motive than conscientious scruples. perhaps it was only a yearning towards the old love. pardieu, though,' he added, with something like a laugh; 'the old love and conscience together don't provide very good quarters. it would be too much to believe that that little rustic had actually humbugged me. but it's not impossible, young man,' and he glanced mockingly at his reflection over the mantelpiece; 'and at present i should advise you to go to bed; you'll need all your senses about you to-morrow. the threads are lying loose round, as the yankees say, and you must gather them up.' he finished his glass of grog. 'i would have given a few hundred francs to have been present in spirit at that interview which depressed la belle clare and crushed the unhappy richard. but perhaps a little adroitness to-morrow will fill up the blanks of to-day. and as for the other matter, the future is more to me than the past--to conclude with a fine revolutionary sentiment.' * * * * * 'i'm sorry i shall have to be out all the morning again,' said mr stanley next morning at breakfast, as he opened his letters. 'would you like to come with me?' 'no, thanks, papa,' said clare. she had been into the city with him before, and had a vivid recollection of draughty passages, steep staircases, and impertinent glances from junior clerks. 'what will you do with yourself all the time?' asked her father. 'you can't be always reading.' 'i'll run over to the national gallery, i think, and spend an hour or two there.' 'why, you've been there once with me.' 'it's no good going to a picture gallery _once_.' 'i don't know that it's any _good_, my dear, but it's quite enough for me. however, please yourself--please yourself.' to mr stanley's idea it was quite as safe to send a daughter alone to the national gallery as to send her to church on a week day. the two places seemed to him to be the one as uninteresting as the other, and both of them as absolutely free from possible snares and pitfalls as any convent in the land. 'i meant to have given you lunch at the "ship and turtle,"' he went on. 'my dear papa, i'm not greedy. i'm not an alderman.' 'the aldermen of london are an essential--' 'an essential part of the british constitution,' she interrupted, laughing. 'yes, i know, dear, and i'm not an essential part. that's just the difference.' with which she smoothed his hair, arranged his tie, kissed him on both cheeks, and watched him out of sight from the window. then she went and wrapped herself in a good deal of brown fur, and walked quickly across the square to the hideous casket in which the nation cherishes its gems of art. she was wandering from one picture to another in a desultory sort of way, and thinking, it must be confessed, more of her own affairs than of the paintings, when she almost ran against count litvinoff, who was standing, his hat off and his hands behind him, in rapt contemplation of the martyrdom of saint somebody. he turned and bowed, with an air of pleased surprise. she had never seen him look so little english--so very foreign. 'ah! this is good fortune,' he said; 'your father is with you?' 'no,' said clare. 'papa doesn't care about pictures, except pictures of dead fish and game, and horses and fat cattle; and i don't care about the city--at least, not the parts of it that he goes to--and this is a sort of paddock where i am allowed to run loose when he is away.' 'i often spend an hour here; i find pictures help one to think. how do you like this claude?' then the conversation was all picture for a while, and at last they sat down on one of the few seats provided by the munificence of a thoughtful administration for such lovers of art as care to stay in the gallery long enough to get tired. they were silent for a little while. 'are you not well, miss stanley?' he said presently. 'oh, dear me, yes; i'm very well. do i look ill?' she asked quite frankly, looking at him with her eyebrows raised. 'ah, no; you look--' he hesitated, 'as you always do,' he ended, as though that was not what he would have liked to say. 'why do you ask, then?' 'because i fancied last night that you were in some kind of pain, and i have been uneasy ever since about it.' 'last night? you're very kind: there wasn't the least ground for your uneasiness.' 'i was not the only one who thought so.' 'i am afraid the evening must have been very dull, then, if it gave two people that impression.' 'oh, dulness was out of the question to _me_,' he said, with an eloquent look. 'but i suppose we couldn't expect mr roland to be very cheerful, under the circumstances.' 'what circumstances?' questioned clare, who was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable. 'he has had what i believe in england is termed a "row" with his brother.' 'how do you know?' she asked, quickly. 'oh, i beg your pardon.' 'never do that; but, indeed, had you not asked me, i was going to tell you, for i am in a difficulty. although i know your language well, i do not so well know your social customs. shall we see mr richard again, do you think?' the question was put so innocently, and the count appeared so really perplexed, that miss stanley stifled the evasive answer that first occurred to her, and said simply,-- 'no, i don't.' 'then a great part of my difficulty vanishes. i am ashamed to trouble you about my dilemmas; but i have been wondering whether i ought to know them _both_, since they have so quarrelled, or whether it is not incumbent on me to take one side or the other.' 'if you take sides at all,' said clare, 'you should take the side you think right.' 'i am here amongst englishmen. being in rome i must do as rome does, and i do not know what is right and wrong to english people.' 'right is right all the world over,' said clare, adding, as a saving clause, 'if you can only see which is right. but you are not the only one who is in a dilemma.' then, driven by an irresistible desire to know how the quarrel struck him, she asked him directly,-- 'which do you think is in the wrong?' 'there are some things which brothers might pardon in each other, but which to other men would be unpardonable.' 'do you think, then, that roland ferrier has done anything unpardonable?' she had felt intensely annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken, but since it had taken this turn, she was determined to learn as much from it as possible. 'i don't think he has done anything the world would not pardon, and we must remember that the greater part of the fault lies in his bringing up.' he said this with a delicate air of chivalrously making the best of a bad cause. 'if the world pardons the unpardonable,' said clare, feeling that she was skating on very thin ice, and not quite knowing how to get back to the bank again, 'so much the worse for the world.' 'i knew you would say that.' 'and,' she went on, forgetting how little she had told her companion, 'if i could only be sure that all richard said was true, i would accept no one's ruling but my own on such a question.' litvinoff's eyes gave one little flash at the admission contained in this speech, but he said quite quietly,-- 'well, no one can possibly know. i presume he must at least believe it.' 'yes, he certainly does. this quarrel, as you perhaps know, means ruin to them both.' 'ruin!' he cried; 'then it must not go on.' 'you are very good to take such an interest in the ferriers.' 'ah,' he said sadly, 'i have known ruin, and it is hard if the innocent one suffers with the guilty.' he looked about as little like a ruined man as it was possible to be. his dress was perfect, though it had a certain foreign air that was not to be traced to that too great prominence of shirt collar and prodigality of cuff, that shininess of hat and boot, that exuberant floridity of necktie, which are the signet of the _flâneur_ of the boulevards. above all, his nails were unexceptionable. 'their father left it in his will,' said miss stanley, bluntly, glad to get away from the subject of roland's possible _lâches_, 'that if they quarrelled they lost all their money.' 'they were ever given to quarrelling, then?' asked litvinoff. 'no, i don't think so; but mr ferrier was old and very funny.' 'he seems to have been prophetic in this instance; or perhaps he knew what they were likely to quarrel about.' clare stroked her muff with her kid-gloved hand, and wondered whether the late mr ferrier had thought they were likely to quarrel about her. 'this affair of the unfortunate girl alice hatfield--' he was beginning, when clare rose. 'it is quite time i went back,' she said chillingly, and she turned and walked out. he followed her humbly. when they had passed down the steps he said,-- 'i have offended you, but you must forgive me. i am ignorant of english customs. you had talked to me of the misdeed, and it did not seem to be wrong to name the victim. i ought to have recognised the gulf which separates the personal from the impersonal.' there was a suspicion of irony in his voice, and she did not answer, only quickened her pace a little. 'forgive me,' he said, in a tone low, and one more earnest than any she had yet heard him use. 'you must forgive me. i would not offend you for all the world, not to gain every end i have ever fought for, to realise every hope i have ever cherished.' she turned and looked right into his eyes, and in them read nothing but perfect honesty and sincerity. 'i have nothing whatever to forgive, count litvinoff,' she said. 'pray, let us change the subject;' but all the ice was gone from her voice, and he at once plunged into a diatribe against the carelessness of omnibus drivers. he said good-bye to her outside the hotel. at the top of the steps she turned and looked after him, and was not a little vexed with herself for having done so, for he was looking after her with an expression in his eyes which said, to her at least,-- 'whatever the ends i have fought for, or the hopes i have cherished, may have been in the past, the object of my every dream and aspiration is now yourself, clare stanley.' chapter xiii. a fair morning's work. petrovitch waited at the corner for some moments, but as his _protégée_ did not return, he concluded that she had found the house door open, and would be all right, so he turned his face west. the new feeling that had possessed him at the sound of alice's surname had, while he waited, only shown itself in a restless movement of his hand over his beard; but now it found vent in the swinging pace at which he walked. he slackened it now and again, to glance with a frown at the heaps of dirty rags that filled the corners of doorways and the embrasures of walls, and hid human flesh and blood: the flesh and blood of your brothers and sisters, my esteemed royal commissioners. these door-steps and archways and out-of-the-way corners are not, of course, to be included in an investigation into the homes of the poor; but perhaps they might be if these royal, noble, and eminent brothers realised that these are the only homes of a large proportion of the poor. petrovitch only stopped once, and that was before a door-step on which something gleamed brightly, and caught his attention. there was a group there of the usual type--a man and woman, and a child, a little girl, from whose eyes the gleam came. she was sitting up, her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand; a wizened, stunted child of some eight or nine years, with tangled dark hair that fell over her face, and through which her eyes were staring wide and vacant at the clear sky. as he stopped she transferred the gaze to him, but it was still a gaze void of hope and expectation. he did not speak to her, but patted her shoulder, dropped some coppers and a bar of chocolate in her lap, and hurried on, with a muttered curse which the child did not hear. he stopped no more till he reached a tall house in a quiet street near portland road station. he let himself in with a key, and softly mounted the stairs to the second floor. the room he entered was large, and looked bare until one noticed the shelves on shelves of well-bound, well-kept books, the pigeon-holes full of manuscripts, the brackets supporting good busts and statuettes, the one or two choice prints, the antique writing-table and chairs. there were no curtains to the window, and there was no carpet to the floor; but there was a reading-lamp of uncommon design, with a green shade. it was the luxury of literary asceticism. petrovitch turned up the lamp and rekindled his fire. then he went into the adjoining room, from which presently came the sound of splashing water, followed by hard breathing, as of one wrestling with a rough towel. it was a ghastly hour for tubbing, and many an englishman who plumes himself on taking a bath at eight or nine in the morning would have shuddered at the idea of thus taking one four or five hours earlier; but it seemed to agree with petrovitch, for he came back to the fireside glowing, and seeming to have washed from his face the look of mingled weariness and anger which he had brought in with him. his hand hovered a moment along the line of a certain bookshelf, then he picked out a book, and for the next three hours read steadily, only pausing to make notes. at seven o'clock he shut his book gently, replaced it carefully on its shelf, very deftly and quickly prepared his breakfast, and, having eaten it, put on his hat and a black coat and went out again. now, for the first time, he thought over his night's adventures, for during the time he had spent in his room he had not allowed himself to think of them. he had the capacity of dismissing utterly from his mind anything about which he did not want to think. it was time enough to think when he could act, and he had known that he could not act till the morning. now, two minutes' thought decided the course his action should take. by half-past eight o'clock he had knocked at the door of spray's buildings, and had been directed to the room of mrs fludger. that lady was surrounded by the family linen--some just as it had been discarded by the family, some in the wash-tub, and some hanging on lines slung across the room at a convenient height for dabbing itself wetly in the faces of possible visitors. the room appeared to be furnished chastely and simply with the tub and lines before mentioned, and nothing else whatever; for the remainder of the furniture had been heaped in one corner, in order that the washing might not be impeded, and was not noticeable at the first glance. mrs fludger had her arms bared for toil. she wore a dress with no appreciable waist and no distinctive colour. a woollen shawl wound her figure in its embrace, a black bonnet of no particular shape, and of antique appearance, was on the extreme back of her head, where it was supported, by no visible agency, in defiance of the laws of gravitation. 'now then, my good man,' she began, in answer to petrovitch's tap at the open door, 'we don't want no scripture reading here. thank the lord, i knows my bible duty, and does it, which wasn't i up this very morning afore five, which is more than you can say, i'll go bail. there's some needs talking to. why don't you go after my master an' teach him the ten commanders if you _wants_ to bible read?' 'but i don't want to bible read,' said petrovitch, as she ended with a snap of her teeth, and recommenced the action of 'soaping in,' which her vigorous speech had suspended. 'i only wish to ask you of a mrs litvinoff?' 'don't know the name.' 'perhaps i mistake the name; i ask of the young woman who left here yesterday morning.' 'oh, her!' with contemptuous emphasis; 'bless you, her name ain't nothing like that; no more nor yours nor mine. her name's hatfield; and she ain't a missus neither, without she was married yesterday.' 'i hope she did no wrong here, that you are not angry with her,' said he, as though feeling mrs fludger's displeasure to be the severest punishment of misdoing. 'no,' said mrs fludger, a little softened, 'i'm not angry with her; but will you jest be good enough to say what you want and have done with it, as my washing's all behind as it is?' 'i have a quite special reason,' he said, 'for wishing to befriend her. i am sure you will be willing to help me to give her help by telling me all you know about her.' 'oh, lord bless the men!' said mrs fludger, with an impatient intonation, dipping a blue-bag into a pail, 'i don't know nothing about the gal. she was here two months or more, and not a soul ever come a-nigh her, and now, afore she's been gone two days, here's half a dozen gentlemen comes after her. you ought to be able to do something 'andsome for her among you all. why, only yesterday two young swells was a'most a-comin' to blows over her outside this very door, a-makin' a perfick inharmonium o' my stairs, to say nothing o' the gent as went a-makin' inquiries o' the ground-floor front, as was quite the improper person to imply to, not being responsible, and knowin' nothing about the lodgers.' 'i am exceedingly sorry to give you any further trouble, madam, but, as i know you are the only person who can inform me, i must ask you why this young woman left.' he spoke so gravely that mrs fludger seemed impressed. she lowered her voice a little as she answered,-- 'she heard something as wasn't to her liking.' 'not from you, i am sure.' 'well, no; it warn't from me, though i should have told her fast enough if i had known myself, and, since you must know the ins and outs of it, she was taken bad on sunday night, and my joe went for the doctor, and if you're curious you'd better ask him, for he's more time for jaw than me, not having got nine children and a husband as is always in liquor.' petrovitch thanked her, and asked the address of the lucky doctor whom fate had spared these inflictions. mrs fludger gave it, squeezing the soapsuds off her lean arms as she spoke. 'thank you very much,' he said; 'good-bye,' and held out his hand as though he had known her for years. this was partly because he thought it was the english thing to do in parting with one's equals, and partly because he went enough among poor people to know that their troubles are not made lighter by an assumption of superiority on the part of their visitors. it was a matter of course with him, but mrs fludger was particularly gratified. she gave him her damp hand, and returned his shake with heartiness. 'well, now,' she said, 'if i've been a bit short, you must set it down to the washin', and i couldn't get it out o' my head that you was one of the religious sort. and i hope the young woman won't come to no hurt, and i will say as you look more the sort to do her good than them young sparks as come here yesterday, with their cussin', and swearin', and yellow kid gloves.' an opinion in which her hearer concurred. dr moore was not surprised at the inquiries with which petrovitch called upon him ten minutes later. he had sojourned long enough in the land of the hard-up, and had seen enough of the seamy side of life, to have left off being surprised at the many threads and ties which bind together people whom one would imagine to be the very last to have any concern in each other's existences. but before he answered any of the questions, he said,-- 'excuse me; but may i ask what interest you have in this poor girl? are you a city missionary?' the other smiled grimly. 'not i; but there must be something very devout in my appearance. evidently extremes meet in me. i encountered a hostile reception at spray's buildings through being taken for a bible-reader.' 'ah, well, i can't wonder; they do make themselves disliked. they're very good people, but they haven't a nice way with them, somehow, have they? then, what is your motive for these questions?' for answer the other told him frankly enough all that had passed the night before, adding that before he made any effort on her behalf he wished to verify her story as far as possible. 'but the landlady told me she had gone home to her people.' 'ah, that was mrs fludger's little romance,' said petrovitch, shrugging his shoulders. 'i wish she had gone to her people, poor child; but i am afraid that is what she will not do.' 'i am very glad,' said dr moore, 'that someone does take an interest in her, but i must say i wish it was a woman instead of a man, for it is a woman's care and kindness she will need by-and-by.' 'so i imagined,' said petrovitch thoughtfully, 'and i suppose the best i can do towards her is to try and find for her such care and kindness.' 'i am afraid it will be difficult; women are angels, certainly, but they are very apt to be hard on each other.' 'very much like the rest of us. but, like the rest of us, they can sometimes be got to hear reason.' 'that's not the general opinion of women,' said dr moore, laughing; 'but i hope you're right. i have seen a great many of these sad cases,' he went on, gravely, 'but very, very few of the others. we're all much too ready to cast stones, and it's two to one if a girl's in trouble that a female priest or levite comes by, and not a good samaritan.' the doctor was pleased with his visitor, whose face and figure were not quite like those that usually faced him in his drug-scented surgery, and when the interview ended it was he who offered the hand-shake. as petrovitch came out of the door he glanced at his watch. 'now for a third interview,' he thought, and he did not think in english. 'only two hours and a-half in which to work a miracle.' if this man had no connection with the bible reading and city missionary fraternity, he had at least one thing to which they lay claim--the faith which moves mountains; but it was faith in humanity, and faith in himself. he only knew one woman who combined the strength of character and the kindness of heart necessary for his purpose, and of her it had been said only the night before, by the one who ought to have known her best, that she had a sharp tongue. mr toomey had not adhered strictly to truth in telling alice that he lived up in the direction of gray's inn road, vaguely. his household gods were enshrined 'out bermondsey way,' and thither petrovitch now betook himself. mrs toomey welcomed him in an off-hand manner, which showed that she at least did not suspect him of being a bible-reader. she asked him in, and he passed up the narrow passage where two toomeys of tender years were playing at houses with a profusion of oyster-shells. a third of still smaller size was in the mother's arms. 'toomey's a-bed,' she said, as she set a chair for petrovitch, 'and i wonder you're not. he told me he saw you on the bridge in the beginning of the morning. what have you done with that poor thing?' 'nothing yet.' 'what are you going to do?' 'that's just what i want you to tell me,' he answered, and forthwith began gently to unfold his plan, which was neither more nor less than that mrs toomey should let alice rent her spare room, and should be as kind to her as possible. but mrs toomey, as might have been expected, didn't see it at all. she had much the feeling of the elder brother of the prodigal--that it was hardly fair to those who had done their duty thus to help out of their difficulties those who had not. 'this is the great privilege of those who do their duty,' said he, 'to be able to help those who have not done it.' 'that's all very well,' said mrs toomey; 'but what's to become of example if the good and the bad gets treated alike?' 'it isn't that; what i want is to give the bad--who is not so very bad in this case--a chance of being better.' but she was not silenced. she ran over the whole scale of objections, moral and conventional, to his proposition, and to each and all of them he found an answer, and sat there quietly persistent, until at last he drove her back upon 'what will people say?' 'as far as i'm concerned they can say what they like, but if you care about people's opinion, it is easy to guard yourself against it by telling them nothing. no one would know more than you chose to tell them.' 'that's honest, isn't it?' asked mrs toomey, patting the baby, who was choking himself with his fist. 'well, honesty doesn't consist in publishing other people's affairs to all your neighbourhood. and, my good mrs toomey, don't you see that the very fact of her being in your house would stop questions?' 'i'm no hand at arguing,' said mrs toomey at last, 'but i know you've some sense, sir, and i don't think you'd press a thing like this without there was some rhyme or reason in it; but the most i can say is, me and toomey'll talk it over; but the truth is, i've never had nothing to say to that sort o' girls, and i don't like to begin at this time o' day. and even if my man agrees, i won't promise about it until i've seen the young woman, for what's the good of providence giving us common sense if we're not to put it to use, instead of trusting to hearsay and other people.' 'quite right; that's a first-rate principle. if all the world would think like that we should see some changes. i will tell her you have a room to let, and advise her to apply for it, and then you can see her and act as you choose. but i feel sure beforehand how it will be.' and as he bade her good-bye he did feel quite sure that he had not spent that half-hour in vain. 'i really feel like a city missionary, or a newspaper correspondent, after all these interviews. now for the last and most interesting.' but when he reached mrs litvinoff's room he found her out. there was no answer to his repeated knocks, so at last, as the key was in the door, he opened it, almost fearing to find her in another of those fainting fits. but the room was empty. he hesitated a moment, and then entered. it wanted a few minutes to noon; he would wait till the appointed time, and while he waited he wondered, as he had been wondering all the morning, why she had taken this name of litvinoff. was it simply because litvinoff had been the first name that had come into her head, or for some deeper or more important reason? the room was very neat, and did not offer much entertainment to the eye or employment to the mind; but there were four or five books on the mantelpiece, and he was drawn towards them by a natural attraction. it was one of his habits always to take up a book, if one was within reach. they were very nicely bound, he noticed, except two small volumes at the end of the row, in which he smiled rather sadly to recognise a bible and prayer book. he ran over the titles--one or two novels, 'the children's garland,' 'mrs hemans,' and, strange accompaniment, swinburne's 'songs before sunrise.' he took it out and opened it. on the first page was written, 'to alice, from litvinoff.' he stood looking at it fixedly--so absorbed that he did not hear alice's foot on the stairs, nor notice the rustle of her dress in the room, till she said,-- 'have you been here long? i am so sorry i had to run out for some thread for my work. i thought i should have been back before.' she was a little out of breath with running upstairs, and a little flushed, too. he now saw that she was prettier than he had thought, but he also saw more plainly the hollows in her cheeks and the dark circles round her eyes. 'i must make a confession,' he began at once, turning to her with the book in his hand. 'i have asked myself, was it chance made you take this name of litvinoff? but i see now you have a right to it.' she turned her head and looked towards the window in silence for a moment. then she said,-- 'i do not know that i have a right to any name except the one i was born to; but if i have a right to any it is to the one written there.' it was said slowly and with evident effort. she threw her bonnet on the table, leaned her elbows on the window-ledge, and looked out. 'won't you sit down?' she asked, after a minute, without looking round. he took a chair, and said, 'then it wasn't only for the lecture you went to soho?' 'no.' 'see here, mrs litvinoff; i know the count, and i and others are much interested in his career. i wish you to believe that i would not ask you questions from idle curiosity. his own welfare depends to a great extent on what we may hear of him.' 'i have nothing but good to tell you of him.' 'but, madam--forgive me--how about last night? he has deserted you?' 'no,' said she, steadily; 'don't make any mistake. i left him. he was never anything but good to me.' 'you are not married to him?' 'don't ask me any more questions,' said alice. 'i can't tell you anything.' 'mrs litvinoff,' said petrovitch, very gently and very gravely, 'i beg you for his sake to tell me all you can of him. you know the sort of dangers run by a man in such a position as his; and from many of these dangers we can help to screen him. i am a friend to all who are friends of litvinoff. think of me not as a man and a stranger, but as the friend of him, and tell me frankly all there is to tell.' it was characteristic of the man who spoke that he should be able to make an appeal which would move this girl, who had not known him twenty-four hours, to tell him all that she had felt it to be impossible to tell her foster-brother, richard ferrier. for she did tell him. the substance of her story was this: she had been staying with an aunt who kept a small hotel in liverpool, when she had met litvinoff, and had seen a great deal of him. he had seemed to her to be different from all the other men she had ever seen, and though she could not help being pleased by his admiration, she had felt that the difference in their station was such that she could not properly fill the position of his wife. his grave and respectful manner and the perfect deference with which he always treated her had made it impossible for her to suppose that his wish was other than to make her his wife. so, though all her inclinations would have kept her in liverpool, she had, after a severe struggle with herself, shortened her visit, and returned to derbyshire without bidding him good-bye. he had followed her, and one evening when she was walking alone she had met him. of course, there had been explanations. he had implored her not to send him away--to let him be always as happy as he had been that month at liverpool. he met her objections as to the difference in their position by telling her that he was an outcast and an exile, and had no position. would she not make his hard life a little easier to him? at every word he said she felt her resolutions melting away; but her parents, would they ever consent to her marriage with one who held such opinions as his? then he had told her gravely and tenderly that he was at war with society and with most of its conventions, and that for him to marry in the ordinary sense of the word would be to compromise and deny every principle on which his life was founded. the true marriage, he had maintained, was fidelity, and mutual love was more binding than could be a ceremony in which one of the performers did not believe. he loved her he had said, far too dearly to wish to deceive her in the smallest degree about his sentiments, and so he felt bound to tell her that to him a legal marriage would be for ever impossible. in spite of that, would she not be noble enough to trust her life entirely to him, and be his wife? this had been so completely unexpected as to be a great shock to her, and she had felt at once that, however she might decide, it would be out of the question to tell or ask her parents about it. her choice lay between them and her lover. we know how she chose. of her time of happiness she said very little, but her hearer gathered that, though litvinoff had left her much alone, she had had no reason to doubt that he still cared for her. but the influence of her early training, though it had sunk into abeyance in the hour of strong temptation, had slowly and surely reasserted itself as the months went by. she had striven still to believe that she was acting rightly, but at last it became impossible to her to persuade herself that she had any right to be a law unto herself. so at last she had left her lover, with no farewell but a letter, in which she had tried to tell him how it was. she had felt a pleasure in the hardness of the life that followed--had vaguely felt it to be in some sort an expiation of her wickedness. 'you see,' she ended, 'if i had believed as he did, perhaps i should have been right to act as i did; but i believed in all the things that he denies, and so i was wrong to dare to take his views of good and bad for me, while all the time i kept my own old thoughts of what was really good and bad. i can't explain myself well, but you see what i mean--don't you?' 'yes,' answered petrovitch, rising; 'i see that another life has been sacrificed upon the altar of an abstraction. if it gives you happiness to give yourself pain, at anyrate i should think your wickedness, as you call it, was expiated now. has he never tried to find you out?' 'he may have tried,' said alice, 'but he has not succeeded.' 'would you not go back to him--now that you have another life than your own to think of?' alice darted a quick glance at him, and turned very white. 'no, unless that happened which never can happen--if his belief changed. but i cannot go on talking like this; it is torture to me--and to what end?' 'i told you--for his good and yours. however, to business. of course, since you have undertaken that tailor's work you must finish it; but after, i will get you work better paid. and this room--you do not like it? mrs toomey has a room to let, and i am sure she will like to have you for a lodger. will you go there and see it, and if you like it move there? i will lend you money for moving and for present expenses, and you can pay me when you settle to work again.' 'but why,' asked alice, half turning round to look at him, 'why are you so kind? why do you help me so?' 'i help you,' he answered, laying some money on the table, 'because to me you are truly litvinoff's wife, and i am the true friend of all who are friends of him.' * * * * * alice knocked at mrs toomey's door about three o'clock that afternoon. mrs toomey, her baby in her arms, and an air of reserving judgment about her, showed the room she had to let, which was convenient and exquisitely clean. alice followed her into the parlour afterwards. 'i think it only fair to tell you,' she began confusedly, 'that i am not really mrs litvinoff--but--' the other interrupted her. 'i know all about it,' she said, bluntly, 'and now i've seen you--'specially as you were going to tell me, so honest and fair--i'm sure we shall get on very well. and no one sha'n't ever know anything from me, and let bygones be bygones betwixt us. if you'd like to move in at once, why do, and come and have a cup o' tea with me when you've fetched your things.' there was no mistaking the cordiality which had replaced mrs toomey's half distrust as soon as she saw that her would-be lodger had no intention of coming there under false pretences. and so, a few hours later, alice had effected her moving, taken possession of her room, and was sitting by mrs toomey's spotless hearth, with her feet on the brilliant steel fender, her face brighter than it had been for many a long day, while the children stared at her with wide but friendly eyes, and mrs toomey's baby lay contentedly on her lap. the day had been at its beginning so wild, so bitter, so full of horrible possibilities; this was a peaceful--almost a happy--ending to it. alice felt the change keenly, and there was gratitude to petrovitch in every word she spoke to the mother, every smile she gave to the little ones. chapter xiv. a peacemaker. on the morning after that which he had spent in the study of art, count litvinoff was busily engaged in turning out the pockets of coats, and 'making hay' of the contents of portmanteaus, conducting a vigorous search for something or other, and singing softly to himself the while,-- 'oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round; every day beneath his sway fools old and young are found. 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round.' 'it may do that,' he said, dropping suddenly into prose, 'but it doesn't find missing property. i shall have to buy one, which will be annoying, when that one has been kicking about ever since i came from liverpool. ah! here it is. i've saved at least four and sixpence, which to a man in my delicate position is a largish sum. for, after all, you can't insult a man by pursuing him about london with a cigar-case that cost less.' he opened the little crocodile-skin trifle and looked into it. 'it has been used as a letter-case before now, and it would rather complicate matters if i left one of somebody's notes sticking in the lining. things are a little bit that way as it is. the world is very, very small. a remark, by the way, which is invariably made by people who have more than one creditor. but it is strange that i should have run right into the midst of this ferrier set. one would think that there was only one county in england, and that was derbyshire.' he sighed a little, but brightened as his eye fell on the chair which roland had occupied two nights before. his voice took up the song again as he returned his belongings to something like order. he had just made his sitting-room presentable again when the waiter appeared, and offered, with an air of virtuous and respectful protest, a folded piece of paper, which had been white once, but since that time had apparently sojourned in the pockets of one who carried his meals about with him. 'seductive billet-doux,' said litvinoff, as he took it. 'is it by chance a tinker's bill?' 'it was brought, sir,' said the waiter, 'by a man who appears to be a foreigner. he said he'd wait for an answer.' 'show that distinguished gentleman up.' while his order was being obeyed, litvinoff looked at the paper again. it was not a letter or a bill, after all; but seemed intended to answer the purpose of a visiting card, for all that was written on it was 'johann hirsch.' litvinoff was not altogether unaccustomed to being called upon by foreign gentlemen with bold and original views on the subject of visiting-cards. he never refused to see any of these visitors, and always sent them away charmed with the beauty of his sentiments and the liberality of his intentions, and occasionally with something more substantial. as the waiter closed the door and retreated with a glance of politely veiled contempt, the man whom he had shown in came forward, and litvinoff recognised in him at once the person who had been so interested in the 'prophetic vision' on sunday evening. he offered the visitor his hand with sunny cordiality. 'i am delighted to see you. i have not forgotten your kind interest in my lecture at the agora. please take that arm-chair.' the other did so. 'i speak english not well,' he began. 'perhaps the herr count speaks german?' 'certainly,' he replied, in that language; 'but to my friends i am not count, but citizen litvinoff.' 'i cannot claim to be a friend of yours,' said the other, who seemed to speak under the influence of some constraint; 'but i am a friend to the cause you advocate. i do not come to you for myself, but to ask you to help another, who is in sore trouble and distress.' 'i am very sorry. who is he?' 'it is a woman. the wife of an exile, one of us, separated from her husband by circumstances i may not tell of, but which are not to the discredit of either.' 'what is her name?' asked litvinoff, a shade more interested than if it had been the exiled husband who needed relief. 'i don't know her name,' said hirsch; 'but she is very poor and very proud, and i am afraid very ill.' 'unfortunate combination,' muttered the count, below his breath, in english. 'but, my good friend hirsch, how do you propose to give money to this distressed lady, whose name you do not even know?' 'there is only one from whom she will take it, and from him i come. he will give it to her. you will have no credit for your generosity, citizen, for she will not know from whom it comes.' 'i don't think credit is what we work for, _nous autres_,' said the count, with a slightly injured air. 'i must tell you the truth,' answered the austrian, with a shrug of his shoulders and an outward gesture of the palms of his hands. 'doubtless; but may i not know the name of the benefactor from whose assistance this lady's pride does not shrink?' 'assuredly; he told me that if i mentioned his name to you, it would be enough to guarantee your attention.' a very slight change passed over the count's face, and yet there seemed nothing in that speech to stir up uneasiness. the expression was so transient that it escaped the sharp eyes that watched him from under hirsch's shaggy eyebrows. 'distress itself is the best guarantee for my attention.' he rose and unlocked a despatch box and took out a cheque-book. as he took up a pen and sat down he asked,-- 'what is our friend's name?' 'his name is petrovitch. you knew him in russia, i believe.' 'i have heard much of him lately in london, but i have never been so fortunate as to meet him here.' 'he was with me at the agora on sunday.' litvinoff looked up pleasantly from the cheque he had been filling in. 'ah, so,' he said, 'i wonder he could not have answered you about the pamphlet.' 'he could have done,' said the other rather grimly, 'if i had thought of asking him, but i did not think of doing so.' 'well, i must hope soon to meet citizen petrovitch. in the meantime give him this, with my best hopes for the welfare of his lady friend. i wish it may be useful, small though it is.' 'there's no doubt about that,' said hirsch, rising as the other held out the cheque, and glancing at the two figures on it, before folding it very small and concealing it in an inner part of his nondescript garments. 'by the way,' said litvinoff, 'i've made that out to petrovitch's order, as i did not know the lady's name.' 'it is better so perhaps,' said hirsch. 'good day.' 'do not go yet,' said the other, hospitably; 'won't you stay and have some lunch?' 'thank you, no; i have eaten.' 'well, at anyrate, you'll have a glass of wine, won't you?' 'i am not thirsty, i thank you; good day.' 'good day,' said the count, shaking hands cordially. as the door closed behind the other he sank into an arm-chair. 'what an exceedingly fatiguing person. he chooses amiable and courteous messengers, this petrovitch. i wonder if i _did_ know him in russia. my memories of childhood's hour are singularly confused, but it's impossible to remember everybody, that's one comfort. it is remarkable how well people remember me, when there's anything to be got by it. this princely drawing of cheques, however, will come to an abrupt termination shortly, and then--i wonder exactly how long it will be before i send in my name to people on dirty bits of paper as a preface to requests for cheques for destitute lady friends?' he deftly rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and then said, musingly,-- 'that property in volhynia, would it be possible--by heaven, it would be a gallant attempt--it would be almost genius. as a forlorn hope it would be sublime; but i have still some hopes that are not forlorn, and the position of an english landowner is not unenviable. it would at anyrate enable one to give cheques with a freer hand to any mysterious stranger with dirty linen whose anonymous lady friends may happen to be hard up. hullo, my friend!'--as his eye fell on the cigar-case--'i'd almost forgotten you. i suppose i must be about my business. there are very few men, i am convinced, who work as hard for "the daily crust" as i do.' he flung the end of his cigarette in the fire, and put on his coat. 'and now,' he said, taking up his hat, 'to seek the midland hotel, and face whichever ferrier the fates may send me. probably i shall have my walk for nothing; they will be engaged in business, these interesting victims of a misunderstanding which i so deeply deplore.' he smiled hopefully at himself in the glass, and went out. 'is mr ferrier in?' he asked, when he reached the midland hotel, and the answer being 'yes,' he turned into the coffee-room to wait, still uncertain as to which brother he should see. it was richard who came down to him after a few minutes--richard, whose face, ulster, and soft hat all seemed to be of the same shade of drab. 'good morning, count litvinoff,' he said; 'can i be of any service to you?' 'it was your brother i wished to see,' said the count. 'he did me the honour to spend a few moments at my rooms last night, and i think this must be his. may i trouble you to give it to him?' here he produced the cigar-case. 'i don't think it belongs to my brother,' said richard, 'and i'm sorry i can't do anything in the matter; but i sha'n't see him again.' 'ah! you are leaving london?' 'i'm leaving this hotel.' 'well, perhaps you are right to seek one more cheerfully placed. you are not looking well; perhaps this situation depresses you?' 'oh, i'm all right, thanks. i'm rather glad you happened to call, because i shall perhaps not see you again. i'm afraid i was rather uncivil yesterday, and, if so, i'm sorry: i didn't intend it, but it struck me afterwards that it might seem so to you. the fact is, i was horribly put out about something.' 'oh, don't mention it. i saw then that you were annoyed about something, and now i know what it was. i know enough of english manners, mr ferrier, to know that here a stranger's interference in personal or family matters is the unpardonable sin. but my faith, you know, compels me to set aside conventions that are only conventions, and to try to give help wherever help can be given. 'i am so complete a stranger,' he went on, regardless of a slight movement of impatience from the other, 'so utterly, so palpably disinterested, that i hope i may without offence say to you what i intended to say to mr roland.' 'i don't see that anything could be said to my brother without offence that could not equally well be said to me.' 'this, then, is what i would ask. is there anything i can do to effect a reconciliation between you and your brother, and prevent this breach from growing wider?' 'i had never told you that there was any breach,' richard said stiffly. 'no,' he said, 'but all others have not your powers of reticence.' 'i presume my brother has been confiding in you.' 'your brother told me--what perhaps his pride forbade him to tell you--that you had accused him of something of which he assured me he was as innocent as--as i am,' ended litvinoff, raising his eyebrows ingenuously. richard's first impulse was to request the count to mind his own business, but he remembered that the interferer was a foreigner, and besides, litvinoff's manner was so honest, and what he said was true enough. he certainly must be disinterested. so he constrained himself to say, with very little change of manner,-- 'if my brother wishes to disprove any charges i may bring, he'd better disprove them to me.' 'but are you quite sure that you were not mistaken? may not your feelings on another matter have predisposed you to believe without evidence enough in this?' 'i quite fail to understand,' said richard, frowning. 'is it not possible that you may have thought of him less as your brother than as your rival?' 'if you have anything more to say that _needs_ saying, i shall be glad if you will say it plainly.' richard spoke angrily. 'plainly, then--you also are a suitor for the hand of miss stanley?' ferrier's hand clenched itself, and then made a little movement which seemed quite involuntary. the blood rushed to his face as he spoke. 'may i ask who gave you that piece of false information?' 'certainly you may ask,' answered litvinoff, smiling very sweetly. other people's tempers did not seem to affect him much. 'you may ask, but i--i must not reply.' 'it is lucky that i don't need your answer. there's only one person who would have told you such a lie, and for the future you'd better keep your interference for him, as he seems to like it.' 'and you, perhaps you'd better keep your insolence for those who'll stand it,' said litvinoff, with the same gentle smile. 'perhaps our next meeting may be in a country where it is customary to avenge insults in some other way than what you call, i think, a rough-and-tumble fight. _au revoir!_' 'you don't seem to find other countries very anxious to have you, since you have had to run away from one at least,' said richard passionately. 'oh, delicacy and nobility of english chivalry!' said the count, turning at the door to favour the other with one last smile. 'how unfortunate for miss stanley that you at least are impossible. pouf! the _bourgeoisie_ is the same, all the world over!' he lingered in the hall to make himself a cigarette, half expecting richard to follow him, but as he did not, strolled slowly away into the street. richard remained standing in the coffee-room with one hand on the table by which the conversation had taken place. he felt indignantly injured by litvinoff's interference, and in the first moments of passion felt sure that his interference had not been disinterested. but as he grew calmer, and was able to think the matter out quietly, he could not suggest to himself any possible reason for the count's wishing to adjust the quarrel between himself and roland, except the one he had given. yet, even if the russian had been merely filling the _rôle_ of 'friend of humanity,' dick felt glad that he had shown resentment. one might overlook intermeddling which had its rise in an overpowering interest in one's own personality; but when one was included merely in a vast aggregate like humanity, the compliment which might have been as salt to over-officiousness did not exist, and the conduct of the count became simply offensive. but, after all, most of his resentment was levelled at the man who had put this weapon into the russian's hands. had his brother completely lost all sense of honour--of decency even--that he should thus make him, richard, the subject of confidence with a stranger? and such confidences, too; confidences that hinged on _her_ name. 'but why should i expect anything better from him, after his conduct to that poor child?' then he thought of all he fancied he had discovered about alice, and all the little things that had aggravated the quarrel with roland. all the substance of the quarrel would not, perhaps, seem insurmountable if it were written here in detail, but to richard and his brother these things appeared in far other proportions. the mutual jealousy and distrust that had been growing up between them in the past months was as so much dry tinder ready to catch fire at any spark of a pretext for anger which either might have lighted on. and this case of alice was something more than a trifling pretext. richard himself was neither an angel nor a monk, but at least he played the game of life according to the rules. and, consequently, he felt towards his brother much as an old _écarté_ player might towards a man who kept kings up his sleeve. he decided to spend a few more hours in the search for alice, which, hitherto unavailing, he had kept up for the last two days, and then he would go down home and see gates, and roland would have his wish. the same roof should not cover them again. chapter xv. the cleon. 'well, i hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. you know, i have been a socialist almost from my birth.' the speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress. 'oh, i am sure i shall enjoy it immensely, dear mrs quaid,' answered clare stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, i have taken such an interest in all these questions. it is too good of you to have asked such an outsider as i am to a gathering like this. i don't feel frightened of you, because i know how kind you are, but i'm afraid i shall be at a loss with all the rest of the clever people.' mrs quaid smiled benignantly. 'oh, my _dear_, intellect is _not_ what we care for. the great thing is _character_.' mrs quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. she was a distinguished member of the cleon, a small society which met at the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions. to-night the meeting was to take place in her own drawing-room, and she had invited her daughter's school friend, clare stanley, to spend the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her father was going to dine at the 'travellers'' with a friend, and she did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room. besides, mrs quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more constant associates. mrs quaid had, as she said, been a socialist almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the 'sad distinctions of class,' but she had such tender consideration for those who did not share her views that she never invited those whom she naïvely styled 'one's _own_ friends' to meet any of those members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised. she was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with the fashionable socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal, appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the present system during their lifetime and that of their children. on this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming specimen of frank english girlhood, were more interested than usual in the business before them. this evening was to be a field night. the secretary of the cleon had captured a genuine russian socialist, and the society was disposed to make the most of him. nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a large one. it was very amusing to miss stanley to watch the arrivals, and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet, and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and unconscious she looked. mrs quaid introduced to her several personal adherents, for the cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its party differences. miss stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards any of them. _they_ had not had to fly across russian frontiers, nor had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of runaway horses. there was a civil service clerk whose strong point was statistics, and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the irreverent irreconcilables 'the member for quaid.' he was an advocate for short hours of labour, particularly in government offices. then there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for morality in public life, who believed in levelling down--to the level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which clare thought very nice of him. then there was the man whose friends thought he was like camille desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like danton. then there was a george atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it. the 'great proletariat,' on whose behalf the cleon met and discussed, was represented by one stone-mason. clare was surprised when she heard what his calling was, as there was nothing in his dress or bearing to distinguish him from the other men present. perhaps that was why mrs quaid had specially invited him. there were about a score of other members who were less noticeable on account of any peculiarity. they formed the real strength of the society, and did all the work, owing to which it held a position in the socialist movement altogether out of proportion to its numbers. the majority of the ladies gave a business-like aspect to the evening by severely retaining their outdoor garments. some of these were of peculiar shape and make, a fact which mrs quaid explained in a whisper to be the result of their employment of inexperienced dressmakers, on the highest moral grounds. by the time clare had noticed all this the room was pretty full, and as everyone talked at once, and very loud, one might, by shutting one's eyes, have fancied oneself at an ordinary 'at home,' instead of at a serious gathering, whose note was earnestness, and whose _motif_ was social regeneration. she was just thinking something like this when mrs quaid touched her on the shoulder. 'clare, my love,' she said, 'you _must_ let me introduce _dear_ mr petrovitch to you. you know he has been so exceedingly good as to consent to read us a paper to-night.' clare knew by experience that all her hostess's male friends were 'dear,' and her female ones 'sweet,' for at least three weeks after their first introduction, but when she turned to receive petrovitch's bow, it did strike her that the epithet was more than usually incongruous. he was about the last person, she thought, to whom terms of indiscriminate endearment could be applied. after the continental manner, he had put on evening dress. the wide shirt-front showed off the splendid breadth of a chest that would not have disgraced a life guardsman in uniform. miss stanley, as she looked at him, admitted to herself that on some people the claw-hammer coat was not without its æsthetic attraction. as the people settled down into chairs he took a seat beside her, but in such a position that she could see his face without turning her own. then, after a few business preliminaries, petrovitch began to speak. he did not read, as had been announced, but spoke from notes, with a little hesitation, caused, perhaps, by his speaking in a foreign language. to most of his hearers what he had to say was well-known, no doubt; but to clare all he said came as a revelation. she had come to be amused, to criticise, to 'make fun,' perhaps; but what she heard from this man beside her was not in the least amusing or funny. it seemed to her more like the gospel of a new religion. she listened intently, and after a while, unconsciously influenced by the interest and light in her face, he began to feel less and less as though he were talking to the room, and more and more as though he were speaking solely to the girl beside him. if he saw comprehension in her eyes, he did not trouble to explain a point further; if he saw a question there, he answered it; a doubt, he solved it. some eyes are easy to read, and petrovitch was a master of that art. the girl was no fool, and though the whole theory of socialism was new to her, she was able to follow the rigorous train of logic with which he led up to his conclusions. he attacked all the stock ideas which she had been brought up to respect. it somehow did not seem like blasphemy. he flung scorn and derision on the social ideals which she had heard lauded from her cradle. some things which she had been taught to consider admirable and desirable, grew, as he spoke of them, to seem mean and paltry. life, as she listened, took new meanings, and became of deeper significance. even the affairs of every day, the chance stories of misery, and the 'painful' paragraphs of the newspapers, which she felt, and shuddered as she felt, had hitherto seemed only occasions for the sprinkling of a little radical rose-water--little stings of passing horror, which heightened rather than detracted from the pleasures of existence--seemed now to be worth considering in some other light. this was not the first time that clare's heart had been stirred and her sympathies quickened by a spoken discourse. more than once she remembered having left the doors of parish church or cathedral in a tumult of emotion when some specially earnest and eloquent preacher had succeeded in casting a new and fierce light into the inmost depths of her soul; but, she remembered, those feelings had been transient, and strong though the new convictions and resolutions had been when she left the sacred portals, the small things of life--the duties of school, the light worries of home, the social _bagatelles_, things trivial and tenuous enough in themselves--had soon settled down upon her like a thick atmosphere, and by their aggregate weight had crushed, not out of existence, but back to her soul's remoter recesses, the new-born life. as petrovitch finished speaking, and, folding up his notes, thanked his hearers for their patience and attention, she wondered to herself, so quick is thought, whether what had happened before would not happen again, and whether by this time to-morrow her mind would not be running with its accustomed smoothness in its accustomed channels. she hoped no; she feared yes. but somehow something seemed to tell her that in these past experiences her emotions only had been affected, but that this time her reason also had been forced into life and action, and it would be harder to chloroform that, she thought. for some minutes after he had ceased she was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she hardly noticed the sharp fire of questions which was levelled at him from visitors in different parts of the room. when she did begin to listen to them, it was only to wonder how people could so have misunderstood what seemed to her so clear. there was one lady in particular who asked inconsequent questions in such a feebly deliberate manner, dropping her words out as though they were some precious elixir of which it was not well to give out much at a time, that clare felt an insane desire to shake her words out of her, and at the same time a little sense into her. the genial young stockbroker wanted to know whether the best part of petrovitch's scheme was not included in the present radical programme, but his suggestion was received with disapprobation by the large majority, and he hastily withdrew into obscurity. it struck miss stanley that all the questions and remarks were on side issues, and left untouched the main contentions. when the chairman of the evening announced that the discussion was at an end, everybody rose and began to talk at once--in most cases _not_ about the paper. perhaps they were all glad to get away from the larger questions of life's possibilities, and to return to the trivial personalities which form the chief interest of most of our lives. 'you are interested in these questions, miss stanley?' petrovitch said, as he turned to bid her good-night. 'i--i--shall be.' 'yes, i think you will. good-bye.' he left alone, and at once, telling his hostess he had an appointment to keep. just outside the door he met count litvinoff's visitor of the morning. hirsch had evidently been waiting for him with some impatience. he turned, and they walked away together. 'i've been here some time,' he said. 'i thought you must have gone.' 'i am sorry,' said petrovitch; 'i could not leave earlier.' 'little good you'll do in a house like that,' grumbled hirsch, knitting his brows. 'casting pearls before swine.' 'not quite that, my good hirsch. casting seed upon stony ground, maybe, but i am much mistaken if some has not fallen upon virgin soil, and then my evening has not been wasted. how did it fare with you this morning?' hirsch silently produced litvinoff's cheque, not quite so fresh-looking as when he had received it. 'ah, as i expected!' said the other, glancing at it under a lamp. 'ten pounds is not illiberal. you see, he does not keep so tight a purse-string as you thought.' 'lightly won lightly spent. donner wetter! he gained it easily enough.' 'this is not spent--it is given. don't be unjust.' 'gott in himmel! you're a good man, petrovitch. you seem to have no faults.' 'ah! so it may seem to you who have known me only three months, but i have known myself more than a score of years, and i know that i am full of them. come home with me and have a smoke, and we'll talk about something else.' * * * * * 'and how have you liked it, my dearest clare? have you been terribly bored--or puzzled perhaps--since you are not used to these discussions?' 'i have never been more interested than i was by mr petrovitch,' said clare, with perfect truth. 'ah, yes,' said mrs quaid enthusiastically; 'so sweet, isn't he?' clare did not answer, but as she drove home it occurred to her that the principal ingredient in petrovitch's character was not exactly sugar. chapter xvi. going home. there are people, we are told, on whom the rapid action of railway travelling acts as a soothing influence; but to the majority of us, when suffering from any loss or grief, a long train journey is simply maddening. the rattling of the windows, the vibration of the carriage, the banging of doors and shouting of porters at the stations, the prolonged and ear-piercing shriek of the whistle, occurring at such moments as to convince the thinking mind that it is not let off with any good intention or to serve any useful purpose, but simply to gratify the torturing instinct of the engine-driver at the expense of the passengers' nerves and tempers--all these only aggravate any trouble which may be part of one's invisible luggage. for all these together are not enough to distract one from the contemplation of one's special skeleton, and each is in itself enough to keep one from contemplating it with any good result. and as for seeing the bright side of one's troubles, that is quite impossible when one is moving at the rate of fifty miles an hour; the only wonder is that more people are not overcome by the peculiarly dismal aspect which one's position assumes under these circumstances, and that we don't hear of more suicides in railway carriages. the three o'clock midland express was tearing through the quiet country. a faint mist lay over the fields and hedges, faint, but still thick enough to hold its own against the pale yellow sunbeams that seemed striving to disperse it. richard ferrier, idly gazing at the flying hedges and gates and squalid cottages, did not feel any less sad for the sadness of the outside world through which he was speeding home. he had spent the previous evening in a vigorous search after alice--a search which had been unsuccessful, even though he had offered mrs fludger the best inducement to frankness. it had needed that golden token to mitigate the wrath with which she had received his first question. she had, indeed, hinted, not darkly, in the first flush of indignation, at worse designs on his part than even bible-reading; but gold itself, though it had softened her asperity, had been powerless to extort from her any information of the slightest value. having tried all he knew, and failed, to discover any trace of what he sought, richard had given up the search. he had met roland once on the hotel staircase. they had passed each other like strangers. as the train rushed on, he went over and over again all the circumstances of his quarrel with his brother. a fire of hate burned in him fiercely, a stern and deep indignation surged in his heart, and blinded his eyes to any possible palliation of his brother's conduct. this state of mind was the outcome of months of heart soreness and suppressed bitterness of spirit,--months in which he had vainly tried to disguise from himself that if clare stanley did incline to one more than the other, it was roland who was the favourite. during that month of roland's unexplained holiday richard had fancied he made some progress in her good graces, but when his brother came back again she had turned on him just the same smiles and glances that had bewildered dick. and from that time it had seemed to him that roland was gradually elbowing him out. miss stanley had a taste for poetry, and roland read poetry extremely well. miss stanley called herself a radical, and roland had been a shining light on that side in a small debating society at cambridge. miss stanley liked to chatter about art, and roland always had a stock of the latest art prattle at the tip of his tongue. roland had grown fond of solitary walks, and in these was constantly meeting miss stanley 'by accident'--'accident' which richard could not always bring himself to believe in. it was to be noticed, by the way, that in the walks of both these young men all roads led, not to rome, but past aspinshaw. richard had borne all this, sustaining himself with a hope that miss stanley did not really feel interested so much in roland as in the tastes he affected. he had still hoped that she might come to care for him,--for the man who loved her with such a passionate intensity. it is so hard, so very hard, to believe that the love that is everything to us is absolutely nothing to the beloved. men have even dreamed that their passion could warm marble to life. how much easier to fancy that it can stir a heart to love. but the sting in the pain he had suffered while his lady smiled on roland had been a half unselfish fear that these smiles of hers were being bestowed on a man unworthy of them. now that he believed this unworthiness to be proved, all the latent doubts, distrusts, suspicions he had kept down 'sprang full statured in an hour,' and with them sprang a hatred of his brother, so fierce as to frighten himself; for however he might seek to deceive himself about it, he knew in his inmost heart that it was less as a heartless profligate than as a possibly successful rival that he had learned to hate him. but he knew that now this rivalry could not be successful. his great love for her prevented his seeing the realities that underlay the superficial side of her character, so that he actually believed her to be the last woman in the world one could dare to ask to share poverty. he knew that his own chance, such as it had been, was lost; but he knew, too, that his brother's chance was also at an end. this did not make him less determined that the quarrel should be _à outrance_. 'cutting off one's nose to spite one's face' is such a wildly irrational act that one would never expect any reasonable being to be guilty of it, and yet hundreds of people do it every day. dick was doing it now, practically, though he kept reminding himself that this was really the only honourable course open to him, and that he was influenced mainly by irreproachable motives. it was nearly eight o'clock when his journey ended at thornsett edge. he went straight into the dining-room, where miss ferrier sat filling in the groundwork of some canvas slippers, which she hastily pushed out of sight when she saw him. it was one of her habits, kept up since the days when they were children, to make some present for each of the brothers every year, and give it to them at christmas as a 'surprise.' 'my dear dick, how ill you look! why didn't you write? have you had any dinner?' 'no, auntie,' said he, kissing her. 'just order up something cold, will you? i want to run up to gates this evening. i won't wait for anything to be cooked.' miss letitia suppressed her curiosity as to what could be taking dick to his father's solicitor at this time of night, and hurried off to see about the meal herself. while he was busy with the cold beef and pickles he told her briefly that he had run down on business, which had been rather worrying lately. 'that accounts,' said the good lady, 'for your looking so poorly. i hope you've not been keeping bad hours.' 'not i!' said dick, as he drew the cork of a bottle of stout. 'nor yet bad company, aunt--don't you think it.' 'and how is roland?' she asked, at last; but at the same minute dick pushed his chair back, and rose. 'i'm off to gates now,' he said. 'i shall be back some time to-night. and i say, auntie, have my father's room got ready for me. i should like to sleep there.' when he had put on hat and great coat, he put his head in again at the room door. 'after all, i think i'll have my own room.' he found mr gates sitting smoking very comfortably in the society of two of his bosom friends, with whom he had that day enjoyed some very good shooting. 'can i see mr richard ferrier?' he cried, when a servant took him the name. 'i should think i could. come in, dick, my boy; you're just in time to help finish the bottle. stevens is full already--he's missed every bird he's aimed at to-day--and clark is too sleepy to appreciate good stuff.' the other men laughed, and all shook hands with dick, and made room for him in the little circle which they formed round a splendid fire. 'i suppose the aspinshaw people will soon be down now,' gates went on; 'in fact, i heard so from stanley.' 'i came down on business,' said dick, as the three other men burst out laughing. 'of course,' said gates; 'you went to town on business just when they went.' the duet of less than half-sober laughter with which mr gates's guests received this suggestion brought the colour to richard's cheeks. 'i want to speak to you in private,' he said, 'if your friends will excuse us.' 'oh, they won't mind,' said mr gates, his cheerfulness unabated by the sharp tone in which richard spoke. 'come along; let's get the beastly business over.' richard followed him into another room. mr gates set down on a table the brass candle-stick he had brought in; both men remained standing. 'i have come up to ask you to take immediate steps to stop working the mill. i suppose we must give the men some notice?' 'have you gone mad, boy? what on earth should you close the mill for?' 'it will be closed under the provisions of my father's will, which, i believe, you drew up, mr gates.' mr gates sat down heavily on the nearest chair. 'you don't mean to say you've been quarrelling already?' richard made an impatient gesture of assent. 'you're both of you too old and too sensible to let a quarrel like this stand between you and your living,' said gates seriously. 'what's the trouble?' 'i can't tell you what our quarrel is about. my brother can do so if he likes; but it is impossible--please understand me thoroughly, mr gates, it is quite impossible that roland and i can ever work together again.' his tone was so decided, his face so firm, that gates saw plainly that what he said he meant, and that this was no quarrel to be got over by 'being slept upon.' 'may i ask,' he said, when he had risen and taken a turn or two up and down the room, 'how you propose to get your living?' 'i shall have a little, i believe, without the mill, and i am not an absolute fool; and, if the worst comes to the worst, i suppose my hands are of some use,' holding them out, with a laugh. 'and what will roland do?' said the lawyer, more to gain time than because he expected any answer. 'you forget, sir,' said richard haughtily--and as he spoke the other noticed how much older he seemed to have grown in the last month--'you forget, sir, that my brother's affairs no longer concern me in the least.' 'well, i can do nothing till i hear from him. that'll be time enough, god knows.' 'you know best, sir,' said richard. 'i've done my duty in telling you; i shall write to the trustees to-night.' 'well,' said gates, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'what must be must. i can only hope you'll think better of it. why, it's perfect madness. do let me try to arrange matters between you.' 'you had better address yourself to roland. don't make any mistake, mr gates. this is quite as much my brother's quarrel as mine. only three days ago he told me never to speak again to him on this side of the grave, and swore that the same roof should not continue to cover us both. i must be off now. i'm sorry to have troubled you at such an hour. good-night.' gates let him out. as he closed the front door after watching him down to the gate,-- 'how in the world,' he said, 'did such a hard-headed man of business as old dicky ferrier ever manage to get two such hare-brained young fools as these boys? why, it's beastly unnatural,' he added discontentedly. 'but it's the same old tale, i suppose--"all along of eliza." a good business smashed up, and two young fellows going straight to the dogs, because of that damned girl'--with a backward jerk of his head in the direction of aspinshaw, as he returned into the cloud of smoke in which his two friends were dozing placidly. richard went quickly away under the arching interlaced boughs of the garden trees. when he reached the road he did not turn his face towards thornsett edge, but went up the hill that lay at the back of the house. across the fields, where no track was visible, but where he could have found his way blindfold, through narrow lanes with stone walls, past more than one farmstead, now settled down into the restfulness of night, always upwards he went, until he reached the little church that crowned the hill and kept watch over the dead that crowded under its shadow. the young man passed into the graveyard and made his way to a very white stone, that showed strikingly among the dun-coloured monuments about it. light fleecy clouds were being blown over the face of the waning moon, and alternations of weird shadows, and still weirder lights, fell on the tombstones and on the grey, weather-beaten little church. richard rested his hand on his father's gravestone with a caressing touch. a great wave of regret and longing swept over him, and then a sort of relief at the thought that his father could not know how his dying wish would be unfulfilled. the old man's words rang in his ears,--'_it has been a long life; i should like to lie quiet at last_.' 'thank god,' said richard. people who don't believe in god have a way of speaking as though they did in moments of emotion. 'thank god, he can't be troubled about anything now. dear old dad--he has that wish, at any rate. he lies quiet and beyond the reach of it all.' he stooped and kissed the stone, almost as though it had been the face of him who lay beneath it. chapter xvii. an unexpected adherent. the train which brought count litvinoff from london was punctual to the minute, but the trap which was to take him to thornsett edge was not, and he was lounging discontentedly among his rugs and luggage at the melancholy little station of firth vale. when roland had left london, some weeks before, he had parted from litvinoff with the understanding that he was to spend christmas with him at thornsett edge. young ferrier had felt that the count would be a thousand times better company than his own thoughts, and he preferred asking him to inviting any of his college friends, from whom richard's absence would provoke comment, and to whom it would have to be explained. for richard had gone away, leaving no address save that of a solicitor in london, and he had written to the trustees, and steps were being taken for closing the mill. roland would rather have been anywhere than near the property he was so soon to lose, but gates urged him to stay at thornsett till the new year, and with count litvinoff as his guest he hoped to keep ghosts of old times at bay as successfully in his old home as he could hope to do anywhere else. and litvinoff had accepted the invitation with fervour, for the stanleys were back at aspinshaw. the day he had pitched on for his journey was a bitterly cold one in the middle of december, and the waiting-room at firth vale had no big fires, soft carpets, and luxurious lounges. it had nothing but a bench, a table, a bible, a prayer-book, and a large stone jug of cold water. litvinoff was got up quite after the english manner, in a light, long travelling ulster with a hood, and a tourist hat of the same stuff; but in spite of his precautions against weather he was very cold, and not a little cross at his prolonged waiting. he was just debating whether it would not be better to walk, and trust his traps to the mercy of chance, when the station shivered and shuddered as the 'local' came slowly and heavily in. as it stopped, a stout woman, of about forty-five, with the usual number of blue bandboxes, bundles in handkerchiefs, and brown baskets disposed about her person, came hurrying down the stone steps, accompanied by a hard-featured, grizzled man some years older. litvinoff watched their descent with a smile, but as they reached the bottom step his face grew suddenly serious. he turned sharply, and, passing into the little waiting-room, became deeply absorbed in the 'scripture roll' which hung opposite the door, until the train had glided out of the station. he saw without turning his head that only the woman had gone. the man remained on the platform, gazing after the retreating line of carriages till he started and turned round at litvinoff's voice. 'i beg your pardon, but do you know a place about here called thornsett edge?' 'ah do,' said the man, after a prolonged stare. 'it's a matter o' three miles off.' 'can i get a trap here?' in reply he learned that there was no trap nearer than the fly at the 'jolly sailors,' and that was half a mile the other side of thornsett. 'then i suppose i must walk. can you tell me the way?' 'ah can show you,' said the man. 'ah'm going up to the village; ah live there.' he spoke shortly; but litvinoff had a reason for wishing to talk to the man, and so was content to ignore a curtness of manner which at any other time he would have been the first to resent. in a few minutes the two were walking over the hard road side by side. 'do you happen to know mr ferrier?' 'ay; ah work i' their mill.' 'i suppose they are great favourites hereabouts?' 'they're good lads enow,' said the elder man; 'better nor most o' them.' 'better than most of whom?' 'most of the masters and gentlefolks and that like,' said the man, rather sullenly. 'you don't seem to like gentlemen, my friend.' 'ah don't like them well enough to believe either as they're my friends or as ah'm theirs,' was the answer, given with a haughty resentment of litvinoff's epithet, which that gentleman found amusing. 'i'm afraid that's true enough in most cases.' the man looked a little surprised at having his sentiments met by this ready echo from such an unlikely quarter. 'the toad don't love the harrow,' he said slowly; 'but it ain't often as you can get the harrow to see that.' 'are you quite sure the toad sees it? it seems to bear it quietly enough.' 'what else can we do?' asked the man fiercely. 'that's exactly what i'm giving my life to trying to find out,' said litvinoff, very quietly. the workman stopped short, and looked at the gentleman from head to feet. his gaze was calmly returned. he turned and went on with a half laugh: 'have you came down here to find that out, and is mr roland going to help you?' 'i can't answer for mr roland ferrier, but as for myself--look here, my friend' (with an emphasis on the word), 'in trying to help the "toads," as you call them, i was driven from my own country, and had to fly for my life, with a pack of soldier wolves at my back.' 'ay? how was that?' the man was interested in spite of himself, and litvinoff forthwith plunged into an account of the flight across the frontier on that most exciting night of all his life. his listener had not heard many exciting stories--they are not rife in firth vale--and to this story the fact that it was told by the chief actor lent an unusual interest. the count was a good story-teller, and the way in which he told his tale left room for no doubt of its truth. when the recital was ended the listener drew a long breath. 'ah'm glad you gave them the slip,' he said; 'the devils! eh, but you're a lucky man to have had such things in your life, and to have done something. you don't know what it's like to have your life all bearing and no doing. why, sometimes when you see how things go wi' some poor folks you're most ready to curse the a'mighty as lets such things be.' the tone of the words, and the words themselves, told litvinoff that the man's icy distrust of him had melted in the warmth of admiring sympathy. 'ah! here comes mr roland,' he said a minute after, as a tall figure came in sight; 'he'll show you now. my nearest way's over here,' pointing to one of those uncertain erections of loose stones which do duty for walls in that part of the country. 'ah hope ah shall see you again. if you have nothing better to do any time i shall be right glad to see you at our place. any one at thornsett'll tell you where i live. my name's hatfield--john hatfield.' 'as i thought,' said litvinoff, as he advanced to meet roland, and to receive his profuse regrets at the sudden casting of a shoe, which had prevented the mare from getting to the station with the dog-cart, which ought to have been in attendance. 'but come along,' he said; 'it's a jolly day for a walk, and i'll send down for your things as soon as we get home. that was john hatfield you were with. he's rather a character.' 'he seems to be one of us,' said litvinoff, as they walked on together. 'how do you mean?' 'he doesn't appear to be particularly satisfied with the present system.' 'no; and he has good wages too,--nearly two pounds a week.' 'affluence,' said litvinoff. 'ah, well,' said roland, laughing--'it's very good as things go--but he has some reason for hating his betters.' 'some reason besides the two pounds a week, do you mean?' 'yes; his daughter, an awfully pretty, nice girl, made a fool of herself--but i'll tell you about that some other time. shall we go this way? it is a little longer, but it leads round by aspinshaw, and i want to call there to ask after mrs stanley; she has a cold. old stanley will be delighted to see you; he's always talking about you. i don't know how he stands your revolutionary ideas.' litvinoff laughed. 'i never air them to him. i never talk revolution unless there is some chance of making a convert; but some things are too impossible, and mr stanley as a revolutionist is not to be conceived.' 'miss stanley seems to be quite a convert, however, although she always had a leaning that way. but i don't think the conversion is a star in your crown. she lays the credit of it to some man--i forget his name--whom she heard in town. i suppose you know him?' 'ah, yes; i remember miss stanley took me down splendidly one morning by saying that _now_ she understood our views, thanks to this man petrovitch. and i, who had been vainly flattering myself that i had made them intelligible to her!' 'by george, yes!' said roland, secretly pleased. 'that was rather a facer. but then she didn't hear you at the agora. is this petrovitch a gentleman?' 'upon my word, i don't know. it seems he knows me, but somehow or other we never seem to meet. it is not impossible that i may have known him under some other name. i must ask miss stanley to describe him to me.' 'oh, she'll do that with a great deal of pleasure,' said roland; 'it's her great topic at present. that's aspinshaw, over there to the right.' it was a very pretty house, and somehow managed to escape, even at this dreary season, such dreariness as hung over thornsett edge, though it was built of the same grey stone, and had the same moorland background. there was a good deal of ivy about it, and the grounds were less regular and more full of evergreens and shrubs than the ferriers' garden. as the two young men walked up the private road they heard from the rear of the house a confused barking of dogs, and above the noise a girl's clear voice, raised in vain endeavour to still the joyful tumult. 'la belle clare,' litvinoff spoke softly, raising his hat as though he saw her, and quickening his pace a little. 'shall we go round this way?' said roland; 'we don't stand on ceremony with each other down here.' 'by all means,' said litvinoff, and they turned into the stable-yard, passing down by the laurel hedge that alone divided it from the garden. 'by god! what's that?' cried the count, suddenly stopping; and then both men sprang through the hedge. no time to go round now, for there had been the sharp report of a gun, a woman's shriek, and a heavy fall. chapter xviii. a mixed assembly. it was sunday afternoon. the rather festive look of petrovitch's room, in which he now sat alone, was not, however, due to any desire to specialise the day. he had simply made his home as cheerful as possible because he was about to entertain guests. his table was spread with a snowy cloth, and with the preparations for a tea of a distinctly convivial character. there was jam, and more than one kind of cake; and the room was further brightened by bunches of chrysanthemums. chairs were drawn round the fire in an inviting-looking circle. the least cheerful object in the room was the owner of it, who sat in his usual chair between the fire and the writing-table. he looked pale and weary, for the frosty weather had strongly renewed the pain in a wound in his breast--an old wound, and a wound that had just missed being a deadly one. contrary to his usual custom, he was neither reading nor writing. the pipe he had been smoking had gone out, and his thoughts were far back in the past, among the memories which had re-awakened with that aching in his breast. his thoughts went further back than the date of that wound,--went back to the days before he had lost friends, home, and country. he saw again in fancy the brilliant gaiety of the winters in st petersburg, he heard again the exquisite music of the concerts and the opera,--the balls where majesty itself had deigned to be present, with anxious brow and uneasy, restless eyes. his memory dwelt longest on a certain torchlight _fête_ on the neva, when the ice had been a yard thick, and when the _élite_ had been shut off from the common herd by walls made of blocks of solid ice, between which fir trees were planted; when coloured lamps and chinese lanterns had thrown indescribable magic over the crowd of bright military uniforms and the exquisite toilettes of lovely women who had never in all their lives been troubled by any thought of what their dresses cost. and even at this distance he could not think without half a pang of a certain fair-faced girl, with golden hair, who, in her sapphire velvet and swansdown, had been the star of that _fête_ to his boyish eyes. and she had been kind to him on this the last evening he had spent near her before his new faiths and duties had separated him from her for ever. that was the first loss his creed had cost him. he wondered what would be the last--life itself perhaps. then he fell to thinking how these beliefs of his had grown up. how the reading of a certain book--an english book--had done for his mind what a successful operation for cataract does for one nearly blind--had shown him the facts of life, no longer half hidden in a mist of falsity, but in all their naked truth and ugliness. how for a time he had closed his eyes again and had tried hard to live on in the life of luxury, beauty, love, and (now he knew) selfishness which had been his by 'right of birth.' he remembered the night when, belated miles from his home, and overtaken by a snowstorm, he had sought refuge in a peasant's hut, how he had talked to his hosts, how one visit had led to many, and how what he had learned from these miserable serfs had forbidden him to forget or to set aside the teaching of the great author whose book had first set him thinking. he remembered that time, perhaps the happiest in his life, when he first began to write--when the ideas which had so long been seething in his brain had found literary expression. he remembered the joy with which he had corrected his first proof, the pride with which he read his first article in a magazine. so thoroughly back in the old time was he that he had stretched out his hand towards this very magazine, which stood bound on a bookshelf, when a heavy foot sounded on the stairs, and a moment after a knock at the door heralded the entrance of mr toomey, whom petrovitch came forward to greet with an almost courtly welcome. 'but your wife,' he said; 'can she not come? i trust all is well with her?' 'all's well with her, and thanking you for the question; but all's not well with that young woman o' yours.' 'of mine? i do not happen to possess a young woman, my good toomey.' 'i suppose you and me and my mary jane possesses about equal shares of her, then, for i saved her from keeping company with the dead cats and dogs, and you sent her to our place, and now my missus is let in for looking arter her.' 'come to the fire. i hope it's nothing serious.' 'i don't rightly know. my missus told me i should be better out of the way, and i sent the doctor in as i came by.' 'i am very sorry,' said petrovitch, 'but i am sure poor mrs litvinoff could not be in better hands than those of your good, kind wife.' it was noticeable that he never spoke of alice save as mrs litvinoff. 'you've a snug little place up here, sir,' said toomey, looking round him. 'and do you _really_ like reading--those sort of books, i mean,' pointing to hegel's 'logic,' which lay open on the table. 'i like doing better than reading, but one must read much to be able to do little in the line of work i am on at present.' 'your line of work,' said toomey, glancing admiringly at his host, 'is a thing as i never can get to understand. how it's done, i mean. now, paving is straightforward. when you've got a paving-stone you know what it is you've got, and how far it'll go, but words is such shifty things, and how you manage to make 'em fit into each other so as to make 'em mean what you mean is what gets over me.' 'perhaps i don't always make them mean what i mean. judging by the way people misunderstand what i say--ah! here is hirsch,' as the door opened, 'and pewtress too. how are you? now we're all here but mr vernon.' 'he's coming upstairs now,' said pewtress, the stone-mason with the intellectual forehead, who had been at mrs quaid's at the last meeting of the cleon. mr hirsch seemed to be in more genial mood than he had been in any of those brief conversations which we hitherto had occasion to report. he had shaved himself--he even appeared to have combed his hair--and he shook hands with toomey quite warmly and cordially. the host had gone half-way down the stairs to meet his fourth guest--a lame boy, whose crutches made it not easy for him to mount to the height of petrovitch's nest. he now returned with him on his arm--and after a general introduction of him to the others they all sat down to tea. eustace vernon was a lad of about eighteen, with a pale, highbred-looking face--a rather shy but pleasant manner. he was an enthusiastic admirer of petrovitch, and since his first acquaintance with the socialist had made a point of being present at all the meetings on social subjects that he could get to hear of, and could find time to attend. for even the wild enthusiasm of the revolutionary in his teens will not go the length of working a buddhist miracle and enabling the youthful devotee to be at more than one meeting at the same time. petrovitch was amused and a little touched by the lad's undisguised homage--and knowing himself to be responsible for the inflammation of the young man's mind, felt bound to keep watch lest he should get into trouble before his newly-kindled fire had had time to burn itself down into steadiness. as the meal went on it was noticeable that vernon's love of liberty was not inconsistent with a child-like devotion to strawberry jam. petrovitch might have kept a school of instruction for the benefit of those who are always making such desperate efforts to 'annihilate class distinctions'--efforts which usually take place on saturday afternoons, and are mostly the dismallest of failures. under his influence his four guests--born in different parts of the world, and drawn from different social grades--talked together with the ease of club acquaintances. 'i had hoped,' said petrovitch by-and-by, 'to have had a lady here to pour tea out for you, but fate has been unpropitious; mrs toomey was not able to come.' 'i regret her,' said hirsch. 'it always does me much pleasure to meet our good friend's good wife.' toomey looked flattered, but a little uncomfortable under this tribute. 'she would have liked to come,' said he, trying to look straight at the other, but only succeeding in fixing one eye on the austrian, while the other searched the depths of the jam pot with an obstinacy which made vernon, who had the same in hand, simmer with warm awkwardness. 'she would have liked to come, but the young woman as lodges with us--that mrs let-em-off--is ill, and the missus wouldn't leave her.' 'ah, mrs litvinoff, it is you mean. i willed to ask you of her.' 'i beg your pardon,' said vernon, glad to join in the conversation, as a means of getting away from toomey's eye. 'is that any relation of count litvinoff? i know him. splendid fellow, isn't he?' 'i don't think as she's a blessed countess,' said toomey doubtfully, while hirsch cast a significant glance of question at his host. 'oh,' said petrovitch, 'there are more litvinoffs than one. it is not an uncommon name. i myself know more than one family of that name.' 'of course you know the count,' said vernon, turning to him. 'what wonderful adventures he has had. he seems to be a man of splendid character. it must have cost him something to give up his social position and go in for the revolution.' 'so far as i know michael litvinoff, he has never done more than his clear duty.' 'what does he do for the revolution now?' growled hirsch. 'well, he does all that any one can do in england. there's not much else to be done besides talking.' vernon ended with a sigh, as of one who yearned for the barricades. 'oh, yes; he'll _talk_,' said hirsch discontentedly, and took a large bite of bread and butter. 'you are quite right, mr vernon,' said petrovitch. 'he talks, and talks well; and, as you say, there is here no other means of helping the cause. and where you have such freedom of speech as in england a man's tongue is his best weapon, and ought, under existing circumstances, to be his only one.' 'the great reforms,' said hirsch--'have they been carried by the tongue, or by the pike and the musket?' 'in this england enough has been carried by the tongue to leave good hopes for the future,' said petrovitch. 'i am glad to hear you express those opinions,' said pewtress, who spoke with some deliberation, and chose his words carefully. 'i have noticed that most of the foreigners i have had the pleasure of meeting do not quite understand the condition of affairs here.' 'do not misunderstand me,' said petrovitch, rising from the table. 'i consider force to be the last refuge of the oppressed and the wretched--only to be tried when everything else has failed--but then perfectly legitimate.' 'hear, hear,' cried vernon enthusiastically, as they all rose; 'that's more like yourself, petrovitch! and as for count litvinoff, i can't help admiring him, if it's only for what he's gone through.' 'for that,' said hirsch, who seemed to have grown grumpier and grumpier ever since litvinoff's name had been introduced, 'you, petrovitch, have had adventures better to hear about than any of his. did mr vernon ever hear how you escaped from tieff?' 'if mr vernon has, i have not,' said pewtress, as they gathered round the fire. 'if our kind host will tell us the story, i am sure we shall all follow it with a great deal of interest.' 'i am quite willing to tell you about that little affair, but i fancy i've told it once or twice before,' said petrovitch, handing round a box of thick, short russian cigarettes, to which his friends all helped themselves; 'and there is no greater bore than the man who will always be telling of his own deeds and adventures.' 'you, at any rate, never speak of yours,' said vernon, fixing his large eyes on petrovitch; 'do tell us, please.' 'i assure you i was not refusing "_pour me faire prier_," and if we are all comfortable i will tell you with pleasure the little there is to tell. toomey, you have no light.' 'all right, sir,' said toomey, picking up a hot coal in his fingers and lighting his cigarette therefrom as his host began. 'during the year or so that i was in the fortress of petro-paolovski i never encouraged the slightest hopes of escape, for in the first place i, for a long time, suffered from a bad gunshot wound, and, secondly, because it is known only too well among us that escape from petro-paolovski is impossible. when, for some unknown reason, the government sent me to tieff, my health was improved, and so were my chances of getting away, and from the moment i entered the prison doors i never lost an opportunity of making and maturing a plan of escape. escaping from a russian prison is not quite such a desperate business for one of us as it would be for one of you, for you would be like a blind man in a strange house; but those of us who are judged to be the most likely subjects for arrest make it a rule to have the plan of every prison and fortress at our finger-tips.' 'what a marvellous organisation yours is,' said the stone-mason, more as an excuse for escaping a moment from the martyrdom of the unaccustomed cigarette than by way of saying anything original. 'yes, the war is fairly well organised on both sides,' petrovitch replied; 'but at present they have the big battalions.' 'but your plans,' struck in vernon, impatient of the interruption. 'yes. well, my knowledge of tieff told me that there was one way, and one way only, of leaving it, and that was by the way i had come in--by the front gate, and to get to the front gate one had to cross the courtyard, and between my cell and the courtyard lay obstacles too many to be calculated and dangers too great to be faced.' 'and you at once began to calculate them and to face them,' cried vernon admiringly. 'rather to elude them,' petrovitch went on, ignoring the boy's compliment. 'as i could not meet them in detail i thought it better to surmount them in "the lump," as i think i have heard you call it in england. now the thing that had given me most hope when i heard i was coming to tieff was that i happened to know that the resident doctor of the prison was, not exactly one of us, but one who sympathised with us secretly--there are many such, who are unwilling to take an active part in the struggle, but who, short of that, help us in many ways--for instance, with money, and especially by hiding those of us who happen to be "wanted." we call them the ukrivatelli--the concealers.' 'i hope there's lots of them sort, sir,' said toomey, surreptitiously abandoning his cigarette in favour of the more familiar but slightly stronger smelling 'cutty.' 'but don't they get theirselves into trouble?' 'yes, if they are found out,' answered petrovitch; 'but they seldom are. they are a very large class, and are often men whose official rank or social position places them beyond suspicion. my wound still needed attention, and i soon managed to convey to the doctor a suggestion that daily exercise in a prison courtyard was a first-rate specific for gunshot wounds. he seemed to think so too, and before the end of the week i was told that i should have to walk every day for an hour in the only place where a walk of a dozen consecutive yards was possible--in the courtyard.' 'it was no use getting into the courtyard unless i had some prospect of getting out of it, and straight into some perfectly safe refuge. this was a matter that took some weeks to arrange, and during that time i never turned my eyes to the gate. the doctor, though he was willing to help me, was not willing to risk his own safety by carrying too many letters, and a whole code of signals had to be arranged. luck seldom favours the right side; but i think i was certainly lucky, for just when i began to take my daily exercise the right wing of the prison had to be repaired, and consequently the gates of the courtyard were open all day for the carts of building materials, etc., which had to come in and out. this must have seemed tolerably safe to the authorities, as i was the only prisoner who "took exercise," and there were two sentries to whom was allotted the pleasing duty of watching me. they had a pretty easy time of it for these three weeks, for i used to crawl up and down the yard in a feeble and dejected sort of way, as though i had hardly the strength to put one foot before the other. i always leaned on a stick, and did my best to appear to be at my last gasp. i was well-nigh tired of waiting, so often my escape seemed almost close at hand, and then something happened, and all our plans had to be made over again. innumerable ideas were suggested, but abandoned for one reason or another. at last it was definitely settled that at a certain signal i was to make for the gate and rush out--that a carriage was to be waiting just outside, and that one or two of our friends were to be there promiscuously, to give false information in judicious doses, as it might be called for. the gate was almost exactly in the middle of the courtyard, and the beat of sentry no. was from the gate to the end of the yard and back, and that of sentry no. from the other end of the yard to the gate and back--thus the face of one of them was always towards the gate. at length the day came when i might expect the signal--this was to be nothing more dramatic and startling than the smallest piece of paper that could well be seen--stuck on the shaft of one of the builder's carts. cart after cart went by, my hour was nearly up, and i began to feel pretty sure that either the signal was not to be given that morning, or else that it had been given and i had missed seeing it. this last alternative was becoming a maddening certainty, when yet another cart came crawling in, and on the shaft, luckily on the side to which my walk had now brought me, was lightly stuck a little piece of white paper. once more luck was my friend, for the sentry on the same side of the gate as myself was marching _from_ the gate, and between me and the one walking _towards_ the gate was the cart. had any one not in the secret been watching me from one of the prison windows at that moment he would certainly have thought that i was the subject of a miraculous cure, for in what seemed to me about half-a-dozen bounds i was at the side of the cart, out of the gate, and in one of two carriages which were passing at the time.' 'and what steps did the authorities take?' asked pewtress, in the perfectly unexcited and matter-of-fact tone of a school board inspector. 'well,' said petrovitch, laughing a little, 'i was not there at the time, but my friends told me that what followed was well worth seeing. a few seconds after my disappearance the two sentries and the whole of the guard from the guard-room inside the prison came swarming into the street, and there was a most delightful hue-and-cry and clamour. about a hundred yards away to the right a carriage was making off at a mad pace, and after this went the whole _posse_; with the lieutenant of the guard at their head. they must have been immensely relieved when they saw it pull up opposite the house of a well-known and irreproachable doctor. when, panting and exultant, they surrounded the carriage, they found inside it a surprised and indignant gentleman, who had driven in hot haste to fetch dr. seroff to his sick daughter, who had taken a turn for the worse.' 'and were you under the seat, mr peter hitch?' inquired the interested toomey. 'not exactly. i had been driven off in the other carriage, which went at a quiet trot, eminently suited to my delicate state of health.' 'the gentleman who went for the doctor, i presume, was "one of you"?' put in vernon. 'he was of the ukrivatelli,' said petrovitch, 'and i am afraid he had a bad time of it for a day or two. he was promptly taken where i had come from, and i fear the young lady's sick-room was invaded by a corporal's guard, but our friend and his family were so evidently innocent that the authorities had nothing left but to put up with their loss, and to grin and bear it, as you say.' 'but where did the other carriage take you?' 'into the next street, to the most orthodox house in the town, the residence of a district judge, whence after spending a week i made for the frontier with passport quite in order, a clean chin, a strong french accent, and very black eyebrows. so ends the story, which i am afraid hasn't been a very exciting one.' 'the quite truth of it is its interest,' said hirsch; 'to count litvinoff must you go for pure excitement.' 'you don't seem to like this count let-em-off, mr hearse,' said toomey curiously; 'i thought he was a rare good 'un.' 'you're right, toomey. he's done us good service.' this petrovitch spoke with a certain emphasis, and with his eyes not on toomey, but on hirsch. 'i don't know whether it's indiscreet to ask,' said vernon, 'but i wish you would tell us how it was you got arrested.' 'ah! that's a long story,' returned petrovitch, 'and one which, as it concerns others beside myself, i don't feel justified in telling.' then as the boy coloured and looked embarrassed, he added kindly, 'there wasn't the slightest indiscretion in the question, and some other time, perhaps, i shall be able to answer it. but, since adventures are the order of the evening, you should get hirsch to tell you some of his. he has had more than othello.' the austrian was beginning to protest that nothing had ever happened to him, when a rustle of silk on the stairs outside silenced him, and the men all looked at each other inquiringly in the moment that elapsed before the door was opened and disclosed the velvet bonnet and abundant flounces of mrs quaid. mr quaid was there, too, but he did not take the eye or captivate the attention. that was mrs quaid's department. 'my _dear_ mr petrovitch, how can i apologise enough for our intrusion? the maid gave us no _idea_ that you were entertaining. ah! here's mr pewtress. how do you do? and mr vernon, too. how delightful! why, we're all among friends. and you won't think me quite an old marplot if i stay for a few moments, for i really have something special to say to you.' 'it's very good of you to honour me with a call,' said petrovitch, wondering intensely what had brought her there. 'we have been to see some friends at regent's park, and we are going on to dine with the pagets--(you know the pagets, mr petrovitch? no! ah, i must introduce you; they are such sweet people, quite devoted to _our_ side)--and so we thought we would call as we passed to ask you if you will come and dine with us on tuesday. you'll excuse an informal invitation, i know. i thought if we came _ourselves_ to ask you we should be more likely to succeed.' 'you are very kind,' said petrovitch, wondering whether he could find any means of evading an acceptance. 'i _had_ hoped to have had your fellow-countryman, count litvinoff, there to meet you; but i hear he has just gone to derbyshire; so unfortunate. i suppose he has gone to stay with the stanleys. he saved mr stanley's life, you know--mr stanley--perhaps you remember his daughter, the sweet girl who sat next you at our house.' it appeared that petrovitch did remember the lady in question. the other men had formed a knot at the other side of the fire. 'you know,' said mrs quaid, lowering her voice discreetly, as she glanced at them, 'my daughter cora thinks that there will be a match there before long. i do so hope that dear interesting count has not lost all his property. from what i hear he is very well off.' 'gentlemen of your opinions ought not to marry,' said mr quaid, striking in, much to his wife's surprise. he did not usually advance independent opinions, being emphatically 'mrs quaid's husband,' and nothing more. 'why?' asked petrovitch, amused. 'because your lives are so constantly in danger.' 'there's not much danger in derbyshire,' broke in hirsch, in spite of petrovitch's restraining eye. 'ah, well,' said mrs quaid, 'i do hope, if anything _does_ come of it, that he will settle down quietly in england. there is so much that wants doing here. we want good, brave workers to strive to bridge over the terrible gulf between the classes.' toomey, suddenly recalled to a sense of the 'gulf'--which he had quite lost sight of under the influence of petrovitch's tact--felt a painfully renewed consciousness of his boots, his hands, and his sunday clothes. vernon, who knew mrs quaid, and delighted to 'draw' her, would not for the world have missed such an opportunity of amusing himself and his friends. by a skilful question or two he led the lady on to her favourite subject--that of education. she could discuss this question with eloquence, and at any length; but no matter how her discussions began, they always ended by placing her and her hearers in a difficulty. she was quite clear that before we could educate our children we must be educated ourselves, which, on the face of it, seemed reasonable; but, then, who was there to educate us? to that question no answer could ever be found; and in the meantime, what was to become of the rising generation? she had nearly reached this point when her husband, who had been present before when she trotted round this circle of argument, and for whom the repetition of the performance had no charms, brought the conversation back to the world of possibilities by renewing the invitation for tuesday, which petrovitch, after a little hesitation, accepted. when the gros grain silk had swept down the uncarpeted stairs, and petrovitch had accompanied it to the front door and received the last nod of farewell from the imposing plume in the velvet bonnet, he returned to his room, to find the spirits of his friends visibly higher, except those of vernon, who felt that he had been done out of the cream of his proposed joke. the evening slipped by pleasantly enough, but there were no more adventures told, nor was count litvinoff mentioned again, until one by one all the guests had departed except hirsch. he stayed on, smoking in silence, and his host, equally silent, sat on the opposite side of the fire, regarding it fixedly. 'well,' said hirsch, at last turning his eyes towards the other, 'what of this marriage that the large lady speaks of so confidently--this "sweet clare" who is to be the countess litvinoff? that also is to be for the cause? with that also you are satisfied? that also is to be permitted, sanctioned, what you call approved?' 'no,' said petrovitch slowly. 'no; that is not to be.' chapter xix. an honest man and a brave one. 'thank god!' was count litvinoff's inward ejaculation, as, followed by roland, he sprang through the laurel bushes into the gravel path that skirted the lawn. for what he saw was not what he had feared to see. clare was safe. she was standing on the last of the stone steps that led down from the verandah, her hands clasped over her eyes, as if to shut out some intolerable sight. on the lawn before her, half-a-dozen yards off, in brown shooting suit and gaiters, lay her father, face downwards, on the grass, his gun beside him, and his two sporting dogs sniffing round the hand that had held it. the two young men were at his side in an instant, and had half raised him by the time clare had shaken off the horror that had paralysed her and had sprung towards them. roland glanced at mr stanley's face, and, passing his arm round the old man's neck, drew his head towards him, and bent over it in such a manner as to keep it from her eyes. 'take her in, litvinoff,' he said, still bending forward; 'make her go in.' 'come in, miss stanley; you can do no good here,' said litvinoff, rising and taking the girl by the arm. she shook him off. 'let me alone,' she cried. 'how dare you interfere? let me go to my father.' 'miss stanley, be reasonable. you can do much more good in the house. don't you know we must bring your father in?--and your mother must be told.' but mrs stanley needed no telling. from the window she had seen--when the barking of the dogs told of mr stanley's near approach--how clare had run out bareheaded to meet him--how he had stopped in the middle of the lawn, as if expecting her to come to him--how he had taken his gun from his shoulder, and dropped the butt on the ground--how there had been a flash, a report, and how he had fallen. now she came out. 'go in,' she said to clare, 'and send for doctor bailey. thomas can go on red robin.' by this time the servants were gathering from all directions. 'come,' litvinoff spoke in a low voice, but a voice of authority, and led her towards the stable-yard. coming round the corner they met thomas. 'oh, thomas--' she began, when litvinoff interrupted. 'saddle red robin, and ride for doctor bailey--ride fast for your life! now, miss stanley, for heaven's sake don't give way; keep up. they may want linen for bandages, and brandy.' she looked at him with wide-open, frightened eyes, but she obeyed him; and when those things were brought she stood looking mutely at him, like a child asking for directions. 'sit down,' he said; and, pouring out some brandy-and-water, held it to her lips. 'drink, and then you will be able, perhaps, to be of some use.' they were in the drawing-room. litvinoff noticed, even at that moment, the hundred dainty tokens of a cultivated woman's daily presence. as he set down the glass, past the closed door came the heavy tread of the men who were bringing the master back to his home. then clare rose up. 'i will go to my father,' she said, turning a white, resolute face towards the door. 'twenty of you shall not stop me!' litvinoff caught her two hands and held them tightly. 'wait, wait; they are getting him to his bed. you would only be in the way. trust me, miss stanley. i would not keep you from him if you could be of any use to him. you may be of real service by-and-by.' 'very well,' she said; 'i will do what you tell me. but, oh, tell me all you know; tell me where he's hurt; did you see? will it be dangerous? for pity's sake tell me what you saw, whether--' here the door opened, and roland came in. her eyes searched his face for re-assurance, but found there something more terrible than her worst fears, and as he opened his lips to speak she cried in a high-pitched voice, quite unlike her own, as she held out her hands as if to keep off something, 'don't tell me--don't tell me anything--let me go!' and as roland stood aside she rushed from the room. litvinoff closed the door. 'he's dead,' said roland. 'i know. i knew that directly i put my hand on him. i have had my hand on a man shot dead before to-day.' roland sat down on a low chair. it was the one clare had occupied half-an-hour before. there on the little table by it lay her work-basket, and some pretty useless bit of sewing, and all the little gilt working implements which she had put down when she went to meet her father. roland's eye fell on them, and he groaned. 'good god, litvinoff, what a terrible thing! what a frightful blow for them!' 'does mrs stanley know?' 'yes.' 'how soon can the doctor be here?' 'in half-an-hour; but he'll be no good when he does come.' 'not for him, but miss stanley may need him. her face as she passed out of the door was not reassuring.' roland groaned again. 'what a horrible world it is!' he said. his father dead, his brother estranged, his sweetheart lost to him, and now this new calamity had fallen near him. 'it never rains but it pours.' and it seemed to be raining misfortunes in firth vale. 'it _is_ a horrible world,' said the other; 'but reflecting on that truth will not aid anyone just now. is there nothing we can do?' 'not that i know of, but we won't go till the doctor comes.' 'certainly not; and in the meantime let me suggest that a little of this brandy would not be amiss, if you don't want him to find a patient in you. you look uncommonly shaky.' roland accepted the suggestion and the proffered glass. 'miss stanley's mother seems to have her wits about her?' 'yes, mrs stanley's a sensible woman--but she's not miss stanley's mother. mr stanley was married twice.' 'there are no other children?' 'no.' 'poor woman,' said litvinoff, sincerely enough, though for a certain reason he was not displeased to hear that clare was an only child. 'he seems to have been a rich man,' went on litvinoff, glancing round the room. 'yes, he had more than he knew what to do with. it seems hard that he should have had to leave it all so suddenly,' said roland, growing sentimental. 'it is a great pity men have to leave their wealth behind them. if they could only take it with them, there would not be so many young people growing up in vicious idleness.' then, as it suddenly occurred to him that this might possibly be considered personal, he went on in his most approved didactic manner,--'since death is inevitable, how lucky we ought to think it that so few people have anything to live for. i believe to a great many people the best thing in life is the certainty that some day or other they'll get out of it.' roland did not answer. there are moments when moral reflections are particularly hateful. the doctor arrived sooner than they had hoped, the man-servant having met him about half-way between aspinshaw and his own house, but of course he could only confirm what they all knew. the whole contents of the gun had lodged in the lungs, and death must have been instantaneous. he asked the two young men a good many questions as to the manner of the accident, but of course they had not seen it, and were unable to throw any light on the cause of the disaster. he must have been carrying the gun full-cock, and the concussion, when he brought the butt down on the ground, must have started it. 'mrs stanley bears up wonderfully well.' 'and his daughter?' put in litvinoff. 'well, the poor child's crushed at present, but she'll soon be all right. young hearts soon throw off their troubles, thank heaven! i shall have to trouble you two gentlemen at the inquest,' he said, as he got into his gig and was driven off. roland ferrier and michael litvinoff walked home almost in silence, consumed a dinner enlivened by miss letitia's comments on the events of the day, and, when she had retired in tears, passed one of the most melancholy evenings in the recollection of either. roland did his best to perform the difficult part of genial host to the guest who had been introduced to thornsett under such inauspicious circumstances; but he was a young man who had not that within him which enables men to resist the influence of the immediately surrounding circumstances, and his attempt was a dead failure. litvinoff could, perhaps, have succeeded with a desperate effort in raising the cloud of gloom that hung over them both, but it did not seem to him that the game was quite worth the candle, and he let it alone. under the circumstances there could be no shooting, and none of such social entertainments as would certainly otherwise have enlivened his visit, and the prospect of his first christmas in an english country-house looked very bleak. 'i suppose one mustn't smoke here,' he said aloud to himself, when, the long evening over, he reached his bedroom, and sank down into an easy-chair before the brightly-burning fire. 'that antiquated lady is the sort of person who would go mad if she smelt smoke in one of the bedrooms. it is a great bore. i want to think--and how the deuce am i to think if i can't smoke!--and i must think. yes, it must be done; they must put it down to my foreign ways,' he added, as he drew out his cigar-case and lighted up. something in his surroundings reminded him of that night in october when he had saved the life of the man who was now lying dead at aspinshaw. 'poor old boy,' he said, 'i didn't renew his lease of life for very long, after all; but i expect he lived long enough to have done almost as much for me as he could have done had he lived longer. perhaps my "views," as he would have called them, will not stand so much in the way now. my crushed young host told me that she is beginning to share those views and to be enthusiastic--thanks to that mysterious entity, petrovitch. i owe him that; i wonder if i owe him anything else? i do owe many sums to many people. he had me for ten pounds, though, any way. pardieu! i hope he won't try that again, or i shall have to stay down here permanently. i shall attend a funeral in a few days, i suppose. i wonder when i shall attend a marriage? she was obedient to-day--a good sign. things will go smoother so.' he puffed at his cigar in silence a few minutes, then he spoke aloud again, 'and so that was john hatfield, and he is one of us--or half one of us. by jove! that makes me feel a cursed traitor--that merits death. well, i'm not afraid of that, anyhow, nor of anything that may come after. i've got memories enough to make a hell of my own here, and death would be the end of _them_, at any rate, not the beginning. and yet one must live, i suppose, though i don't feel so sure of that to-night. poor little girl--dear little girl! i wish _you_ were the heiress of aspinshaw. the real heiress is pretty and charming, and a lady,' with a rather bitter laugh, 'and she is beginning to have "views;" but somehow i can't get you out of my head to-night.' he moved his hand to and fro before his eyes, as though to clear away the smoke. then he rose. 'curses on conscience--curses on principle!' he said; 'i must see if sleep will do it;' and he went to bed. during the next few days there was nothing to do except to call at aspinshaw every day and ask after mrs and miss stanley. this was an obvious duty, but as an occupation it was not engrossing. on the second day, young ferrier offered to 'show his guest over' the mill, and litvinoff, always glad of a new experience, joyfully consented. the mill was charmingly situated in a little hollow in the hills, with a big reservoir above it and a little stream below. on one side was a wood, where a good many hollies kept up the impression of greenness, though all the other trees were sere and brown. on the other side was a very steep incline which shot up almost like a high wall, and was bare and rugged and rocky, and from the top some rude steps cut out of the grey rock led down to the mill. while the workings of the machinery were being explained, and the various processes exhibited, it did not escape the count's observation that the men looked particularly discontented, and that there was none of that deferential submission in their manner to roland which he had been accustomed to see in the manner of workmen towards their masters. 'what's the matter with the men?' litvinoff asked, as they walked back to thornsett. 'they looked uncommonly disagreeable. my friend john hatfield doesn't appear to be the only one who is dissatisfied with the munificent two pounds a week.' 'john hatfield! what a memory you have for names. oh, they're not dissatisfied with the amount of their wages. on the contrary, they only wish they could go on at the same rate. but they soon won't have any at all from me. the mill stops working at the end of the year, and they've somehow got it into their heads that i'm responsible for it, whereas it's just about as much my fault as it is that tree's.' 'is it any one's fault?' 'you know that it is my brother's. he made the quarrel, and forced it on me, knowing what the results would be.' 'and the results to these men will be--' 'starvation, i'm afraid, for some of them, poor fellows, and very short commons for them all; but it's rather hard that i should be blamed for it.' 'oh, beautiful system!' said litvinoff; 'splendid organisation of industry! two brothers quarrel about nothing in particular, and a hundred men and their families have to starve in consequence.' 'it's not the fault of the system, but of my father's will and my brother's mad temper; but anyhow it is not my fault.' 'well, your father's will is distinctly part of the system; but, as you say, you are not to blame. no, ferrier; you are certainly the most hardly done by. as to these "hands," as you call them, _qu'importe_? it is you who are to be pitied. it is so much harder to be blamed than to starve.' 'what a cool fellow you are, litvinoff!' roland laughed, but was yet a little nettled too, for, like all englishmen, he hated irony. 'you're always mocking at something or somebody. but perhaps you forget that i shall have hardly anything to live on either--a wretched hundred a year or so.' 'a hundred a year,' said the count, in the tone of one who is dealing with a difficult arithmetical problem, 'is just about two pounds a week. now the other day you said that two pounds a week was "not so bad" for a man with a family; and, with all your misfortunes, you are not what you english people call "a family man."' 'but then you must remember how differently those sort of people are brought up.' 'i do remember it.' 'they don't have the same needs as we do.' 'don't they?' 'no. what do they care about music or art or poetry or travelling? fortunately for them they haven't the tastes that run away with money.' 'they have a taste for food and for warmth, i suppose,' the count was beginning, when roland interrupted him. 'there, litvinoff, it's no good; you'll never convert me. i'm a radical, not a socialist. let's talk about something else.' 'by all means. to return to john hatfield. i noticed in the mill to-day that he did not participate in the general scowl.' 'no. i don't think he bears me any ill-will. our relations with the hatfields are peculiar. when my mother died--it was before my aunt came to live with us--mrs hatfield took charge of my brother and me, and was a sort of foster-mother to us. her daughter alice was our playfellow, and a dear little girl she was.' 'was that the girl you said had--well, not acted very wisely?' asked the count, feeling an insensate longing to talk about alice, or to hear some one else do so. 'yes; that was the girl,' said roland. 'she was as sweet a little girl as you would wish to see.' litvinoff mentally endorsed this statement to the full. aloud he said,-- 'what was it--the old story?' 'yes. she met some fellow at liverpool; i suppose lost her heart to him, and gave the world for love, and considered it well lost, as they say. damn the brute! i wish i had the handling of him. i should like to have half an hour with him without the gloves.' litvinoff was conscious of an insane desire to give roland his wish, and try which was the better man, but he said quietly,-- 'you don't know him, then? i suppose nothing has been heard or seen of her?' 'no, only--it's rather funny--when i went to the agora that night i fancied i saw her face, but it must have been fancy.' 'of course; unless,' added the other, goaded by the imp of the perverse--'unless her lover was a gentleman interested in social reform.' 'not he,' said roland contemptuously; 'more likely some fool of a counter-jumper or clerk. you know i looked upon her quite as my sister, and i was very fond of her, and all that.' 'yes?' interrogatively. roland had not meant to say anything more; but after that 'yes' he found himself going on,-- 'and that's why it's so deuced hard that my brother should blame me for it. upon my soul, i seem fated to be blamed by everybody i know for everything any one else has done!' 'that, then, was your brother's accusation?' 'yes. at least if it wasn't i can make neither head nor tail of anything he said. but i didn't mean to have said anything about it--it's too preposterous! i don't know how it is, but i'm always finding myself telling you things that i didn't mean to tell any one. i wonder how it is? natural affinity, i suppose.' 'i suppose it's because you know i am interested in you,' said litvinoff cordially, as they turned in at the gate of thornsett edge. 'it will be very dull for you here,' said roland, beating the shrubs lightly with his ash stick as they walked up the path; 'and, i am sorry to say i shall have to be out this evening. i _must_ go down to our solicitor to arrange about several things. you won't think me an awful bear?' 'don't mention it; i shall be very well amused, i doubt not. i can take a walk if i find i miss you very much, and then i shall be sure to lose myself, and there is some excitement to be got out of that.' that evening john hatfield was sitting on the oak settle by his hearth, his wife with her knitting in the substantial rocking-chair opposite. the interior was cosy and bright enough. a high wooden screen protected the inmates from any cold air that might else have come through the door, which opened straight from the house-place into the street. a short red curtain hung in front of the long low window, that was nearly as wide as the room itself. there was a chintz flounce to the chimney-piece, and a bright round table, on three legs, in the middle of the room. there was a good deal of shining brass about, and a few pieces of old china. mrs hatfield, a small fair woman, with grey, short-sighted eyes, had more lines in her face than her years should have traced there. but the poor age much more rapidly than the rich. significant reflection. and every trouble leaves its signet on our faces, and mrs hatfield's trouble had been a heavy one, and its traces were easily discernible. so thought count litvinoff, as he tapped at the door and entered john hatfield's house, and the thought was not a pleasant one. derbyshire was certainly not the place to come to for pleasant thoughts, or pleasant incidents either. 'is't thee, man?' said hatfield, leaning forward to discern the features of his visitor in the comparative gloom by the door where he stood. 'come in--come to the fire. here, lass, this is the chap i telled ye on.' as litvinoff held out his hand to mrs hatfield her husband went on,-- 'ay, shake his hand, lass; you don't so often get to shake hands wi' an honest man, and a brave man--' alice's father speaking of him to alice's mother! another pleasant incident for count litvinoff! chapter xx. improving prospects. clare stanley was the mistress of aspinshaw, and of a good deal of bricks and mortar, stocks and shares, and three per cent. consols besides. mrs stanley was comfortably provided for, but it was clare who was to profit by the hard work, the self-denial and forethought of some three generations of stanleys, or, as some might think, of their greed, their grasping, and their over-reaching of their less crafty fellow-men. the will that had laid the burden of wealth upon her, at an age when most young women of her class are engaged in constant differences with their parents and guardians on the subject of pin-money, had been the one act of eccentricity of mr stanley's whole life. for some days her grief for her father's loss had been too absorbing to permit of her thinking of much else besides, but on this first day of the new year she felt more able to think, and as she sat alone by the drawing-room fire she began for the first time to realise her position. about one thing she had made up her mind; she must leave this horrible house, where the shadow had fallen on her which she felt just then could never be lifted again. between clare and her father's second wife there had always been perfectly cordial relations, but they were not bound together by any ties of love. mrs stanley had always done her duty to her husband and his child, but hers was a cold nature, and not one which had drawn out clare's heart towards itself. she was now going to stay with her own relatives, and was perfectly willing to take her step-daughter with her; but the girl decided, without much need for reflection, that there would be many things better than to be buried alive in a yorkshire village, with no one more congenial to talk to than mrs stanley or mrs stanley's relations, whom clare had been wont to term 'the fossils.' an unposted letter lay on the little table at her elbow, in which she had accepted an invitation to spend an indefinite time with the quaids. she thought that in london, away from the associations of the recent past, she would be better able to plan out the course of her future life. she knew that that course would now be a very different one from what it would have been had she had the planning of it three months ago, before she met count litvinoff or spent that evening at the cleon. she was sorrowfully glad that her father's will was what it was, for she was conscious in a vague sort of way that wealth meant power, and she was determined that in her hands it should mean power to do good and to make others happy. her plans went no further than this at present, and she knew that even to carry this out she would need teaching and help and counsel from those who had more experience of the world and its needs than she had. it was, perhaps, this thought that had mainly influenced her in her acceptance of mrs quaid's very kind and cordial invitation, for marlborough villa was not the most unlikely place in the world at which to meet some one who had just that which she lacked. there she had first been forced to think; perhaps there she would first be taught how to act. why does one never learn at school the things one needs when one leaves it? 'how much there is to know--how much there is for me to learn,' she said to herself, with a little sigh, leaning forward and gazing into the glowing fire, resting her elbow on her knee and her cheek on her clasped hands. she started and rose at a loud, clanging ring of the door-bell. as she had expected, the servant announced 'count litvinoff.' he came forward with a low and deferential bow. 'you must forgive me,' he said, 'for calling on you on sunday afternoon, which, i believe, is not the rule in england; but i heard that you were leaving aspinshaw to-morrow, and i could not run the risk of not seeing you again.' 'we are always pleased to see you,' said clare; 'but i am not going to london for some time yet. there will be a good deal of law business, i suppose, and it is not fair to carry the trouble of that to my friend's house. is mr roland well?' 'he is on duty,' said litvinoff; 'he has gone to a chapel with his aunt, which is good of him, as his views are not that way.' clare drew a breath of relief. she had not felt comfortable in roland's presence since that interview with litvinoff in the national gallery. 'i myself shall be returning to london in a few weeks,' the young man went on. 'i have already stayed as long as i at first intended to do, but now ferrier is good enough to wish me to stay until the household at thornsett edge is broken up.' 'ah, yes, i had forgotten that. what a horrible thing! what are they going to do?' 'i believe mr roland will live with his aunt at chelsea.' 'we seem to be all going to london,' said clare, with an effort to be as cheerful as possible. 'true; but london is so vast, and in it i know so few people whom you are likely to know, that i feel i might as well be going back to siberia for any chance i shall have of seeing you.' this with the air of one who would as soon go to siberia as not while he was about it. 'oh, i daresay we shall see each other,' she answered, leaning back in her chair and trifling with a big screen of peacock's feathers, which she had idly taken up. 'i'm going to stay with a lady who is madly anxious to know you.' count litvinoff looked intensely surprised, as though that had been almost impossible. 'i think i told you about her,' she continued; 'mrs quaid, who belongs to the cleon, you know, where i heard all about socialism, you remember?' 'oh, yes, i remember,' said litvinoff, which was true. he did. 'i do hope i shall see you again, because you and mr petrovitch are the only two people i know who can help me.' 'it is a great privilege my fellow-countryman shares with me, miss stanley. may i be the first to hear of what help you stand in need?' 'i daresay you have heard,' she answered, 'that my father'--here her voice trembled a little--'has left me nearly all his money, and it is mine now, though i am not of age.' ah, no, count litvinoff had certainly not heard that. 'and then, you see,' she went on, knitting her brows under the stress of the difficulty she found in putting her thoughts into words, 'the question is, what am i to do with it? a little time ago i should have found it easy enough to do with it what every one else does; but i have been thinking a great deal--a very great deal lately--ever since i heard mr petrovitch; and now i feel the responsibility of it so much more than i should have done before.' count litvinoff thought to himself that that was the sort of responsibility he was admirably adapted to share. he merely looked sympathetic, and miss stanley went on. 'and then i feel sure money may be a fearful curse if one doesn't use it properly. of course, i can't disguise from myself that this money was made in the usual way, and that others have lost all that my father and his father have gained, and i wish i could think of some way in which it might give as much happiness as it would have done had it been left in the hands of the workers who toiled to produce it. you are one who should be able to advise me. what shall i do?' litvinoff's hair almost stood on end. this was getting his own coin back with a vengeance. 'my dear miss stanley,' he said gravely, 'if i were to advise you in the only way which seems possible to me now, your friends would all look upon me as your worst enemy--as an adventurer, as a rogue. whereas i desire to be looked on as your faithful friend and servant--as the man who, more than all others, would go through fire and water to do you the slightest service.' 'i should hardly have thought you would have cared what my friends or anybody else thought of you,' was miss stanley's only reply to this fervid declaration. 'under most circumstances,' said the count, with a little wave of his hand, 'i do care for nothing and for nobody; but'--he went on, with a slight tremor in his voice--'rather than incur the dislike of any one whom you respect and love, i would abjure every principle, and sacrifice every cause.' 'i asked for advice,' said clare, not seeing her way to a more direct answer. 'i know you did,' he spoke rapidly, dropping into a foreign accent; 'and i--i cannot give it you, miss stanley. let me tell you one thing. you know--you have heard, you have read--how in russia, when money is wanted for our cause, it is the duty of some of us to get it--to persuade it out of those who have. that has often been my duty, and i have never failed. i have taken, over and over again, all, all from those as young as you, and have left them with nothing. i have had to raise enthusiasm by every means, to urge to self-sacrifice, and then to take unsparingly. there are men now, my _friends_, who, if they knew that you--rich, young, enthusiastic--had asked me for _advice_, and that i had refused to give it, would say, "michael litvinoff has become traitor," and would kill me like a rat. but,' he went on, rising and stretching out his clenched fist, 'did i know that a legion of such men were outside that door, armed and waiting for me, and hearing every word i speak, i would still say that for no cause in the world must you make sacrifices or must you suffer; and i would still say that i would serve you before all causes.' 'count litvinoff, i can hear no more of this. please talk of something else.' 'ah! now yet once more i have offended you. it is part of my unhappy lot that whenever i speak in earnest i offend you. but i can't talk of something else to-day. i must say adieu, miss stanley. if i stayed i should disobey you, and i cannot disobey you.' 'good-bye, then,' said clare, extending her hand. he caught her hand, held it tightly an instant, bent over it as though he were about to raise it to his lips, then dropped it as if it had burned him. 'adieu,' he said, 'i know that in england the hand-shake means forgivenness, and that once more i am forgiven--for speaking the truth--and that i may see you again.' clare did not gainsay it, and he left the room. count litvinoff was marching back to thornsett with a very elate step, and a good deal of military swagger, and clare had resumed her thinking--she was thinking of him, and he was thinking of her. he thought aloud, as usual. 'h'm,' he said to the grey stone walls on each side of him, and to the plovers who were wheeling and screaming overhead, '_la belle_ was offended, but not so much. when she thinks over it she will say,--"he is not a good patriot and friend of liberty, this litvinoff, for he forgets his mistress, _la révolution_; therefore he is unfaithful." ay, but she will add, "he only forgets her when i am near, and he is only unfaithful for me," _c'est bien--c'est bien--c'est très bien!_' he added, vaulting a gate and making a short cut home. chapter xxi. friends in council. 'going out again, john?' spoke mrs hatfield, a little plaintively, as her husband rose and took down his hat from its peg, ten days after thornsett mill had been closed. not closed for a day on account of a wedding, as had once been suggested, but closed, it might be for ten years, or practically for ever. 'ay, lass,' said her husband shortly, but not unkindly; 'ah should go clean daft if ah stayed i' the house. lazying about don't suit me--it's only my betters as takes their pleasure i' that way.' 'tha'lt do no good down at t' spotted cow,' returned mrs hatfield, compressing her lips; 'tha might as well be idle i' tha own house as wi' all they gomerils--spending tha money too, as if tha was i' full work.' 'well,' he said, pausing with his hand on the back of the settle where she sat, 'we'll all have to be shifting out o' this soon, and tha knows, lass, as ah were never one to drink nor to talk out o' season. ah mun hear where the lads is going for work. it won't ne'er do for us a' to be going the same way.' 'it seems hard tha should have to go after work at tha time o' life, john. but likely it's as hard for rowley and dick as for thee and me. poor lads, poor lads! ah, heaven help us a' in this hard world.' 'they're fur enow fro' want, tha may be sure, or they wouldn't ha' sacrificed the mill to their mucky pride. it's little they care who starves, so long as they have enow. tha must remember as what they'd call being poor we'd call being rich. "hard up" for a gentleman ud be enow and to spare for a working man.' and he went out, slamming the door behind him, and his wife took up her knitting with a sigh. she could rarely follow her husband in his reasonings, but troubles are not the less hard to bear because we don't clearly see their causes. they had saved a little money, but that would soon be gone, and then there would be nothing before them but 'the house.' both their sons were away--one a sailor, and the other in a warehouse in liverpool--but neither was earning enough to be able to help their parents. vaguely she hoped that her husband might take it into his head to go to london for work. an idea is prevalent in the provinces that in london there is work for every one, and besides, alice had written from london, and there would be a chance of finding her poor lost child and bringing her back. the sudden closing of the mill made affairs indeed terribly serious for most of the men in thornsett. it was in the middle of winter, when journeying was not pleasant, nor work easy to get; and though the 'hands' employed in the mill had been told that it would close, very, very few among them had made any effort to secure other work before the time for closing came. perhaps it had seemed to them that the closing of the mill was one of those calamities too terrible to happen. but it had happened, and after ten days of idleness the men were beginning to see clearly what it would mean to them. for there was no other work to be got within anything like easy reach of the village; and even if work could be obtained somewhere else, the little community must be broken up, and each family must separate itself from friends and neighbours and relatives in order to journey thither. this alone is thought a terrible calamity for middle-class men and women, but it is the least of the troubles which are always hanging over the heads of the workers. the exodus that must shortly take place had not yet begun, but every one knew that it could not now be long delayed; and potters and the few other tradespeople being, of course, involved in the general distress, could no longer give credit. this had never been withheld in slack times, when the shopkeepers knew that good ones were certain to come in which the scores would be wiped off or reduced very considerably; but now there was no chance of things growing brighter again, and even the small accounts then owing were not very likely ever to be paid. during the past ten days, as the men's money was being spent, and as the want of work gave them more time to reason on the causes of their trouble, a strong feeling of resentment had been growing up among them against the two young masters, who had held, as it were, the happiness, the comfort, perhaps the lives, of all these men in their hands, and had thrown all to the dogs rather than humble their own insensate pride and abate their own insensate obstinacy. this feeling had found vent, not only in the scowls and black looks on which litvinoff had commented, but in certain faint groans and hisses with which roland had been greeted on more than one occasion when he passed down the village street. what right had these two, on whose forbearance and good fellowship hung the fate of all these families, to go quarrelling with each other? 'it's a' their darn'd selfishness,' murdoch was saying, just as hatfield kicked open the door of the tap-room at the spotted cow, and passed in. 'what's the odds to them if we clem or if we dunna't?' 'it's my belief,' said potters bitterly, 'as they done it to show their independence.' 'they might have hit on a cheaper way,' growled hatfield, as murdoch and sigley made room for him to sit between them. 'cheaper! why, what's cheaper nor our flesh and blood?' asked murdoch, with a snarl. 'they can afford to chuck a little o' that away. they can get more of it when they want it easy enow.' 'ay, that's it, lad,' said hatfield. 'it's the flesh and blood o' some o' us that's here still, and more o' us that's dead and gone, that's made the bit o' money they'll live on for the rest o' their days.' 'well, i don't quite see that,' muttered sigley, with his usual meekness. 'they've always paid fair wages.' 'yes,' answered hatfield. 'ah never said they took it for nothing. they paid for it right enow, but they bought it cheap, lad--they bought it cheap, and they sold it at a good profit. we've nowt but our flesh and blood to sell, and now we mun carry it to another market.' 'if you mean your work,' put in the landlord, 'i don't see as you ought to talk i' that way. they paid you your own price for your work, anyhow.' 'no,' said hatfield. 'they paid us what we was forced to take.' 'thou'dst always some sense i' tha head, john,' broke in old murdoch approvingly. 'tha was na here when.... d'ye mind, bolt, the night after t'owd master's burying, tha made the lads drink t' young masters' health? ask them to drink it now!' the murmur of ironical assent which went round the room showed that murdoch had expressed the sense of the meeting. he had been rising in importance daily, ever since the announcement of the mill's closing. he had always been the prophet of calamity, and now that his worst prophecies had been more than fulfilled he was looked upon as little less than inspired. 'well,' said bolt deprecatingly, 'who could ha' foreseen things turning out i' this way? and as for asking them to drink their healths, why they ain't their masters now. so where's the use?' 'it do seem hard, it do,' murmured sigley, who went to chapel regularly, 'when a man have saved up a bit to have it all swept away in a rushing, mighty wind, and us left, like pharaoh's lean kine, to make bricks without straw. the whole creation groaneth!...' 'well, don't groan here,' interrupted murdoch grimly; 'tha'd best do tha groanin' wi' the rest o' creation at t' chapel; and well mayst tha groan there if tha hears tell o' cows makin' bricks.' 'them as don't believe in the bible,' said sigley impressively, giving voice to a very popular belief, 'can't look for a blessing.' 'nor yet them as does, it seems.' 'what ah was going to say was this--as we should take comfort, thinking as we ain't the only ones.' 'comfort, tha loon!--that's the hell of it! damn the man, says i, as can find comfort i' t' thought o' other men's misery!' it was hatfield who spoke, and as he spoke he brought his fist down on the table with a bang that made the glasses ring. 'how tha does take on, john,' said bolt. 'what sigley meant was only as it shows you ain't to blame, seeing as so many others is in the same fix.' sigley did not confirm this interpretation. he only shook his head, with the air of one who had meant something much more pious and profound. 'you're wrong _again_,' said hatfield loudly. he had risen and faced the room, which was now pretty full. while this talk had been going on, men had dropped in by twos and threes, and all that had been said had been listened to with profound attention. 'you're wrong again! it _is_ our faults, and the faults of all like us. our fathers might have altered it. we might alter it now if we had but the spunk to take it in hand; and, if we don't, them as comes after us will, and'll curse us for leaving them the work to do. didn't none o' ye ever hear tell o' the elephant that lets himself be led and mastered by one he could smash with a shake o' his poll? and why? because, the books tell us, _he doesna know his own strength_. but he doesna fare so bad as we. he gets well fed and well looked after because it costs summat to replace him, and we lets oursels be led and drove and starved, when it suits 'em, by a set as we could chase out o' the world to-morrow if we but stood together and acted like men.' a thrill of excited sympathy ran through the room as old murdoch shouted,-- 'right again! that's it, john; tha's got it! a score thousand o' your pattern and there'd be an end to men being turned out o' their homes to clem i' midwinter because two young devils both wants the same lass!' 'it's all very well, hatfield,' said potters sourly; 'but tha's one face for us and another face for t' gentlefolk. that warn't no working man as i've see comin' out o' your house time and again this last three week.' 'no, he ain't. he's more o' the right stuff in his little finger nor you and all like you put together has got in your whole bodies. there, take that, potters!' 'whatever he's got in him, he seems pretty thick with young roland ferrier,' said a man who had not spoken before. 'he did his best to stop their quarrelling,' hatfield answered hotly; 'because he knew what it would be for all o' us; and he's been chased out o' his own country and lost nearly all his brass for standing up for the likes o' we.' 'yes, i've had a bit o' talk with him, too; that's true enough.' 'ay! he's no fool, nor no coward neither.' 'he's a true friend o' working men, he is, if he is a count.' litvinoff, it will be seen, had not lost his opportunities while he had been at thornsett, for nearly every man present had something to say in his favour. 'but seeing as he's such a friend o' mr roland's, why don't he do something to stop this set-out?' 'what can he do?' 'he might speak to him about it.' 'look'ee here, lads,' said clayton, an old man who had not spoken before, 'ah've been a-turnin' o' this thing over i' my head, and this is what ah come to. if so be as young ferrier's like to listen to any one, would he listen first to a new-fangled furrin' chap, or to all o' us honest lads as has known him since he was so high? has any of you spoke to him? has any one of you put it straight to him--this is the way of it, and this and this? m'appen this fooling o' theirs was just through ignorance. they might ha' thought it didna matter to any but them, and if once they knowed a' as it means, m'appen they'd think better owt, and let things go the old way.' 'old heads is worth most, arter all,' said john bolt, who was of a hopeful nature and turned to the new idea as a relief from his former visions of empty benches and deserted bar,--of a time when there would be nothing to chalk up but his own losses, and when adulterated beer would seem what it was, a drug in the market. 'why shouldn't some of you do as he says, and go and see him and speak him reasonable?' a great difference of opinion arose at once on the new idea, but nearly all were in their hearts glad to try a new chance, and at last old clayton, from whom the suggestion had come, said,-- 'well, sithee, if any of you lads'll come wi' me, dang me if i'll not go this very night--this very minute.' 'you'd better all go,' advised potters; 'it would be more telling like.' 'all o' us isn't here,' murmured sigley. 'get 'em here,' said clayton shortly. 'if two or three o' ye was to go round and tell the other lads what's towards, they'd come too, and we'd have one more try at getting things righted here, afore we all turns different ways and never sees each other's faces again.' no sooner said than done. men are ready at all times to follow any one who will act, or even to act themselves if prompted with sufficient energy. in less than half an hour over a hundred men were assembled outside the spotted cow, and were prepared to go up to thornsett edge to try to open again the doors of the workshop which a dead hand had closed against them. but their faith was strong in the power of a young and living hand, and they went with a new hope in their hearts. 'we'll all go up,' said old clayton, who had assumed the position of leader, 'but only a few of us had best go in. let's see--you, and you, and you. you'll be one, hatfield, and murdoch makes five.' 'not me,' snarled murdoch sourly; 'no eatin' dirt for me. i ain't never humbled myself to no man, and i ain't a-goin' to begin now, to a young chap as ah worked along o' his father manys a long day.' 'not me, neither,' said hatfield, 'for ah know aforehand as it's too late. but don't you mind us. go your own way, and here's luck to you.' he and murdoch stood at the door with bolt and potters, and a few more who, not having been employed in the mill, were considered not to have any place in the deputation. they watched the crowd out of sight up the steep street, and the women turned out to watch their men go by. it was a clear, frosty night, and bitterly cold, but most of the women rolled their bare arms in their aprons and stood talking in little knots after the procession had passed out of sight. they were more hopeful than their husbands, for women are naturally more trusting than men and believe more in the possibility of altering facts by emotional influences. to murdoch and hatfield, in spite of their assumption of indifference, the time seemed very long as it went by and brought them no news of their comrades. after half an hour bill suggested that they should stroll up the hill to meet the others and learn how it fared with them. chapter xxii. a forlorn hope. if the frequenters of the spotted cow had only known, this was about the most unpropitious moment for obtaining a hearing for their petition. a hearing was all they could possibly obtain for it, but that they did not know either. litvinoff's host had not found him as great a comfort as he had expected. for one thing, the count's almost universal sympathy seemed unaccountably to stop short at roland ferrier. the young man felt that he had been terribly ill-used and naturally expected every one else to see things in the same light, and it was 'riling' to find all the sympathy of his guest turned, not towards him, but towards his workmen, which did not seem reasonable; for, as roland said, they could get other work, but where was he to get another mill? then he did not like a certain change which he noticed in the other's tone when he spoke of miss stanley. he had sympathy enough for her, goodness knows--a trifle too much roland sometimes thought. for litvinoff to be a bore was impossible; but still it did happen rather often that he would bring forward political economy of the most startling pattern when the other wanted to talk literature, or art, or personal grievances. on this particular night roland had been led, much against his will, into a discussion of the nature which litvinoff so much affected, and he had to admit to himself that, as usual, he had much the worst of it. 'it's all very well,' he said (people always say, 'it's all very well,' when they can find no other answer to an argument); 'it's all very well, and that sort of thing may do for russia, but you will never get an economic or any other revolution here-- why what the deuce is all that row?' 'that row' was a tramping of many feet on the gravel, and a hum of voices just outside the window. litvinoff, who was sitting nearer the window, rose and looked through the laths of the venetian blinds. 'well, my dear ferrier,' he said, turning round with a smile, 'it strikes me that there _is_ a revolution in england, and that it has begun at thornsett. the whole population of derbyshire appears to have assembled in your front garden--yes, that's it, evidently,' he went on, as a ring was given to the door bell, 'and they are going to try gentle measures to begin with, just as i have always advised,' he concluded, for the ring was not a loud one. roland had risen from his easy-chair and had made towards the window, when the door opened and the maid announced that clayton and one or two of the hands wanted to speak to mr ferrier. 'show them in,' said roland curtly; and, as she withdrew, 'one or two,' echoed litvinoff; 'that young woman's ideas on the subject of numbers are limited and primitive. now, ferrier, just repeat those arguments you have been using against me, and i doubt not, so lucid and convincing are they, that they will reconcile clayton and the "hands" here to the starvation that awaits them.' only three men followed old clayton as he entered the room. 'well, my men,' said roland ferrier, turning to them, and with a faint irritation in his tone, as litvinoff, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece, waved a recognition to the deputation, 'what can i do for you at this time of night?' 'well, sir,' began clayton, 'me and my mates here has come to speak to you for ourselves and them as is outside.' 'who are numerous and noisy,' murmured the count softly to himself. 'well, go on,' said roland, chafing. 'we knows well enow,' continued the old man, 'as it ain't all your doing as t' mill's to stop, but we thowt as you might work things so as to make it easier for us. it's on'y nat'ral as you shouldn't know till it's put to you what stoppin' work 'ill mean to most of us. what 'ill it mean? why, hard want is what it 'ill mean, and clemming to more nor one. so wot we've come to ask is, won't you keep the works on till summer comes, and let the stoppin' be a bit less sudden like, and give us time to get other work? this is bitter weather, and it's bitter hard as we must all leave our homes just because--' he paused in some confusion. 'because what?' asked roland sharply. 'because our masters has fell out,' struck in no. of the deputation. 'look here, my men,' roland stamped his foot impatiently, 'i thought i made it perfectly clear to you a month ago that the closing of this mill was no fault of mine. do you take me for a born fool? do you suppose i should throw away this money if i could help it? don't you know i lose as much as any of you? as much? i lose more than all of you put together.' 'oh, just division of profits!' murmured litvinoff confidentially to the clock on the mantelpiece. 'you've had long enough notice of this,' roland went on, casting a goaded glance at litvinoff; 'why didn't you get work elsewhere?' 'we hoped it 'ud blow over. we thought perhaps you'd make it up with mr richard; and we thought to-night as perhaps, if we told you straight out, you'd go to him.' 'damn!' hissed roland, between his teeth. 'i wish,' he went on, raising his voice, 'you wouldn't talk about things you don't understand. what's the use of coming up like this in the middle of the night, interfering in my private affairs; for i'd have you know my brother and i have a perfect right to close the mill or keep it open as we choose. as for you, clayton, you're old enough to know better than to come up here at midnight with all the riff-raff of the village at your heels.' 'no more riff-raff than yourself!' this from the youngest deputy. 'hold tha noise, jim!' said old clayton. 'the other lads has come up, sir, because they thought there mout be some good news, and they'd like to hear 'em as soon as mout be.' 'well, they've had their tramp for nothing. that's all the news i've got for them, and much good may it do them.' 'well, well, sir,' said clayton, 'we didn't mean no harm. i'll tell 'em what you say. good-night, sir!' 'good-night, clayton!' roland spoke a little more gently. 'i'm sorry i can do nothing for you.' the deputation turned to go. litvinoff walked across the room and shook hands with each man as he passed out of the door. 'good-night, my friends!' he said. 'keep your tempers. this unfortunate business is no one's fault. it's the fault of the system we all live under.' the door closed upon the last man. roland turned angrily on his guest. 'i can't imagine,' he said, with asperity, 'how a man who is so sensible about most things can take the part of these unreasonable idiots!' 'my dear ferrier,' relighting the cigar which had gone out in the excitement of the moment, 'of course i've the very greatest sympathy with you in this painful business, and i know how little it is your fault, but now, as always, i'm on the side of the workers, and you know i never disguise my views.' 'so it appears,' roland was beginning, when the murmur of voices outside gave place to a single voice--that of one of the deputies, who seemed to be speaking to the men. ferrier and his guest could hear the shuffling of many feet on the gravel as the men crowded round the speaker. when he stopped there was a tumult of hissing and yelling and groaning--a noise as of a very pandemonium let loose. roland turned to litvinoff. 'i hope you're proud of your precious _protégés_?' he said, and at the same moment a voice outside cried,-- 'let's smash the cursed walls in!' old clayton's voice sounded thin and shrill above the uproar. 'don't be fools, lads! come away! let un alone! come home! we'll do no good here.' the men seemed to hesitate a minute, and then to obey, reluctantly moving towards the gate. 'they have gone without doing anything very serious, you see,' said the count; but even as he spoke a big stone, thrown by some strong hand, came crashing through the window, and rolled, muddy and grey, on to the edge of the soft fur hearthrug. 'damn!' cried roland furiously, 'i'll have the fellow who did that, anyway.' he made a dash for the door, but litvinoff caught him by the shoulders, and there was a struggle, silent and brief, which ended in roland's standing still, and looking at the other savagely. 'stay where you are, for god's sake!' shouted the count; 'they've only done you five shillings' worth of damage now, but they'll perhaps add murder to it if you go outside. do be reasonable, ferrier. there, they've gone now; and if you went out you couldn't identify the man who did it.' roland turned away, and flung himself sulkily into a chair by the fire. 'i suppose you're right,' he said; 'but i shall be deuced glad to be out of the whole thing.' it was perhaps as well for roland's self-esteem and peace of mind that he did not hear the strictures that were passed upon him by the men as they returned towards the village. hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when a new-born hope is killed, and killed cruelly and suddenly, there comes sometimes something more terrible than heart-sickness and more dangerous. the moon had flung aside the slight mist which had covered her face earlier in the evening, and now shone full on the valley, towards which the crowd were making their way. as they turned the corner which brought them in sight of the mill whose doors none of them were to pass again, a burst of curses and oaths broke from the men and fell on the still air, violating and outraging the peace and beauty of the night. at this moment hatfield and murdoch, walking together from the village to meet them, came up and were promptly informed of the result of the interview. 'ay, ay, lads!' said old murdoch. 'what did ah tell ye? as ah thowt.' then looking down at the mill he pointed towards it, and went on in a loud voice, 'ye shall best have another try now. go down and beg o' t' door-posts o' t' owd mill to take ye on again. ye'll be as likely to get a good hearing fro' them as ye were fro' t' young puppy up yonder; and they'll not be laughing at ye as soon as yer turned, anyway.' this last suggestion had the effect that murdoch probably wished it to have. at once a dozen voices were raised for going back to thornsett edge, and not leaving a pane of glass in the window-sashes. the man who had thrown the stone before at once became a small hero, and met with numerous offers of assistance in going back and completing the work he had begun. not a few of the men were excited by drink as well as by rage, having taken considerably more than was good for them before they started on the forlorn hope, and the excitement of these men communicated itself by those mysterious means which only manifest themselves on these occasions to the men who were sober. roland ferrier's words, passing from mouth to mouth, had been added to and altered so much that in the prevailing state of mind each man felt that he personally had been insulted and outraged by the man of whom he had asked the small favour of being allowed to continue to work until the winter-tide had passed. the idea of returning and wrecking the ferriers' house became every moment more and more popular, and the crowd had actually faced round and begun that swaying movement which in an undisciplined body always, for a moment or two, precedes a start, when hatfield spoke out at the top of his voice,-- 'see here,' he said. 'in a few weeks now we shall all be gone to different parts, some on us to "the house." most like, when that's done, when we're tramping the country far an' wide, and seeking the work we're turned out of here, they two'--pointing towards thornsett edge--''ll get tired o' goin' without their brass so long, maybe, an' 'ill make up the quarrel, and come back and start the mill again, with a new lot o' hands, to live i' our homes and eat the bread we're done out off.' this new view of the case was received with a moment's silence by the hands; then a voice from the rear spoke out,--'na, na, they 'ont, not if i can stop it; let's break t' ow'd mill to bits, and give the new hands the job to build it up again afore they work it.' this suggestion, probably because its adoption was a trifle less dangerous than wrecking a house, some of whose inmates were young men--possibly young men with firearms--was received with almost unanimous applause. in less time than it takes to tell, a hundred pieces of the rock of which the derbyshire walls are built had begun to rattle on the roof and smash the windows of the mill below, and two or three pairs of strong arms had torn away a huge boulder of grey stone which, held in its place by creepers and earth, overhung the descent, and had set it rolling down the steep decline. it bounded on to the slated roof of the mill, and with a great crash went right through it, leaving a large black gap. then the men set up a yell that made the country round ring again. when it had died away old murdoch, who was beside himself with excitement, shouted out, 'why waste yer time i' chuckin' stones at the danged place, lads? get down t' hill and burn it to the ground.' another yell of approval greeted the proposition, and in a few seconds the hill-top was deserted, and the crowd, swayed by an irresistible impulse, was scrambling down the rocky decline and making for the mill. the shout that had been sent up when the hole had been knocked in the roof had reached the quick ears of count litvinoff sitting smoking in silence opposite his host. he got out of his chair. 'i have a bit of a headache to-night,' he said, 'i don't think arguing agrees with me. i'll just go and take a turn across the moor.' 'all right,' said roland. 'i won't turn in till you come back.' litvinoff sauntered out of the room and across the hall, took a stout oak stick from the hall-stand, and, opening the front-door, strolled leisurely down the carriage drive. but directly he was out in the road he pulled his hat down tightly upon his ears, vaulted a low stone wall and set off running in the direction of the mill as though a thousand devils were following at his heels. chapter xxiii. fire! to run at full speed across a derbyshire moor by the uncertain light of a wintry moon is a feat not unattended with difficulty and danger, especially when the runner is not quite accustomed to the course; but it would have taken greater pitfalls than even those moors present to have made count litvinoff choose a longer and easier way. for when that shout had been borne to him on the wind he scented excitement and danger, and excitement and danger were to him as the breath of life. he was almost certain that the men meant mischief, and he intended to do his best to prevent it. his sympathies really were, as he had told roland, entirely with them, and he was genuinely anxious that they should not add a criminal prosecution for riot to their other troubles. at the same time he looked forward with some pleasure to the scene in which he was now hastening to take a part. he had been in a fretful and irritable state of mind ever since he had left london, and he cordially welcomed a row, and did not care much if in that row he got a knock on the head that would put an end to his visit and his life at the same time. at any rate, the situation offered a chance of action, and it was action more than anything that he had been longing for lately. as he got nearer the valley in which the mill lay he was able to form a better idea of what was toward, for the shouts seemed to get louder and louder. he quickened his pace at the moment when he reached the brow of the hill, from the foot of which all the noise and clamour arose, and paused, looking down; a lurid flash of flame lighted up for an instant the semi-darkness before him, and as suddenly died out again. '_diable!_' he said. 'i shall be too late for anything. i have some power over men, but i am not a fire-engine--' he made the descent rather more cautiously, though not much less rapidly, than he had done the rest of the journey, and pushed his way through the little wood to within a hundred yards or so of the mill. then he stopped, peering forward to ascertain the exact state of things before he went on. the mill was not one of those square, many-windowed blocks which remind one of children's toy-houses, but a group of irregular buildings of all sorts and sizes, built of grey stone and roofed with slate. there was a paved yard surrounded by outhouses, some mere sheds of wood and thatch, and it was round the outhouse nearest to the mill itself that the men were crowding. there was plenty of light now for litvinoff to discern every detail of the scene before him, for two sheds were on fire and burning merrily in the frosty air. the door of a certain room where he remembered to have seen quantities of cotton waste and inflammable rubbish, and which opened directly on to the yard, had been battered in by the men, and, the hinges having given way, hung crookedly by its strained, bent, but still strong, lock. some of the men were hurrying to and fro between this room and the outbuilding, carrying armfuls of wood and straw, and these men were for the most part silent. the shouting, of which there was a good deal, was done by those who were doing nothing else. count litvinoff had not been the only one to hear that first yell, and to interpret it as the note of something unusual, for dark heads were moving along the brow of the hill on the other side, and dark figures were hurrying down the stone steps. the situation was obvious, and it was obvious too that no time was to be lost, for the crowd was becoming wilder and wilder, drunk with the strong wine of excitement as well as with the more habitual beer. rioting, like everything else, grows by what it feeds on, and the higher the flames went the higher rose the cries that accompanied them. there is always something exciting about a fire--in the breaking loose of the tremendous force which we keep mostly as our servant. the fire was still small enough to be quenched if its originators so chose, but they saw well enough that soon it would be beyond their control, and would be their master in the place where it had been their slave. and they, too, had broken from their old place to-night. they were no longer the humble dependants of a rich man. their hand was against him, and against all his class, and the new sense of independent, self-chosen action was intoxicating them all, and had driven far from them all thought of forbearance or of fear. for there was danger to the men themselves in this hell they were making. the out-buildings and the mill formed a square, and, once kindled, all would burn rapidly; and, from the slight eminence where he stood, the onlooker, cool and free from the madness that surged in the brain of the actors, could see plainly that the incendiaries ran a very fair chance of being caught in their own trap, and of perishing like rats in a barn. the big iron gates were closed immovably, and the only exit was by a narrow door. if once a panic began, and the men lost their heads in trying to pass this door, there might be a tragedy more terrible than litvinoff cared to contemplate. he knew that if once the fire began in the mill itself there would be no chance of saving it, or anything else, and he could see that the men were beginning to drag burning fragments from the out-buildings, and he knew that they would be dragged to that room with the broken-in door. he paused no longer. that door was the _point d'appui_ of the defence, and for that door he made. he came rapidly down the hill and along the path that led to the little gate by which alone entrance to the yard could be effected. in the confusion of hurrying figures no one noticed the one figure more which, in a few strides, crossed the yard and planted itself just inside that broken door. count litvinoff glanced behind him and by the lurid glare of the burning timber opposite he could see the pile of straw and faggots in the room ready for the horrible bonfire. just inside the lintel of the door something lay on the floor, gleaming redly in the firelight. he picked it up; it was a light, bright, long-handled steel hatchet. 'aha,' he said; 'this is a gift from the gods!' as he faced the yard, a great noise of mingled cheers and shouts went up from the crowd. it was not because they had seen their solitary opponent, but because the attack on what they thought the undefended mill was about to begin in earnest. all the active members of the riot were making for the door, headed by half-a-dozen stalwart fellows dragging blazing timbers. 'stop!' shouted litvinoff, in a voice that rang above the confused shouting of the crowd like a trumpet call. and stop they did--and for quite twenty seconds held their tongues, to boot. then arose a storm of indignation and derision when they saw that only one man stood in the way. they could not see who he was, and they cared little. the leaders made a forward movement, when-- 'stop!' he cried again, and his tones rose clear above the yells of the rioters, and were heard by timorous listeners on the hillside. 'stop, and clear out of this as quick as you can get! get to your homes, you fools!' 'clear out yourself,' said a ringleader, 'or we'll clear you out!' but the forward movement had stopped. a parley had begun, and litvinoff always felt that a chance of speaking meant for him a chance of winning. 'put out that fire, and get back to your homes!' he cried. 'i've come down here to save you from penal servitude, and i mean to do it. not a man of you gets inside this door!' by this time all the crowd had come up, and formed a semicircle in front of him, about fifteen yards off. they could see his face better than he could see theirs, for the light of the flames behind them fell full upon him. he was deadly pale, but he looked deadly determined too. there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and a gleam still more dangerous from the bright blade of the axe which he had swung up on to his shoulder. standing on the raised step of the door he looked tall and strong and bold. already the effect of this lion in the path made itself felt, for a faint cheer went up from the outside edge of the crowd, and a voice cried,-- 'he's right. let un be, lads--let un be, and go yer ways home.' 'all those of you who've got any sense left turn round and put out that fire. the work you've done to-night already is worth ten years in prison.' 'then let's finish our work, lads, and earn our wages! ten years' good feedin's better nor a month's clemmin',' shouted a burly young fellow of some six feet. 'well said, isaac potts!' cried more than one. 'dang his cheek! heave him out of it!' and some half-dozen rushed forward to suit the action to the word, foremost among them isaac potts. in the position litvinoff had taken up, it was impossible for more than one man to attack him at a time. as the young mill hand, armed with a piece of wood still smouldering redly, sprang to lead the attack, a woman's voice--his sweetheart's--sounded shrilly from behind the crowd,-- 'keep back, isaac--keep back; he'll brain thee for sure!' the warning was unheeded, or, if the young man heard it, it only urged him on. he stopped an instant, hurled the wood at litvinoff's head, and sprang forward to follow up his missile. the aim was not a good one. the brand only hit the door lintel, struck out a shower of sparks, and fell across the step. it was an unlucky miss for isaac. litvinoff planted one foot firmly, and gave his axe a swing. it came down crashing through collar-bone and shoulder blade, and almost severing the arm from the body. isaac staggered back upon the men behind him, covering them with blood as he fell. there was a silence of a moment, which seemed long. the crowd drew a deep breath. all the devil in litvinoff's nature was roused now. 'come on, you madmen!' he cried, as he recovered himself and brought his axe to the shoulder again. 'come on! get into this room now if you can!' but the general ambition to get into that room was a little damped somehow, and the few who had been close on isaac's heels fell back, and left him alone, all but one man, who stood glaring into litvinoff's eyes. he held a heavy iron bar in his hand. 'back you go, or down you go!' shouted litvinoff, making a step towards him, and giving the axe a swing in the air. the man did not wait for the blow. he retreated, and joined the crowd just as the girl who had shrieked that warning tore her way through to the place where her lover was lying, and bent over him. litvinoff brought his weapon to his side. then he said quietly,-- 'i told you none of you should get into this room, and none of you shall, by god! if i have to treat twenty of you to the same fare as this poor fellow. if you're sane men, pick him up and see to him, and perhaps nothing worse may come to you after all. remember that every man who does not help to put that fire out breaks the law. for heaven's sake be reasonable men. there are some here who know me. do you think i care for this cursed mill? i came down here to save _you_. help me to do it.' the moderate party was a good deal stronger by this time; the axe had been a first-rate argument. 'well done, sir!' 'quite right, sir!' 'hear, hear!' went up from the crowd, and two or three men came forward. litvinoff resumed his defensive attitude, but they were not for attack. they busied themselves with their wounded friend. 'is john hatfield there?' called litvinoff, seeing that he had prevailed. 'i want him. hatfield, can't you manage to get a dozen of your friends to put out that fire? the best thing you can do is to knock down the sheds on each side, and then it will burn itself out and do no harm.' 'we will, sir,' hatfield answered. 'you're right; this has been a mad night's work.' all danger of further riot was at an end. the men who had been foremost in the work of destruction had made off as quickly as possible, and those who were left worked zealously under hatfield's orders. the wounded man was carried off on a shutter to the nearest cottage. the fire was effectually put out with water from the reservoir. the men loafed off in twos and threes, and darkness and quiet settled down once more on thornsett. litvinoff and hatfield remained till the last lingerer had left. then hatfield said,-- 'ah suppose this means the 'sizes for a goodish few o' us.' 'i hope not,' litvinoff answered; 'i'll do my best for you--that is, i shall not know who was here to-night. but i advise you to clear out as early as you can to-morrow, and, if your friends who were in this business are wise, they'll do the same. where have they taken that fellow i knocked over? i'd better go and see after him.' they turned their back on the mill, and climbed the hill to the cottage, where the doctor who had been sent for was already busy with his patient. 'is he going to live?' litvinoff asked sharply. 'i think so,' was the answer; 'the greatest danger is loss of blood. he has been bleeding like a bull.' 'oh, you must pull him through it, doctor,' said the count. he slipped some gold into the hand of the woman who owned the cottage. 'let him have everything the doctor orders, and you'll do all you can, i know. i'll be down to-morrow.' he looked towards the girl who was crouching at the head of the bed as though he would have spoken to her, but seemed to think better of it, and rejoined hatfield outside. 'i think he'll be all right,' he said, holding his hand out. 'good-bye, hatfield; don't forget what i said. drop me a line to the post office, charing cross, london, to say where you are; and do let me beg of you, if it's only for your wife's sake, not to get mixed up in any more of this sort of thing. it must be on a much bigger scale before it'll be successful, my boy,' he ended, resuming his most frivolous manner, and turning away. 'i think i deserve a cigar,' he said to himself, as he started on the long return walk, by the road this time. and he lighted one accordingly. about a quarter of a mile from thornsett he met roland ferrier, who was walking quickly along, gates by his side. 'where have you come from?' the former asked abruptly. 'here's gates tells me the men are burning the mill, and i don't know what beside.' 'oh, no, no,' the count answered lightly; 'there's been a little orating and so forth, in which i have borne a distinguished part, but it's all over now. they wound up with a hymn or two, and went home to their wives. come along back. i'll tell you all about it when we get in,' and, catching an arm of each, he wheeled them round and marched them back to thornsett edge. chapter xxiv. after the fire. before daybreak next morning john hatfield had taken count litvinoff's advice, and he and several others who had borne an active part in the night's work had shaken the dust of thornsett off their feet and taken their departure in various directions. had they not been quite so precipitate their leave-taking might have been more dignified and less secret, for litvinoff's confidence in his own powers of diplomacy had been more than justified. when, somewhat to his chagrin, his eloquence failed to reconcile roland ferrier to the idea of taking no legal steps to punish the intending incendiaries--for, in spite of the way in which the count had watered the story down, roland had managed to get a pretty accurate idea of the truth--he made a hasty journey over to aspinshaw. he found miss stanley in a state of great excitement about the events of the night before, of which she had heard a very much embroidered and highly-coloured version. 'oh, count litvinoff,' she said, coming forward to meet him, 'i am so glad you have come. i have just sent two of the servants down to thornsett to find out who was hurt. mr clarke, of thorpe, has just been here, and told us that you saved so many lives last night.' 'saved so many lives last night!' repeated litvinoff. 'they must have been the lives of rats and mice, then.' and he gave her a plain and unvarnished account of the whole story, from the interview of the deputation with roland to his own visit to the man he had cut down. he had the very rare faculty of telling the exact truth in a particularly exciting way--any adventure in which he had been personally engaged he always told from some point of view not his own--so that the hearer saw him playing his part in the scene rather than heard the chief adventurer recounting his adventures. as he skilfully put before her the picture of the one man facing the infuriated crowd, he could see her eyes sparkle with sympathy, and could read interest and admiration in her face. 'and so you were not hurt, after all?' she said. 'i am so glad. but what of the men? will they be punished? they've got themselves into trouble, i'm afraid, poor fellows.' 'ah!' he answered, meeting her questioning glance with an earnest expression on his serious face. 'it was about them i came to speak to you. our friend ferrier is determined, not unnaturally perhaps, to resent and to punish last night's madness. i've done my utmost to reason him out of his resolve to be avenged on these poor fools, but he's not in a humour to listen to reason. it will need something stronger than that to induce him to let the men escape the natural consequences of their folly.' 'oh, but hatfield--surely he'd not punish him?' 'well, i advised hatfield to make himself scarce, and i hope he's done it. it's more on behalf of the other men that i'm here.' 'why, what can i do in the matter?' 'your word will have great weight with young ferrier. i want you to go to him and ask him to let the affair rest just where it is,' he said bluntly. clare coloured painfully. 'i go to mr ferrier?' she repeated. 'count litvinoff, you must know that that is quite impossible.' 'i know that it is difficult, miss stanley, but i also know that it is not impossible.' 'it is out of the question for me--you ought to know,' she hesitated, 'to ask a favour of _him_.' 'it would be an unpleasant thing for you to do, and two months ago i would rather have cut my tongue out than have asked you. but i know now--i have had it from your own lips--that you are a convert to our great faith.' she made a movement as though she would have spoken, but he went on hurriedly: 'you may remember that what impressed you most in my fellow-countryman petrovitch's address was the self-abnegation which ran all through it. my countryman was right. self-abnegation is the note of the revolution! on the first day of this new year you honoured me by asking me what good you could do. i tell you now. you can save many of these men from prison, and their wives from harder fare than the prison's, by humbling your pride and asking what will not be refused. forgive me if i speak plainly, but it is not for my own sake i would ask you to do anything now. it is for these men, and for the sake of the cause.' there were a few moments of painful silence. miss stanley frowned at the hearthrug, and count litvinoff sat looking at her with the expression of one who has asked a question to which he knows there can be but one answer. the answer came. 'very well,' she said, 'i will do what you wish, for the sake of these men,' she added, becoming unnecessarily explanatory. 'i knew you would,' he said. 'but,' she went on hurriedly, 'there is one other thing i can do. i can help to make this time a little less hard to them. will you--' he interrupted her. 'no, no, no; my part is played. miss stanley must deal with that other matter by herself.' two hours later clare stanley called at thornsett edge, and, after a brief conversation with roland, passed on to the village, having done the work she had set herself to do. it was, perhaps, the most painful act of her whole life. but she had performed it successfully, and so it came about that none of the men were punished, and that poor isaac, who was a pensioner on miss stanley for a good many months, was the only one to suffer from that wild night's work. clare felt a sense of elation when the disagreeable task was over. she seemed herself to be making progress; and, though that day's enterprise had been suggested by litvinoff, she knew that it would never have been undertaken if she had not been present when the cleon met to discuss socialism. she had now an opportunity of using a little of her newly-acquired wealth, and she availed herself of it. more than one family in the village owed its salvation to her timely help, and when a week later she left for london she left behind her a sum of money in the hands of mr gates, to be used for the ex-mill hands--and a very grateful remembrance of her pretty, gracious, kindly ways, and of her substantial favours, too, in the hearts of these same hands and their families. so mrs stanley went to yorkshire, and clare to london, and aspinshaw was left desolate. thornsett edge was advertised as 'to let,' and roland and his aunt took up quiet housekeeping in chelsea. litvinoff, by way of practising the economy which was growing more and more necessary every day, took rooms in maida vale. the mill hands dispersed far and wide, and the mill, the heart of thornsett, having ceased to beat, the whole place seemed to be dead, and, presently, to decay. no one would live in the village. it was too far from any other work, and the place took upon itself a haunted, ghostly air--as if forms in white might be expected to walk its deserted streets at midnight, or to show themselves through the broken, cobwebby panes of the windows which used to be so trim and bright and clean. it was a ghastly change for the houses that, poor as they were, had been, after all, _homes_ to so many people for so many years. * * * * * when alice hatfield thought of her old home, she never thought of it but as she had last seen it--neat and cheerful with the plants in pots on the long window-ledge, and all the familiar furniture and household effects in their old places. it was pain to think of it even like that. it would have been agony to her could she have seen it naked and bare, with its well-known rooms cold and empty, its hearths grey and fireless. and she thought of her home a good deal during the weeks when she lay ill in mrs toomey's upper room; for the illness that had come upon her on that sunday when mr toomey had had tea with petrovitch had been a longer and more serious affair than any one had fancied it would be. when she had first known that another life was bound up in her own, the knowledge had been almost maddening; now, the terror, the misery, and the fatigue which she had undergone when first she knew it, had themselves put an end to what had caused them, and alice was free from the fear of the responsibility which had seemed so terrible to her. but she was not glad. she was amazed at the contradiction in her own heart, but as she lay thinking of all the past--of what she thought was her own wrong-doing, and of the home she had left--it seemed to her that what was lost to her was the only thing that could have reconciled her to her life, with all its bitter memories. if only litvinoff's child had lain on her arm--if she could have lived in the hope of seeing it smile into her eyes--it seemed to her that she would not have wanted to die so much. and with this inexplicable weakness mrs toomey, strange to say, seemed to sympathise. 'there's no understanding women,' as toomey was wont to remark. all the expenses of alice's illness were borne by petrovitch, who bade mrs toomey spare no expense in making 'mrs litvinoff' as comfortable as might be. when at last alice began to grow better he came to see her very often, brought her books and flowers, and was as tenderly thoughtful of her, as anxious to gratify her every possible wish, as a brother could have been. 'you are too good to me,' she said one day, looking at him with wet eyes as he stood by her sofa and put into her hand some delicate snowdrops. 'i do not deserve to have people so kind to me. why is it?' 'i told you,' he answered gravely. 'i was once your husband's dearest friend, and i have a right to do all for you that i can. how did you like the book i sent you?' alice used to look forward to his coming. he always cheered her. he never spoke of her or of himself, but always of some matter impersonal and interesting. the books he lent her were the books that lead to talking; and as she grew stronger in body her mind strengthened too, and for the first time she tasted the delight of following and understanding the larger questions of life. every one, even her lover, had always treated her somewhat as a child, and petrovitch was the first person who ever seemed to think it worth while to explain things to her. she had not had the education which makes clear thinking easy; but she was young, and had still youth's faculty for learning quickly. her growing interest in outside matters tended--as petrovitch had meant it to do--to divert her mind from her own troubles; and when at last she was able to take up the easier and lighter work he had found for her, she was able to look at life 'with larger, other eyes.' chapter xxv. at marlborough villa. 'my dear clare, let me implore you to shut that book. you are becoming quite too dreadfully blue. i don't believe you take any interest in any of the things you used to like--even me,' ended cora quaid, with a pout. the two girls were sitting very snugly in miss quaid's special sanctum, where were enshrined her girlish treasures, her books, and the accessories of the art in which she hoped some day to rival rosa bonheur. having had a picture admitted to the academy the season before, she was more hopeful and consequently more industrious than ever. but on this afternoon she had not been painting. she had been sitting looking at her friend and thinking what a pretty picture she made with her sweet serious face and sombre crape draperies; but even the contemplation of one's prettiest friend will become fatiguing at last, when talking is one's very greatest pleasure. so cora broke silence with the remark we have reported, and the silence she broke had been a very long one. 'you silly child,' clare answered, laughing, and tossing her book on to the sofa, 'it isn't that at all. it is that i take an interest in all sorts of other things besides.' 'mamma says,' remarked miss quaid, picking up the little red-covered pamphlet and looking at it with disfavour, 'that this book is not fit for any one to read.' 'i'm sorry mrs quaid doesn't like it,' clare answered, 'because i like it so much. but perhaps i haven't studied it enough. i suppose your mamma has gone into it thoroughly.' 'oh _no_, she wouldn't read it for the world.' clare felt mrs quaid's criticism to be less crushing than it might have been. 'one would have thought,' cora went on, 'that "god and the state" would have been something very religious--something like mr gladstone, you know. a man oughtn't to call his book by a title that has nothing to say to the book itself. it's so misleading. clare, i rather wonder count litvinoff should lend you such dreadful books.' 'i'm afraid bakounin's not much like mr gladstone, dear, and i don't think i should care much about him if he were; but the title certainly has a great deal to do with the book. however, bakounin has not converted me to his views. he is clever and trenchant, but--' 'i had done with that subject, my dear,' answered miss quaid, leaning over the arm of her easy-chair to look saucily into her friend's eyes, 'and had got to something much more interesting--the dashing count, to wit.' 'he would be very much flattered to know that he inspires you with so much interest.' 'it is not i who am interested in him.' 'who is interested in him?' 'oh, neither of us--of course,' cora answered; 'it is mamma and he who mutually attract each other. it is mamma he comes to see regularly three times a week. it is mamma who buries herself in his books and pamphlets. seriously, clare--how many of his books do you get through in a day?' 'i have read two of his books, and you have read one--"the prophetic vision," and you know how much we both liked that. as for the other--i suppose i'm not advanced enough, but it doesn't seem to me to be anything like so clearly written, nor so forcible. it seems wonderful that the same man should have written both.' 'perhaps it was written since he has been in exile, and he was wretched and out of sorts. by the way, he doesn't seem wretched now. now, clare,' coming and sitting down on the rug at the other's feet and leaning her arms on the black dress, and turning her bright _mignonne_ face upward, 'i think it is only due to our ancient friendship--which, you remember, was founded on the noble principle, halves and no secrets, that you should confide in me. what are you going to do with him? how are you going to serve him?' 'well, dear, would it be best to grill him or to serve him on toast with caviare? how would it look on the menu? _nihiliste à la révolution._' 'count litvinoff _à la_ married man would be more humane, perhaps. i wonder how it feels to be adored by a lover who has passionate eyes and a long blond moustache, who has had no end of adventures, has as many lives as a cat, and seems to be rolling in gold, judging by the bouquets he brings to--mamma.' 'if you are very anxious to know,' said clare, smiling and smoothing the rough head at her knee, 'you had better try to attract him; i don't fancy you would find it difficult.' 'you don't seem to have found it so. really and truly, clare; do you mean to be a countess? shall you refuse him?' 'he has never asked me but one thing, and that i did not refuse.' 'what a teasing girl you are! does that mean anything or nothing?' 'whichever you like, sweetheart.' 'well, he deserves a better fate than to be allowed to singe his wings at the flame of your prettiness. you always were a flirt, clare; and i am afraid you have not improved.' 'i don't think i have ever flirted,' clare answered, growing suddenly grave; 'but i know i have been foolish enough to wish people to like me and to be interested in me. but you don't know how contemptible all that sort of thing seems to me now. fancy caring about the opinion of people when you don't care about the people themselves.' 'well, any one can see he's over head and ears in love with you--you nice, pretty little woman.' 'i hope not,' clare answered; 'for i am not in the least in love with him.' 'then don't you think it's a little too bad of you to encourage him as you do--reading his books and all that?' 'i don't know what "all that" may be, but as for the books he lends me, they don't borrow their interest from him. every book i read seems to draw up a curtain and let new light into my mind. you can't imagine how different everything is to me since i began to read and to try to think. all that i have learned lately is like a new religion to me.' all the flippancy was gone from her voice, and in her eyes shone a new light. 'and i read all i can because i want to understand well enough to teach other people what i _feel_ to be true. and oh, cora! i do so want to do something to help the poor and show them their position.' 'yes; i quite agree with you that they ought to know their position and keep in it. the catechism tells us that, you know. i should think you might employ half a dozen curates. papa says there are lots out of work.' 'i don't think curates are quite what are wanted. there are curates enough and to spare. besides, "the millions suffer still and grieve, and what can helpers heal, with old world cures they half believe for woes they wholly feel?"' 'that sounds dreadful,' said cora. 'why, you used to be so fond of it!' 'yes; but i didn't think it meant anything so wicked as that; and, what's more, i don't believe it does.' 'i haven't changed the words, cora. i did not say they meant anything more than they have always meant. but, you see, too, don't you, what a ghastly mockery it is to send religious teaching to people who never had a good dinner in their lives? what a frightful system it is that allows all these horrors!' 'but, my dearest clare, even if it is horrible, i don't see what you can do to alter it. why, papa was saying only the other night that the social order was never so strong as now.' 'i'm in the humour for quoting, and i must keep on, i see,' said clare, with a smile. 'don't you remember?-- "strong was its arm, each thew and bone seemed puissant and alive; but, ah! its heart, its heart was stone, and so it could not thrive."' 'clare,' said the other affectionately, putting her arms round her friend's waist, 'you really oughtn't to take up these ideas. do you know mamma says it's not natural for girls of our age to take such dismal views of things? you'll make yourself quite miserable if you go on with these books.' 'i seem to have nothing but matthew arnold in my head this afternoon,-- "but now the old is out of date, the new is not yet born; and who can be _alone_ elate, while the world lies forlorn?"' 'i don't see how anyone can be anything else but miserable at the thought of all the wretchedness there is in the world. the only thing to keep one from despairing over it would be to do something, even if it were ever so little, to help forward a better time. i dare say your father is right, and this present state is very strong, and perhaps none of us' (with whom was she classing herself?) 'will live to see what we are longing for! it would be rather nice,' she went on meditatively, 'to have that other verse on one's grave,-- "the day i lived in was not mine, man gets no second day; in dreams i saw the future shine, but, ah! i could not stay."' 'this is too much,' cried cora, jumping up. 'when it comes to choosing your own epitaph i think it's high time we gave the march winds a chance of blowing the cobwebs out of your brain. we'll have a run. come along; the streets are deliciously dusty.' clare rose, smilingly obedient, and as she did so the room door opened slowly and admitted mrs quaid. she sank on to the sofa from which miss stanley had just risen. 'such a fatiguing time i have had,' she said, with a long-drawn breath of relief, as she leaned back on the cushions and loosened her bonnet-strings. 'mrs paget was out, and of the ten ladies who are on our educational committee only two attended besides myself. really, people have _no_ energy. and then, my shopping took me so much longer than i expected--these new shades are so difficult to match--and at last, when i felt quite worn out, and was just going into roper's for a glass of sherry and a biscuit, whoever _do_ you think i ran across, treating two ragged children to buns?' 'count litvinoff?' from cora. 'no--oh no. it was mr petrovitch, and when he saw me he hustled the poor little things out of the shop as though he were ashamed of them, and he stayed talking to me ever so long, and was quite delightful, and--clare, my sweet, this will please you, you were so much taken with him--he is coming to see us this evening. won't that be charming?' 'i am very glad,' said claire simply, while cora busied herself in loosening her mother's cloak, and waiting on her in various little ways. 'i seemed to learn so much from him the last time i heard him.' 'yes, and a friend of his is coming as well--a deliciously savage-looking austrian, named hirsch--who was there too, and who seems quite like our friend's shadow, and, as mr vernon is coming also, we shall be quite a pleasant little party, all sympathising with each other's feelings, and that's the _great_ thing, you know.' 'i wonder if count litvinoff will look in,' mused cora, rubbing her mother's rich sable muff round and round the wrong way. 'not to-night. he is lecturing at some east-end club. what a man he is; so _devoted_ to the cause. it seems so _sad_ that he should be so very extreme in his views. force is such a terrible thing, and i very much fear that he believes in that more than in the power of love.' 'i think he does,' answered clare, seeing herself appealed to. 'ah, well; we must try to convert him,' mrs quaid said, smiling. 'i should imagine him to be a most reasonable person to talk to, and not difficult to convince. i like him so much. it is so seldom one meets a man with just his polish of manner and strength of mind. cora, dear, i've had no lunch. just ring and order some for me. i really feel quite faint.' * * * * * at eight o'clock that evening petrovitch stood in the softly-lighted hall of marlborough villa. he felt more interested in the coming evening than he generally was on such occasions. hirsch, who was with him, was very much surprised to find himself within the portals of one of those middle-class establishments against which he had always inveighed so bitterly. but mrs quaid's manner had overborne his determinations with its resistless flow of gush, and he had accepted her invitation from sheer inability to edge in a word of refusal. he had been in a state of mingled remorse and terror ever since, and only petrovitch's strong representations to the effect that men who set themselves against society should at least not fall below society in the matter of keeping their word, had induced him to face the dreadful ordeal of meeting half-a-dozen well-dressed social reformers in a large and luxurious drawing-room. it would be impossible for any human being to be _quite_ as glad to see any other human being as mrs quaid appeared to be to see her two new friends. they came in together, and while hirsch looked round on the handsome furniture with a savagely appraising glance, prompted equally by his jewish blood and his socialistic convictions, petrovitch, having seen that clare was present, delivered himself an unresisting prey to his hostess, knowing that to even her eloquence an end must come, and knowing, too, that sooner or later he would find himself beside the girl whom his paper on socialism had seemed to impress so much, the first time he had ever been in that room. he had been in that room more than once since but never without seeing a very vivid vision of the fair face, shining eyes, and red lips, slightly parted in the interest of listening, the girlish figure bent forward the better to catch every word of his. it was not only the flattery of her undisguised interest in him which had painted for him this memory-picture, and had given him a constantly-recurring desire to see the original again. he was pretty well skilled by this time in reading the faces of his fellow-creatures, and when all the thanks and congratulations of the cleon's visitors were ringing in his ears, he had known perfectly well that the only heart he had touched, the only mind that had followed his reasoning, and the only soul that understood him, were those of the dark-eyed girl at his side. and the look those dark eyes had given him when he said good-night, had haunted him ever since. from the seat of honour on the sofa beside mrs quaid, petrovitch looked, perhaps rather longingly, towards the other end of the room, where hirsch and vernon were talking to the two girls. it was unworthy weakness, perhaps, in a friend of humanity, but he could not help straining his ears to try to catch what they were saying, and wondering what subject they could be discussing to bring such interest into clare's face. this effort interfered somewhat with the lucidity of his replies, until mr quaid, who had hardly spoken before, brought him up short with the question,-- 'what do you mean, now, by socialism?' and the socialist, with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a sort of 'in for a penny in for a pound' feeling, gave up trying to do two things at once, and plunged heart and soul into explanations, knowing quite well neither of his hearers would understand them. if there is any truth in the old adage his ears should have burned, for the group at the end of the room were discussing nothing less than himself. an enthusiastic remark from vernon and sympathetic rejoinders from clare and cora had sufficed to mitigate in the austrian that sense of being trapped by the enemy with which he had entered the room, for he saw that these young people had, at anyrate, one thing in common with him--a great respect for and interest in his russian friend. and knowing this, his tongue was loosed; and his love of his friend overcoming in some degree the difficulties presented to him by the english language, he began to tell tale after tale of petrovitch's kindness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and nobility. his knowledge of english had improved in the last four months, and his hearers found it easy to understand him. 'i have only known him half a year,' he said at last; 'and in that time i know of him more good than of any other man in half a lifetime.' 'i've known him less time than that,' chimed in young vernon; 'and even i can see that he's different to any one else. the only person i ever knew who was in the least like him is count litvinoff.' 'thereby i see you know not well either the one or the other,' said hirsch, with some return to his normal grumpiness. 'i don't agree with mr vernon,' put in clare; 'the principles of count litvinoff and mr petrovitch may be the same, but it seems to me that the two men are utterly different.' 'yes,' said miss quaid. 'count litvinoff has much more of the dash and "go" that one expects in a revolutionist. mr petrovitch is very solid, i should think; but count litvinoff is certainly more brilliant and sparkling.' hirsch smiled sardonically. 'mademoiselle is happy in her epithets. froth sparkles in the sunshine and the most precious metal is the most solid. i will tell you one thing of petrovitch. when you can tell me such another of litvinoff, i will say mr vernon is right--the two men are like. 'it was on your christian festival of christmas--in a russian town, no matter to name it--there was a chase, and all the townspeople turned out of their doors for the pleasure-excitement of seeing it. the chased? only a poor woman, on her way from moscow to the austrian frontier. her crime? she was a jewess. for this, men and boys, with savage dogs, with sticks, with stones, with all that their devilish brutality told them to use against her, hunted her down, shouting, deriding, exulting. and she fled from them, but slowly, for she was not young. and those who took no part in the bloody pursuing looked on, smiling, many of them, and those who smiled not, with interest; men who were well born, and had not the ignorant superstition for whose sake we can pardon any crime to the poor. those who hunted her were men who knew not their right hand from their left--thanks to their priests--and those who looked on approving were men of your world--"_cultured_," how you say? 'the poor woman fled, and still more slowly; a stone had hit her hard, and she felt already at the sickness of death. at a corner a tarantass across the road barred her way. its coachman had stopped for the pleasure of seeing the sport. a jewess stoned to death! the excellent pastime! 'she looked around; no way of escape. the driver of the tarantass raised his whip. he, too, would taste the pleasures of cruelty. she threw her arms up, and called upon jehovah, whom she worshipped. before the lash could fall, from within the tarantass sprang a young man, and snatched from the driver's hand the whip. to let it fall on her with more force? not so. to sweep it full across the faces of the foremost in the crowd. he caught the despised jewess in his arms, and lifted her into his carriage. the crowd--cowards as well as bullies--drew back. he sprang upon the seat beside the driver, seized the reins, turned the horses, and to them, too, used the whip--so well, that he carried away from that russian town the saved life of a woman. he took her to a place of safety, and when she was strong enough sent her to join her son in vienna. she was my mother. she owed her salvation from a death shameful and agonising to--' he stopped short suddenly and glanced expressively at the broad-shouldered figure at the other end of the room. then he said,-- 'such is my friend. your count litvinoff--would he so have acted?' he looked at vernon, but clare answered quickly,-- 'indeed he would. only a little while ago he risked his life, not to save life, but to save working men from injuring their own cause, by wild violence.' hirsch looked at her with mingled interest and disfavour. 'possibly,' he said; 'it may be i misjudge him, but for me he is too brilliant.' cora looked at her friend, and smiled a smile which clare interpreted easily enough as a reference to their conversation of that afternoon, and out of pure defiance she would probably have said something still more strong in count litvinoff's favour if the door had not opened at that moment to admit two _very_ dear, _very_ sweet, and completely unexpected friends of mrs quaid's. the advent of these two, who were dwellers in gath, and brought in with them a breath of pure philistine air, led to the rising and re-arrangement of seats, of which the children's game of 'general post' is a sort of caricature. mrs quaid being now completely occupied with the new arrivals, petrovitch seized the golden opportunity, and when the room settled down again into repose, clare found that he occupied the ottoman beside her, where hirsch had been sitting before. miss quaid and young vernon had gravitated towards the conservatory, for cora was a great lover of flowers, and eustace, while he liked the flowers well enough, liked her still better. hirsch had been set going by one of mr quaid's broad-based questions, and miss stanley and petrovitch were virtually alone. and yet, though each had wished often enough to see the other again, now that they were side by side it seemed to be not so easy to talk. it is always so difficult to chatter about trifles when one is anxious to talk seriously, and it is difficult, almost up to the point of impossibility, to plunge into reasonable conversation in a room full of inconsequent prattle. added to this, petrovitch felt an unaccustomed and unaccountable shyness, and to clare it was somehow less easy to ask his advice than she had thought it would have been, and than it had been to ask count litvinoff's. she was the first to speak. 'i find you have not yet converted mrs quaid to all your views, mr petrovitch,' she said. 'i fear you have not been making good use of your time.' petrovitch did not answer; he looked at her and smiled, but it was a smile that conveyed the idea that, even to have succeeded in converting mrs quaid, would not have been making the best use of his time. 'i might almost have said _our_ views,' clare went on, determined not to let slip the opportunity of asking his advice on the great question of her life, 'for i have been thinking a great deal of all you said last time i met you here.' 'i knew you would,' he said simply. 'and i have been reading a little too. i have borrowed some books of count litvinoff--one or two of his own. you know count litvinoff? you have read his books, of course?' 'yes, i know them,' he said. 'the writer is happy if he has shown your eyes the truth--more happy, i fear, than you will be in seeing it.' 'oh, i don't know that it has made me unhappy, quite. i am perplexed and bewildered; but, however that may be, i don't owe it to count litvinoff, but to you; and that is why i am going to ask you to help me to see my way a little more clearly. i did ask count litvinoff what he thought--but--at any rate, i want to know what you think i ought to do.' 'i do not know that in your position you can do much except spread the light by telling the truth to every one who will receive it.' 'but i think i can do more. do you know, i am very rich? i have--oh, ever so much a year, and it is all my own now, to do just what i like with.' his eyes fell on her black dress, then they met her frank gaze, and the two looked straight at each other as she went on. 'the money was made by other people's losses. i know that, and i feel that the money is not my own. the question is, how can i best use it?' 'you asked count litvinoff this? may i in turn ask how he answered?' 'he thought--he said--' clare hesitated a moment--'he declined to give me advice,' she finished. clare started at a sudden angry light that came into the eyes of the man beside her. she felt she had been indiscreet and even guilty. for she remembered how litvinoff had followed his refusal of counsel by telling her how that there were 'men, his friends, who, if they knew that she had asked him for this advice, and he had refused to give it, would say he had become traitor, and kill him like a rat.' suppose petrovitch were one of these men! clare did not wait for him to speak, but answered the look. 'you are angry with him,' she said. 'i had no right to tell you that, but since i have given you my confidence i know you will respect it, and not let it influence your conduct towards him.' 'your friend is safe as far as i am concerned,' petrovitch answered, passing his hand over his long beard. 'do not be alarmed for him. you take a deep interest in his welfare--is it not so?' the question was asked earnestly, and not impertinently, and clare felt no inclination to resent it. there was a short silence between them, and it was manifest to them that mrs quaid was holding the philistines enthralled by her views on education. miss stanley answered slowly and softly,-- 'you know my dear father is dead now. our acquaintance with count litvinoff began with his saving my father's life at the risk of his own, and that is not the only good deed i have known him do, though that alone will make me always interested in him.' then she told of the part he had played in the unfortunate scene at the mill, and his conduct lost nothing in the telling. insensibly led on by petrovitch's well-managed prompting in monosyllables she went on to what had come after, and how she had been made the means of changing roland ferrier's determination to prosecute and punish the 'hands.' 'yes,' said petrovitch, when she had finished, 'i know right well that he is no coward and no fool; and as for his not advising you, i am not sure that he was not right. i, too, will not advise you. there is only one thing i could tell you to do, and that i will not tell you now. wait, wait, and be patient, and study; and if after a while you still ask me for advice i will give it to you.' 'i know what you think,' she said impulsively. 'you think i'm young and foolish, and that i shall be changeable. you think i have taken up these beliefs without enough thought or understanding. if i could only tell you ... how altered everything seems, what a splendid new light seems to be breaking over everything. do you think, what you said just now, that knowing the _truth_ could make me unhappy? oh no. it is knowledge without action that makes me sad.' 'no, no; that is not my thought,' he answered, in a voice that seemed to have caught a thrill from her own. 'think a little longer. whatever action you take will not lose strength because it is well thought, well considered. if you ever ask me again, i promise you i will not hesitate a moment to answer; but i would rather the answer came from you than from me.' 'that's one of your leading principles, isn't it? independent thought.' 'yes. how can people ever hope to act rightly, if they will persist in delegating other people to think for them?' 'but ordinary people can't thoroughly think out _all_ subjects. one is obliged to take a great many of one's opinions at second-hand.' 'well, but neither can one act in all directions--and where one has to act one should think first. as for taking opinions at second-hand, that is a thing you should never dare to do. if you are not able to think for yourself, you should have no opinions. your english clifford has told you that if you have no time to think you have no time to believe.' 'i am sure you are right. but i am sure, too, that to think for one's self means in most circles social ostracism; and it wants very strong convictions to make one face that.' 'social ostracism,' answered the socialist, with unutterable contempt in the gesture which accompanied his words; 'social ostracism, and by whom imposed? look at the people around you.' clare glanced nervously at mrs quaid. 'see how small are their aims, how trivial their interests, how great their love of ease, how small their love of truth; see what narrow minds they have, what blinded eyes; see all the good that would be in them crushed out by the very conventionalities which they uphold. how can we think it of any value, the opinion of such as these? or if their condemnation should pain us, what a little thing is such a pain compared with the lifelong consciousness of having, from the fear of it, crushed out the spark of truth in our own souls? what a little thing compared with eternal truth is even life itself! we come out of the darkness, and into that darkness must return. is it not better, seeing the little time that is ours, to know that we at least have listened to the wail of agony that ever goes up to the deaf heavens?--that we have done what we could in our little day to help forward a better time for those who shall come after us, than to know that we have had the good opinion of "respectable people"?' 'if one could only hope that one could help it forward!' sighed clare. 'hope? we know it. these things will be. it is a question of the little sooner or the little later. there is no standing still. he that is not with us is against us. but we shall triumph in the end. we know that all this misery, all this sin, all this selfishness, all this stupidity even, are the direct result of the social _milieu_. it is this knowledge that makes us the deadly enemies of the capitalist system, and that is why we are hated by those who profit by it.' he spoke in a low voice, full of suppressed excitement. when he ended the girl drew a long breath. he saw the white violets on her bosom rise and fall slowly twice before he spoke again. then he said, with a smile,-- 'if i have not given you advice, i have at least given you a sermon. you see i already look upon you as one of us, or i should not have dared to outrage conventionalities by speaking in earnest in a drawing-room.' 'oh, my _dear_ mr petrovitch,' exclaimed mrs quaid, who pausing out of breath from her exertions in the cause of education, had caught the last dozen words, 'you are really _too_ severe! i hope all of _us_, at anyrate, always speak in earnest, though of course, some of us are more earnest than others. that _delightful_ count litvinoff, now--so devoted, and yet so cheerful; i'm so sorry he has not come to-night.' 'he seems to be a universal favourite,' answered petrovitch, who had risen on his hostess's approach, and now stood with his hand on the back of clare's chair. 'yes, and you who know him, of course know how well he deserves all our good opinions.' she glanced almost imperceptibly at clare. petrovitch noted the glance, and he fancied that clare noted it too, and that it called up a faint blush into her face. but mrs quaid's drawing-room was discreetly lighted, and perhaps he was mistaken. 'i should never forgive myself,' the good lady went on, 'if i missed this beautiful opportunity of performing such a delightful task--bringing two such distinguished fellow-workers together. we must fix an early evening for you both to dine here. it will be charming.' petrovitch bowed. as hirsch and petrovitch went away together, the austrian said,-- 'so, the lady who is always charmed will charm herself with making you meet him, _bon grè, mal grè_.' 'i will meet him,' the other answered, 'and that shortly. but not in that house.' 'good,' grunted hirsch; and the two men fell to smoking silently. chapter xxvi. all a mistake. it took richard ferrier just three months to decide what course his future life should take. he was too old for the army or civil service. the church was equally out of the question, for a reason equally potent. need we say that his first idea had been to earn his living by literature? in these days of extended education and cheap stationery, it always is the very first idea of any one whose ordinary source of income is suddenly cut short. richard had always felt at college that he had a decided faculty for writing; but an uninterrupted stream of returned ms., 'declined, with thanks' by all sorts and conditions of editors, convinced him in less than three months that, if writing indeed were his vocation, it was one that he must forego until he could pay for the publishing of his own works, which was not exactly the view he had in wishing to adopt it. he had no interest in the law, and he knew well enough that he had not talent to enable him to dispense with interest. besides, his leanings had never been that way. the medical profession inspired him with far more interest. his favourite study had always been biology. he had enough money to live on sparingly till the necessary four years should have expired, and it seemed to him better to adopt a profession than to go in for trade in any form or shape. he had had enough of trade. he made a round of visits among special chums of his own, and during the time so occupied had thought long and seriously about his future, and, of all the ideas that came to him, that of being a doctor was the one with most attractions and fewest drawbacks. so early in march he entered himself as a student at guy's, determined to throw himself heart and soul into his new career, and to let the dead past be. no return to the conditions of that past seemed possible to him, and, though he determined to think of it as little as he could, there were some things about it that haunted him disturbingly. but he hoped, among new friends and with new ambitions, to forget successfully. a man has his life to live, and life is not over at twenty-five, even when one has lost father, fortune, and heart's desire. one windy, wild, bright march morning he was walking up to the hospital as usual from his lodgings in kennington. he looked as cheerful as the morning itself as he strode along with an oak stick in his hand, and under his arm two or three shiny black note-books with red edges. opposite st thomas's street he paused to watch for a favourable moment in which to effect a crossing; and before he had time to plunge into the chaos of vans, omnibuses, cabs, carriages, trucks, barrows and blasphemy, the touch of a hand on his arm made him turn sharply round. it was his foster-mother, with a basket on her arm, her attire several shades shabbier than he had been used to see it, and her worn face lighted up with pleasure at meeting him. 'eh, but ah'm glad to see thi face, my lad,' she said earnestly, as he turned and shook her hand heartily. 'i thowt as there was na more nor two pair o' shoulders like these, and i know'd it was thee or rowley the minute ah seed thee.' the familiar north-country sing-song accent sent a momentary pain through the young man's heart as he answered,-- 'i'm awfully glad to see you again; but what in the name of fortune are you doing here?' 'there's na fortune in't but bad fortune, lad,' she answered; 'tha know'd well enough when thee and rowley fell out as thornsett wouldn't be a home for any o' us for long.' there was no reproach in her tone. her speech was only a plain statement of fact. 'but what made you come to london?' 't' master thowt as there'd be a big lot o' work to be gotten here, seeing as london be such a big place. oh, but it is big, master dick. ah'm getting a bit used to it now, but when first we came here the bigness and the din of it used to get into my head like, till times ah felt a'most daft wi' it.' by this time he had piloted her across, and they were walking side by side towards london bridge, whither she told him she was bound. 'i'm afraid hatfield found himself mistaken about the work; there are no mills in london,' said richard. 'no, or if there be we never found them; but the master's had a bit o' luck, and he's getten took on at a place they call dartford; m'appen you've heerd on it?' 'well, i _am_ glad to hear that. i hope all the hands have done as well.' 'no one's gladder nor me. ah can't say for the lump o' the hands; but him, ever since he heerd as t' mill was to stop, he's not been t' say the same man as wor so fond of you and rowley, and as used to go to chapel regular, and was allus the best o' husbands.' 'i hope he's not unkind to you?' said the young man anxiously. 'nay; he's steady enow, and kind enow, but he's changed like. he willn't go to chapel no more, an' he says as he don't believe as our trouble's t' visitings o' a kind providence.' no more did richard, but he forbore to say so; and she went on, the pent-up anxiety and sorrow of the last few weeks finding vent at last,-- 'an' he's bitter set against rowley. i wonder by hours and hours whether there's summat atween 'em as i don't know of. sithee, dick, if tha'll tell me one thing it'll do no harm nor no good to no one but me, and it'll set my mind at rest. was there owt i' what folks set down i' thornsett? was it rowley as stole our alice?' this point-blank question caught the young man right off his guard. his face gave the answer; his lips only stammered, 'how should i know? besides, it can do no one any good now to know that.' 'thi eyes is honester nor thi tongue,' mrs hatfield said, with a face full of trouble. 'make thi tongue speak truth as well, lad, and tell me what tha knows. tell me wheer shoo is.' 'if i had known you would have known too, long ago,' richard answered. 'but tha hasn't told me a' tha knows e'en as 'tis.' 'i don't know anything,' richard was beginning, when mrs hatfield clasped both her hands on his arm. 'dick, dick,' she said, 'tha's heerd o' her or tha's seen her. i've allus had a mother's heart for tha as well as for her, and now it's as if one o' my childer wouldn't help me to find t'other. what has tha heard? i see i' thi face 'twas rowley. eh, but i never thought the boy i nursed would ha' turned on them as loved him i' this fashion.' the tears followed the words, which were not whispered, and the passers-by turned their heads wonderingly to look at the middle-aged countrywoman, with the basket, who was looking so earnestly and entreatingly into the face of the tall young medical student. 'come in here,' he said, and led her into the waiting-room of the london bridge station, which was fortunately empty. she sat down and began to cry bitterly, while richard stood helplessly looking at her. 'don't cry,' he said; but she took no notice, and went on moaning to herself. 'couldn't tha ha' stopped it?' she said, suddenly raising her tear-stained face. 'tha couldst surely ha' stood i' the way o' such a sinful, cruel thing as that.' 'good god, no!' cried dick, losing control of his tongue at the sudden implication of himself in these charges; 'what could i do? i knew nothing of it till last october, and then i did the best i could.' 'and tha found out for sure. tell me a' abaat it.' 'i'm not sure enough to tell any one anything,' he answered: 'but i was sure enough to throw away all my chances, because i felt i couldn't have anything more to do with a fellow who'd do such a beastly mean thing as that.' he had no idea that he was not speaking the truth. he had by this time really convinced himself that he had been prompted in his quarrel by the highest moral considerations, and had taught himself to forget how other motives and influences had been at work, and how he had been forced to acknowledge this at the time. 'how did tha find it out?' mrs hatfield persisted: and richard in desperation told her the whole story. it seemed to her as convincing as it had done to him. the mother asked him innumerable questions about alice--how had she looked, how had she spoken? it grieved him not to be able to give her pleasanter answers, but, rather to his surprise, her mind seemed to dwell less with sorrow on alice's want and hard work, than with pleasure on the thought that her daughter had given up her lover, or, as she called it, returned to the narrow path. but why had she not returned to her mother? and that question dick could not answer. all these questions and replies had taken some time, and the dartford train had gone. dick found out the time of the next train, and then came and sat down beside her, and did his best to cheer her, in which attempt his real affection for her assured him a measure of success. by the time the dartford train was due she was calm again and reasonably cheerful. he led her to tell him of their life since they had come to london; how nearly everything had been turned into money; how the basket on her arm contained all that she had been able to keep; and how she was going down to join her husband, and to try to take root with him in a fresh soil. from her he heard for the first time of count litvinoff's visit to thornsett, of the rioting of the mill hands, and, though she did not say so in so many words, he could see that she placed the two events in the relation of cause and effect. she told him, too, of litvinoff's bravery, and of the fate of the luckless isaac potts; and dick, though he couldn't help feeling interest and admiration at this recital, did not like the way in which miss stanley's name and litvinoff's were coupled in mrs hatfield's account of the help, advice, and kindness shown to the hands before they dispersed from thornsett. her words suggested to him vague suspicions; but he couldn't think much just then, for it was time to take mrs hatfield's ticket and to see her off. this he did, and when he had seen her comfortably seated in a corner of a second-class carriage, he said good-bye to her, giving her at parting a very hearty hand-shake, and a sovereign, which he could ill afford. 'good-bye, dear,' he said; 'you must write and tell me how you get on. here's my address, and i hope with all my heart you will have good fortune.' he drew back from the train as it began to move, and waved a farewell. she in turn waved her damp cotton handkerchief, and was borne out of sight. as she disappeared dick began to wonder what he should do with himself. the lecture he had been about to attend was hopelessly lost and there was nothing particular to be done till after lunch. obedient to what would have been the instinct of most young men under such circumstances, his first thought was to take a ticket to charing cross, that being a more cheerful place for the consideration of any problem than the station where he found himself. in common with every other traveller on the south-eastern railway, he had long since arrived at the conclusion that london bridge was the most unreasonably comfortless and altogether objectionable station in england--which is saying a good deal. he was just turning to go down to the booking office when-- 'great heavens, how wonderful!' he said. as he turned he found himself face to face with the girl whose mother had just left him. she was close to him, and had instinctively held out her hand, which he had clasped in greeting before he noticed that she was not alone. her companion was evidently a gentleman. her dress was much better than had been that of the girl for whom he had carried the brown-paper parcel five months ago. richard noticed this with a pang of uneasiness as he said,-- 'why, alice, i am very glad to see you; you're looking much better. where are you off to? what are you doing?' 'oh, dear, i'm so sorry, mr richard; i'm just going by this train to stay at chislehurst with some friends of this gentleman's. mr petrovitch, mr ferrier.' the men bowed--petrovitch with easy courtesy, and ferrier with a frigid reserve which would only allow him to raise his hat about an eighth of an inch--and as they did so the train steamed in. 'you must not miss this train,' said petrovitch; 'there is not another for so long a time.' 'good-bye, mr richard,' she said. 'when you see father or mother, tell them i'm well and happier, and have good friends.' ferrier had it on the tip of his tongue to tell her how he had just seen her mother, but petrovitch, with an air of authority, cut short their farewells by hurrying her into the train. 'good-bye,' said richard, rather at a loss in this unexpected and bewilderingly brief meeting; 'couldn't you write to me? i'm at guy's--guy's hospital, you know.' 'stand back, sir,' said the guard, slamming the door with one hand and putting his whistle to his lips with the other, as the train gave a lurch and began to move off. 'bon voyage, mrs litvinoff,' said petrovitch, bringing a startled look and a vivid blush into alice's face, and giving richard the biggest surprise of his life. his blank astonishment was too evident for petrovitch to ignore it. he looked at richard inquiringly. 'er--er, i beg your pardon,' stammered ferrier, as soon as he could find words. 'you called that--a--lady mrs litvinoff?' 'i did, sir,' answered the other, with a rather angry flash of his deep-set eyes. 'i might have called her countess litvinoff, if you attach any importance to titles.' 'good god!' said richard, very slowly. he sat down on the wooden seat without another word. 'i wish you good-morning, sir,' said petrovitch, making for the incline which leads off the platform. before he had made three paces young ferrier had pulled himself together, and had overtaken him and laid a hand on his arm. 'forgive me, sir--i am afraid you think me very strange and unmannerly--but i have a deeper interest in this matter than you can possibly imagine. i must beg you to allow me a few moments for explanation.' 'certainly, sir; i shall be happy to walk your way,' answered the russian, less stiffly. no more was said till they got outside the station. it was not easy for richard to know how to begin. he did not know how much this man knew of alice, and he felt it would be unfair to tell her story, as far as he knew it, to one who seemed to know her only as a married woman. but, on the other hand, how much did he himself know of her story? he walked along beside petrovitch for at least ten minutes before he could make up his mind how to begin. at length the other half-stopped and looked at him in a way that compelled speech of some kind. 'the reason i was so surprised when i heard you call that--lady mrs litvinoff, was that i have known her from a child, and did not know that she was married. i--i--also knew a count litvinoff in london a few months ago, and certainly did not know that he was married. the connection of the two names startled me. i must also tell you that it did more than startle me; it relieved me.' 'you are, then, very much interested in my friend?' said petrovitch. 'well,' said richard, finding it desperately hard to break through his english reserve, and yet feeling that he could not in common fairness expect to get any information from one who called himself a 'friend' of alice's without showing good reasons for asking for such information. 'well, i am interested, very much interested, but not quite in the way that men generally are when they talk about being interested in a woman. look here,' he said, stopping, and finding his powers of diplomacy absolutely failing him, falling back on the naked truth, 'that young woman has been the cause--the innocent cause, mind--of a complete separation between my brother and myself. i thought my brother had done her a great wrong. can you tell me whether he did or not? his name is roland ferrier.' 'so far as i know mrs litvinoff's story,' said petrovitch, speaking very deliberately, 'no wrong of any sort has ever been done her by any one of that name.' 'ay, but,' said richard, 'so far as you know; but do you know all? do you know with whom she did go when she left her home?' 'i do.' 'it was not my brother?' 'it was not your brother.' richard had just said that he felt greatly relieved. if that statement was true, his looks certainly belied him. 'one question more,' he said. 'i want to know exactly how far wrong i have been. do you know if my brother has had any communication at all with her since she left her home?--did he know where she was?' 'i believe that he has had no communication with her, and that he did not know where she was.' 'can you tell me who this litvinoff is, then? is he the count michael litvinoff that i know, or knew? if so, did he marry, and when did he marry her? and why did she leave him?--for she _did_ leave some man; she told me so.' 'ah,' said petrovitch, 'you said one more question; that question i answered because i thought you were really concerned in knowing the answer. forgive me, these other matters i think do not concern you.' 'well,' richard answered, 'i knew that girl when she was a baby, and i've always been fond of her, and i should naturally be glad to hear anything about her. i am glad to see her looking so much better, and better cared for than when i met her last.' petrovitch bent his head silently. they had stopped by this time just opposite the borough market. 'i am sorry you will not tell me more about her; but since you have told me that my brother has not injured her in any way, i don't know that i have any right to ask you more. i must thank you for telling me what you have done, and ask you to excuse my seeming curiosity.' petrovitch bowed; young ferrier did the same, and they parted--petrovitch turned across the bridge, while richard retraced his steps towards the station. he made his way to the telegraph office, and sent off this message:--'richard ferrier, guy's hospital, london, to gates, the hollies, firth vale.--please wire me my brother's address at once if you know it.' then he crossed the station-yard, and ran down the steep stone steps which are part of the shortest cut to the hospital, and as he went he felt more wretched than he had ever been before. he had always believed in himself so intensely that an actual injury would have been less hard to bear than this sudden shattering of his faith in his own judgment. he had been so utterly mistaken--so wrong all round. everything had seemed to point to his brother's guilt. now everything seemed to have pointed to his innocence. if richard's eyes had not been so blinded by--what? it was a moment for seeing things clearly, and richard saw that his own passion and jealousy had perverted his view of all that had taken place in the autumn. that meeting in spray's buildings--of course it was the likeliest thing in the world that roland really had seen litvinoff, and at the thought of that sympathetic nobleman the young man ground his teeth. how completely he had been fooled! it must be the same litvinoff--for had not alice been present at his lecture in soho? how had alice met such a man? oh, that might have happened in a thousand ways. had litvinoff really married her? richard thought he had not. he remembered litvinoff's moustache, and felt sure that he had not. felt sure? how could he feel sure of anything, when here, where he had been so absolutely certain, he was proved to have been wrong? what fearful blunders he had made--what a horrible muddle he had got everything into--what irretrievable mischief he had done! but, though he blamed himself deeply and bitterly, he still, not unnaturally, blamed litvinoff with still more bitter earnestness. one thing only was clear to him. he must find roland at once, tell him all the circumstances, and beg his pardon. it would be all right again between him and his brother, towards whom he now felt a rush of reactionary affection. but how about the mill hands, now scattered far and wide beyond recall--beyond the reach of his help--through this same mad folly of his? in an impulse to do something for at least one of those who had suffered through him, he turned off from the hospital and took a hansom to his rooms, where he unlocked his desk, and, taking a five-pound note from his slender stock of money, enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed to mrs hatfield at the address she had given him, in a hand not his own. he would do more for them when he and his brother had begun to work the mill again. that would be one big result of his new knowledge. his medical studies would be at an end, and he would be once more ferrier of thornsett. but that was poor compensation for all the rest. when mr gates' answering telegram came it was a wet blanket on richard's longing to make his confession and talk things over with roland--for it ran thus:--'robert gates, the hollies, firth vale, to richard ferrier, guy's hospital.--don't know his address--he is expected here in a few days. has left chelsea, and is making visits on his way here. glad you want him. letter follows.' so he could not see roland that day, after all, and there was nothing for it but to possess his soul in patience until he heard again from gates. so he spent the evening with some congenial acquaintances who had diggings in trinity square, and managed to get through the night without being driven to distraction by his remorseful self-tormenting thoughts. but the next morning he remembered, with a start, for the first time, that, not content with believing his brother to be guilty of a disgraceful action, he had accused him of it to clare stanley, and, worse than that, to alice's own mother. he felt he could never face clare again after that, come what might. but the hatfields? at least it would be only fair to make what reparation he could by undeceiving them. he would go down to dartford that very day, and tell them how mistaken he had been. he went by the same train which had carried mrs hatfield thither on the preceding day. arrived at dartford the dismal, richard betook himself to the address that had been given him, which, after some difficulty, he found to be one of a row of small, ill-favoured, squalid cottages a little way out of the town. there were a good many children about, who stared at him with open-eyed curiosity, and did dreadful things to their mouths with their grimy little fingers in the excitement of seeing a gentleman stop at no. earl's terrace. the battered, blistered green door had no knocker. the handle of richard's umbrella afforded an impromptu one, and, in answer to the spirited solo which he proceeded to execute with it, the door was opened, and by his foster-mother herself. she looked very pale and worried, and had evidently been crying. she didn't seem surprised to see him; she was in that state of mind when nothing seems worth being surprised about. 'come in, lad,' she said. 'ah got thi kind token. ah know'd 'twas thee as sent it, and m'appen ah'll need it more nor tha thowt when tha sent it, for t' maister's giv' up his work an' gone off.' she had set a chair for him, and as she finished this speech she sat down herself and looked hopelessly at him. 'gone--gone! left you! why, he must be out of his mind.' 'his mind's right enough; it's his soul as ah'm feared about, dick. he's gone to have it out wi' rowley, and get at the rights of it.' 'but where is roland? where's he gone to?' 'he's gone to thornsett.' 'why, roland isn't there.' 'thank god! god be praised, if it'll on'y please his good providence to keep 'em fra meetin'!' 'but how came he to go? how did it happen? tell me all about it?' it seemed that when her husband had met her at dartford station, she, pleased with having met richard, had told him of the rencontre. that he had closely questioned her, and when at last he had learned every word that had passed between them, he had turned suddenly on her, and told her that this was the first time he had ever even thought of such a thing being possible as that roland had been the cause of alice's ruin, and that now he did know he would not lose a day in facing him with the accusation. 'do you mean to say,' said richard, 'that it's through me he thinks that roland took her away?' 'i don't say it was thy fault, lad. i'm more to blame than thee. i should a-kept my clattering tongue quiet, and i should a-known my own man better after a' these years nor to think that if he had a-thowt it was rowley he wouldna ha' faced him wi' it long sin'.' 'this is devilish pleasant!' said richard, rising and taking a stride across the little room; but how did he go?' it appeared he had started off with but a pound, or little more, in his pocket, intending to walk the greater part of the way, and only telling her that she wouldn't hear of him until she saw him back again. 'and what do you think will happen when they do meet?' he asked. 'oh, ah'm feared to think!' she said, wringing her hands and beginning to weep. 'i'll tell you what i'll do,' said richard. 'i'll go straight down to thornsett now, and keep a look-out for hatfield. i'll stop any more mischief, any way. i think i can promise you that nothing much will happen if they do meet.' she caught hold of his hand, and began to thank him. 'oh, don't thank me!' he said; 'the whole sad business has been my fault from beginning to end. i found out yesterday, almost directly i left you, that rowley was as innocent of doing any harm to alice as i am, and i found out, too, that she is well and pretty happy, and, i heard, married. if it hadn't been for me, hatfield wouldn't have gone off on this wild-goose chase. but i must get back now; my train goes in twenty minutes, and i want to catch the three o'clock train for firth vale.' he caught the three o'clock train to firth vale, having managed, by a very hurried farewell, to escape the torrent of questions mrs hatfield would have liked to pour out. he felt that, all things considered, the less he said about the matter the better. he had been wrong too often, and too much. chapter xxvii. making it up. there was rejoicing in the house of robert gates, as over a prodigal returned, when richard ferrier avowed that he had been mistaken all through in his quarrel with his brother, and that he was now only anxious to acknowledge his error, and to do his best to set things going again on the old footing. but he had some days to wait before he could make his confession. thornsett edge had remained unoccupied, for there was some difficulty in letting a furnished house near a deserted village. people did not seem to care about the vicinity of all those empty shells of homes. so roland had decided to occupy it again, and he was coming down there to get things ready for his aunt's reception, and was making a few visits to old friends on his way. he had written down to the old couple in charge to have the place ready, as he might come down any day. two days passed and he had not come, and richard was getting tired of the constant inquiries and congratulations which assailed him at the hollies. he thought he would go home, and be there to welcome roland when he arrived. so he sent over his portmanteau, and took up his quarters in his old room at thornsett edge. he was in a very tender and remorseful frame of mind in those days. he wandered all over the old house, full filled of memories of the time when he and his brother played together there as children; of the time when, later, they thrashed each other as schoolboys, with right good will. there were haunting thoughts of the dissension that had grown up between them, and of the shadow that the knowledge of it had cast upon their father's deathbed. the necessity which he felt himself to be under of keeping a sharp look-out for john hatfield, fortunately served as a kind of antidote to the rush of memories and associations which came over richard, now that he was once again in his home. he walked down to the village to seek out the few 'hands' who had clung like rooks to their old haunts, and there he saw sad sights and heard sad stories enough to have driven him mad had he not known that it would soon be in his power to set things in some degree right again. he resolved, and felt sure of roland's co-operation in his scheme, to seek out as many of the old 'hands' as could be got word of, and to give each of them enough to get a home together again. of course he thought often of miss stanley; but the past months of unusual action and changed surroundings had altered his feeling for her, which was fortunate for him, since he had falsely accused his own brother to her--a meanness which he knew it to be quite impossible for such a woman as clare ever to forget or forgive. he thought of her now without any of the old passion, as he might have thought of one who had died long before, or of one whom he had loved in some other life. this did not prevent him from feeling furiously jealous of litvinoff, to whom he seemed to have transferred all the anger that had burned in him against his brother, intensified by a galling consciousness of the complete success which litvinoff had achieved in his attempt to deceive and mislead him. there should be a reckoning for that, richard thought. he felt glad he had always mistrusted the man. it showed that his judgment was worth something sometimes, and this pleased his self-love. on the third day came a telegram from matlock, which said that roland would be at home that evening. richard roamed about the house in restless impatience all day. how should they meet? he should not dare to go to the door to greet his brother lest he should imagine that it was a renewal of hostilities, not a welcome home, that was intended. richard had no eye for dramatic effects, nor any leaning thereto, but he charged the old people to say nothing of his presence, and to leave him to announce himself to his brother when he should think well. his brother would have done exactly the same thing from absolutely opposite motives. so when roland walked up to his home in the teeth of the wild march wind the only welcome that met him was that of the old woman in charge, and this seemed to him to be so inconsequently effusive, and the good lady herself seemed so unreasonably radiant, that he was quite flattered. it was pleasant to him to be appreciated and admired, even by a 'person in charge.' 'the fire's i' the dining-room, mr roland,' she said; 'an' i'll dish ye up the supper in less nor half a minute, sir. it's a glad day for thornsett as sees yer back agen.' mrs brock's son had worked in the mill--a fact which made the anticipated reconciliation peculiarly interesting to her. richard from his ambush in his own room heard the greeting, heard the well-known voice giving orders about rugs and hat-boxes in the well-known tones. then he heard doors open and close. after a while a savoury smell from the hot supper that was being carried in rose to his altitude. the dining-room door was opened, and shut several times. at last it was closed with a more decided touch, and in the noise of its closing was a settled sound as of a door that did not mean to open again just yet. richard knew that the supper had been cleared away, and that roland was most likely assisting digestion with tobacco and grog. this would be the time, he decided, to put in an appearance and to get through his proposed reconciliation. he went softly downstairs, and paused a moment with his hand on the dining-room door. the house was very still. as he stood there he heard a cinder fall from the fire in the dining-room, and the great hall clock at the foot of the stairs ticked louder than usual, as it seemed. he turned the handle and went in. roland was sitting in the big arm-chair by the fire where their father had been used to sit. as the door opened he looked up with a sort of displeased curiosity to see who it was that had the assurance to enter unannounced. when he saw who it was he gave a start, and the expression of his face changed to something deeper and sterner. he got up. 'i understood from gates,' he said, 'that you renounced all claim to be in this house so long as half the possible rent was paid you. i mean to pay you your half. may i ask, then, what you want here?' 'i want to beg your pardon,' began richard, his hand still on the lock--when his brother interrupted him with,-- 'hadn't you better close the door? i suppose you don't want all the world to hear anything you may have to say.' his tone was so icily cold that the other found it hard to go on as he had intended. he did his best, however. 'i am very sorry for all that happened in the autumn. i was quite deceived and misled, and i beg your pardon. i can't say more, and i hope you'll let bygones be bygones.' he held out his hand. at this point in the scene dick had fancied that his brother would clasp his hand with reciprocating affection, and all would be forgiven and forgotten. but the other actor evidently intended a different 'reading' of the part assigned him. he made no movement to meet the outstretched hand. on the contrary, he put his hands in his pockets with a too expressive gesture, and was silent. 'come, roland,' said dick, who, knowing himself to have been in the wrong, displayed a patience which surprised himself; 'make it up, old man.' 'i am not sure,' said the other slowly, 'that i care to make it up, as you call it. no "making-up" can alter all that has gone wrong through your foolishness. i've gone through the worst of the trouble now, and, to tell you the truth, i'm not inclined to lay myself open to any more experiences of this kind. you might be "deceived and misled" again.' richard, who had remained standing, gave the slightest possible stamp of impatience, which his brother did not observe. 'and as for the money,' he went on, 'i dare say i can do as well without it as with it.' 'look here,' said dick, his face flushing hotly; 'if you suppose i care a straw about the dirty money, you're mistaken; only one of us can't have any without the other now. come, roland, be friends, if it's only for the old dad's sake.' roland seemed to have what the children call the 'black dog on his shoulder,' but this appeal was not lost. he made an effort to overcome the resentment and bitterness that filled him, and after a moment held out his hand, saying,-- 'very well, i'll shake hands. i suppose we shall manage to scrape along together as well as a good many brothers.' and this was the reconciliation that richard had had his heart full of for the last three or four days. it was piteously unlike his dreams of it. when they had shaken hands, dick sat down. there was a silence--a very awkward silence. roland passed the whisky along the table, and the other mechanically helped himself. 'i think,' roland said presently, 'that you owe me an explanation of all this.' 'of course i do,' assented richard eagerly; 'but you are so--well, unapproachable; but i'll tell you every word about it,' which he did, omitting no particulars which bore on the case. 'so he called her mrs litvinoff, did he?' was roland's comment on the petrovitch-ferrier episode at london bridge. 'i should think she had just taken the name by chance, but for one thing.' 'and that is?' 'you say she lived in that house i saw litvinoff go into the day we split. it must have been litvinoff, and he must have been going to her; but it's very strange how he ever knew her. and was this really _all_ the ground you had for doing what you did?' there was contempt in his tone. 'no,' said richard. 'you went away on a "mysterious holiday" just when she disappeared, and that set all the village tongues wagging, and first made me wonder and suspect. now i _know_ i was wrong; but if you don't mind, roland, i wish you'd tell me _why_ you went just then. i've told you everything.' 'the whole thing is over and done with now,' he answered; 'and after to-night i don't want to ever speak about it; but i will tell you if you like. i went away because i saw you were beginning to care for clare stanley, and i was beginning to care too, and i thought that if i went away i could pull through it, and that you would make the running and be happy with her, but i found i couldn't do it, and i came back and did my best to cut you out, as you did by me.' 'oh, roland, what a good fellow you were to think of such a thing!' said dick, to whom a generous action like this, even though only attempted, could not fail to appeal most strongly. 'but how is it now?' he went on, stung by a host of conflicting feelings. 'have _you_ made the running? have you won her?' 'no!' he answered bitterly. 'the closing of the mill settled that for me as well as for you. some one else has had as good a chance as ours, though, and has made a better use of it. count litvinoff is a constant visitor at the house where she is, and i don't doubt she will marry him; unless, indeed, he is married already. i think we ought to try and find that out.' 'married or not, he is a damned scoundrel!' cried richard; 'and he shall not marry her. she would never look at me again, i know; but i hope you may win her yet, roland.' 'my chance is gone for ever. i wish i'd never had that litvinoff down here. but who could have foreseen this?' 'we've both been fools.' roland did not seem to relish this broad statement. 'i can't think how,' he was beginning, when mrs brock came in with coals, and almost purred with pleasure at seeing the two amicably drinking their whisky at the same hearth. when she had left the room richard rose. 'look here, old man,' he said; 'i'm as sorry as a fellow can be about all this, and i can't think how i could have been such a fool. that's what you were going to say, wasn't it? but since we're agreed on that, don't let's say any more about it. forgive and forget, and i hope you will be happy yet--with miss stanley. let's agree to let this subject alone for a bit. i think i'll have a run round the garden before i turn in. good-night.' 'good-night,' roland answered, but in a manner whose evident effort after cordiality made the failure of that effort the more painful. 'i shall go to bed; i'm dead beat--been knocking about all day.' then they shook hands again, and richard went out. he had thought that roland would have met his apologies with ready acceptance--his revived brotherly love with equal enthusiasm--and the nature of the reconciliation jarred upon him. and yet, as he told himself, he thoroughly deserved it all. no doubt time would soften his brother's sense of injury, and some day they might be as good friends again as they had been before clare stanley's prettiness had come, like a will-o'-the-wisp, to lead them into all sorts of follies. he tried to think he would be glad if she married roland. anything, he thought, rather than that she should marry litvinoff. he passed the limits of the garden and strolled down the road, deep in thought. it was only when he had nearly reached the mill that he remembered with a start that he had told his brother nothing about john hatfield and his revengeful projects. however, roland could come to no harm now--he was probably safe in bed--and he could tell him in the morning. so he strolled on, smoking reflectively, and with a heart not light. chapter xxviii. vengeance astray. john hatfield had left dartford, his wife, and his work, driven by an impulse as vague as it was irresistible. he did not know what he meant to do; his one idea was that he must face his daughter's betrayer, and tax him with his crime. he did not very much care what came after. but the long tramp through england, broken though it was by many a lift from good-natured waggoners, had given him time for thinking. reflection did not soften his resentment. on the contrary, the more he thought, the harder his heart felt, and each new hour of solitary musing left him more bitter, more vindictive, more angered than he had been the hour before. his wife's story convicted him of the one fault from which he had always believed himself to be free--blind stupidity. the loss of his daughter had never been out of his mind for half an hour at a time since she had gone away, and he had thought and thought, till his brain had seemed to spin round, over every least detail of her flight, and of the time just before it, in the hope of finding out who was her betrayer. and yet in all his thinking he had never come anywhere near the truth. other people had, though; he knew that, as he remembered hints he had sneered at from some of the least brilliant of the hands--fools he had often called them. yet, fools as they were, they had been able to see more clearly than he, the father, whose brain sharpest love and sorrow ought surely to have had power to quicken. added to all this, the thought that he had gone on working for, taking the money of, and, to a certain extent, living in a condition of dependence on, the man who had wronged him, and then had turned him out on to the world, stung his spirit almost to madness. the spring woke early that year, and the weather was bright and glad, the air clear and sweet and joyous with a thousand bird-voices. the midland woods and hedges that he passed were beginning to deck themselves in the fresh greenness of their new spring garments. their beauty brought no peace to him. he but noticed them to curse their monotony and apparent endlessness. the only things he did notice with anything like satisfaction were the milestones and fingerposts, which told him that so much more ground had been got over. he put up at night at the cheapest and poorest-looking inns he could find. they were good enough to lie awake in, for his feverish longing and impatience to reach his end almost consumed him and made sleep an impossibility. eager as he was to get on, he had self-restraint enough to spend none of his store of money--such a little store as it was--on travelling. roland ferrier might not be at thornsett after all, and he might have to follow him, or mayhap return to dartford and bide his time; and so, though his progress was straight and steady it was slow, and he did not reach thornsett until the night that had witnessed the explanations between the brothers. he had done more than twenty-five miles that day, and he was footsore and tired out when, as night was falling, he reached the top of the hill at whose foot lay the village which had been his home for thirty years. all along he had been determined to make straight for thornsett edge, and to confront roland at once. he felt that the young man might be surprised into more admissions than he would choose to make if he were prepared. but physical fatigue is wonderfully effective in upsetting mental decision. hatfield felt that neither in body nor in mind was he fit to go through at once with the part he had chosen. he must rest--sleep, if possible. he threw himself down on the heather by the pathside, and leaned his head on his arm, while he debated what to do. nature decided for him, and he fell asleep. when he woke, a young moon was shining coldly down upon him. he felt stiff, and not rested. the heather was wet with night-dew. how late was it? he thought by the moon about eight o'clock. he would go down to the village and see who was left in the old place; perhaps he might get a lodging there. the spotted cow was closed, he had heard. he limped down the steep stony street. there were no lights to be seen. as he reached the house that had been his, he saw that it was empty, and a longing came over him to get inside it. why not sleep there? so, turning aside, he went up the three stone steps and along the narrow paved pathway that ran under the windows separating the house from the tiny front garden. his hand fell on the latch of the door quite naturally, and it never occurred to him that it would not yield to his touch as it had been wont to do. but it did not yield. he was in that frame of mind when any resistance is intolerable. he drew back and then threw himself against the door with all his weight. it gave way noisily and he went in. he passed round the wooden screen, and stood in the middle of the flagged floor. to return to a house where we have been happy, even if we have left it for greater happiness, is always sad if not painful; but to go back to a house that seems to hold within its desolate walls, not only all our memories but all our possibilities of happiness--when we have left it in sorrow, to take back to it an added load of new, unexpected, intolerable trouble--this, let us be thankful, is not given to many of us. john hatfield could not bear it. he cast one look round at the dark, fireless hearth, the uncurtained window, turned, and came out. sleep there? he would rather sleep on the bare hillside, or in the churchyard itself, for that matter. the rush of memories drove him before it. he could not stay in the village. every other house in it had been a home too, and was crowded with recollections almost as maddening as those that peopled his own home, in which--bitterest thought of all--roland ferrier had lisped out childish prattle, and climbed on his knee to share his caresses with baby alice. and at the remembrance his resolution came back. he would go to thornsett edge then and there, let come what might. weak as he was, he was strong enough to make his tired feet carry him so far, and once there his passion could be trusted to give him strength to say and do all that needed to be said and done. he clenched his nerves, as though the pain of his bruised feet would grow less by being despised, and he walked on. but when he reached the turn in the road that brought the mill in sight his mood altered again, and almost before he knew that his intention had changed he found himself limping painfully down the stone steps into the little hollow. as he caught sight of the door where litvinoff had stood on the night of the fire he muttered a curse on the man who had stood between the 'hands' and their purpose that night. he felt faint and giddy. the many square windows of the mill seemed to look on him like eyes, and the broken panes in them lent them a sinister expression. the few past months had changed the face of the mill wonderfully. no one had repaired the damage done by the rioters, and the wind and rain had had their will of the place. it looked now, hatfield thought, as though it had been deserted for years instead of months. everything was deadly still. the only sounds were the trickling of the stream as it flowed past, and his own heavy breathing. he was becoming unaccountably sleepy. why should he not sleep here? he would go on to thornsett in the morning. he stumbled downward till he reached the wall of the mill. he soon found a window that could be unfastened by passing his hand through one of its broken panes and turning round the primitive hasp. it was rusty, and moved, as it were, reluctantly. still, it did move, and he opened the window and crept through it. he found himself on the edge of a huge stone tank, or vat. one more forward movement and he would have been plunged in the dark-looking water that half filled it. he shuddered. how could he have been such a fool as to forget the position of that tank? he crept round the edge of it, and reached the stone-paved floor of the basement. there lay a mass of something dark. it was the great stone that had thundered through the roof of the mill just after young roland ferrier had given the deputation their answer. hatfield looked up at the ugly hole in the ceiling, a hole that repeated itself in the two upper floors and the roof, through which he could see the sky. the moon was shining brightly by this time, and the many-windowed building was lighted well enough for the man to find his way about. had it been dark, he thought he should not have had much difficulty. he went up the stairs, and made his way to a room on the second storey, where he fancied there would be some soft rubbish he could lie down on. he was not disappointed, and, yielding to the utter weariness that had come to him, he lay down, and in a moment slept. he had not been asleep three minutes when he awoke with a start to find himself sitting up and listening. what had he heard? the click of a door and a footstep. he was widely, nervously, intensely awake now. had it been fancy, born of the utter desolation and loneliness of the place where he was? he listened strainedly. no. this at least was no fancy. there was a footstep resounding hollowly through the great empty rooms. some watcher, perhaps, from whom he ought to keep himself hidden if he did not want to be handed over to the constable as a vagrant. what an ending, that, to his journey! yes, he must lie quiet, and yet, how could he? suppose--and at the thought his blood ran coldly through his veins--suppose old richard ferrier had got up from under that white stone in thornsett churchyard, and had come down to keep watch over what his sons had so little regarded. the footsteps came nearer, and hatfield sprang to his feet and walked not away from, but towards, the sound. the impulse of a naturally brave man when he _is_ frightened is to face the fearsome thing as speedily as may be. hatfield opened the door. then he sprang forward, for he saw no ghost, but, as it seemed to him, the object of his search--not old richard, but young roland, standing with his back to him. the bright moonlight lighting up the figure left no room in his mind for a doubt. at the sight, all his ideas of asking for explanation vanished in an instant, and left him with no impulse but to catch the young man by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him. as the other turned at the sound of the opening door he gave a cry of horror at the sight of the wild, haggard figure springing at him--the white, angry, maddened face close to his own. 'keep back!' he almost screamed, as hatfield rushed upon him, but even as he spoke the man's hands fastened on his throat, and the two closed in a silent, deadly struggle. they had hardly grasped each other when both remembered the danger that lay behind them--that black gap in the floor--and each tried to edge away from it without loosening his hold. too late, though. the strain of the strong men wrestling was too much for the splintered boards already rotted through by the rain and snow of the past months. crash went the flooring beneath their feet, and as the two went through, fast locked in each other's arms, hatfield, above his adversary, saw, in a flash of intensest horror, that the face below him was not that of roland, but of richard. it was the last thing he ever saw in this world. in another moment he was lying, a dead man, at the bottom of the great tank. again the stillness of the empty mill was undisturbed, and the only movement in it was that of the heavy-coloured water as it settled down again into stagnation over him. * * * * * roland went to bed that night without troubling himself much about his brother. he had been deeply wronged, and he was a man who, not easily offended, was, when once alienated, implacable. he did not find it easy to forgive. though he had shaken hands with his brother he had not forgiven him, and he came down to breakfast the next morning quite prepared to keep up his _rôle_ of injured innocence, and to prevent his brother from experiencing much satisfaction in the reconciliation. richard had always been an early riser, and roland quite expected to find him in the dining-room waiting, but he was not there. he waited some little time, and then desired mrs brock to see if mr ferrier was in his room, and it was not till she returned with the intelligence that he was not and that his bed had not been slept in, that roland began to wonder in anxious earnest where his brother could be. a very short search showed that he was not in the house or grounds. could he have gone to the churchyard? no, thought roland; dick wasn't that sort of fellow. perhaps he had gone over to gates, and had stayed all night. in a very short time roland was at the hollies questioning eagerly, and, with an inexplicable feeling of dread and anxiety growing stronger upon him with each moment, he learned that dick had not been there. he would go down to the village, and mr gates volunteered to come with him, though he laughed cheerfully at the idea of there being anything to worry about in dick's non-appearance. 'he's playing off some trick on you,' he said. 'however, come along, and we'll soon find him.' so they walked together towards the village. 'hullo,' said mr gates, as they passed the mill, 'that door's no business open! perhaps dick's up to some games in there.' the door he pointed at was one opening from the mill on to a flight of stone steps that ran sideways outside the building from the second storey to the ground. 'whether he's there or not,' the lawyer went on, 'some one has been there, and we'd better see who it is.' so they went down, and, crossing the courtyard, between whose stones the grass was springing already, ran up the steps and passed through the open door. the whole place was flooded with the brilliant morning sunlight. the two made a few steps forward. they saw the hole in the floor, and paused. then roland's heart seemed to stand still, for he saw on the board at the edge of the gap a hat, and his brother's silver-headed walking stick, and he knew what had happened. with an exceeding bitter cry he turned from gates and sprang down an inner staircase, glancing at each floor as he passed it, and on the stones at the bottom he found what he sought--dick. or was it dick? could this mangled, twisted, bloody mass be his brother? the pitiless light came through the cobwebbed windows, and showed plainly enough that it was dick, or dick's body. 'run for bailey,' he shouted to gates, who had followed him; and he went. then roland lifted richard's head. was he alive? yes. at the movement a spasm of agony contracted his face, and his eyes opened. a look of relief came into them when he saw his brother. 'don't move me, old man,' he whispered; and the other knelt beside him, his arms under the poor head. he could not speak, for he saw that his brother was dying. after a moment richard spoke again, very faintly. 'i'm glad you've come.' he could only say a few words at a time, and between the sentences came long pauses, in each of which roland fancied the last silence had come. 'i wanted you, old fellow. it's nearly over now. it's been like hell lying here. i know he's somewhere near, and i couldn't help him. it was hatfield, and he mistook me for you. it was through me he believed you had wronged alice. he was hiding here, and attacked me. we struggled and fell. i'm afraid he's dead. you'll see presently.' then came a longer pause than any that had gone before, and still roland could not speak. gates had sent down a man from the cottage above, but when he came richard made impatient signs, and he went and stood outside. 'you didn't care about making it up, rowley; but it's all right between us now, isn't it?' roland's tears were falling over his brother's face. 'oh, dick, dick, dick!' he could say nothing else. 'it's hard lines,' richard said; 'but it's all my own fault. never mind, old chap. water!' roland called to the labourer, and when the water had been brought dick seemed to gather his strength together. 'since i've been lying here, i've wished i could believe i was going to see father again, and i half believe it's possible. i shouldn't care if i was going to the old dad again.' 'oh, dick! can i do nothing for you?' 'no, old chap; only tell _her_ i sent her my love. she has it, and she won't mind now.' then he lay silent, with closed eyes. presently he made a movement. roland interpreted it, and kissed his face. 'i'm going, old man!' he said. 'good-bye. clare! clare! clare!' he murmured her name over and over again, more and more faintly. roland put the water to his lips again, but it was too late. he had drunk of the nepenthe of death. chapter xxix. back from the dead. the clare stanley who studied bakounin and quoted matthew arnold was a very different girl from the clare stanley who had in the autumn entertained the reprehensible idea of bringing to her feet the interesting stranger at morley's hotel. in looking back on that time, which she did with hot cheeks and uncomfortable self-condemnation, it really seemed to her that she had changed into another being--development, when it is rapid, being always bewildering. it would be interesting to know with what emotions the rose remembers being a green bud. pleasanter ones perhaps than those of the woman whose new earnest sense of the intense seriousness of life leads her to look back--not with indulgent eyes--on the follies of her unawakened girlhood. the story of the sleeping beauty is an allegory with a very real meaning. every woman's mind has its time of slumber, when the creed of the day is truth and the convention of the day is morality. the fairy prince's awakening kiss may come in the pages of a book, in the words of a speaker, through love, through suffering, through sorrow, through a thousand things glad or sad, and to some it never comes, and that is the saddest thing of all. clare had slept, and now was well awake, and it was no word of count litvinoff's that had broken the slumbrous spell. sometimes she almost wished it had been, for she could not conceal from herself the fact that she had succeeded in doing what she had desired to do, and that count litvinoff _was_ at her feet. the position became him, certainly, but she felt a perverse objection to being placed on a pedestal, and a new conviction that she would rather look up to a lover than down at one. and yet why should she look down on him? he was cleverer than she, with a larger knowledge of life--had done incomparably more for the cause she had espoused. he was brave, handsome, and, to some extent, a martyr, and he loved her, or she thought so, which came to the same thing. verily, a man with all these qualifications was hardly the sort of lover for a girl under the twenties to look down upon. but could she help looking down on him, for was he not at her feet? and that was not the place, she thought, for a man who had drawn the sword in such a war as she and he had entered upon. what right had a man who had taken up arms in _that_ cause to lay them down, even at her feet? no, no. her lover, if she had one, must be at her side--not there. this reaction to the count's detriment had set in on new year's day, when he had told her that he held no cause sacred enough to give her even inconvenience for the sake of it, and the tide was still ebbing. litvinoff appeared quite unconscious of that fact though, for he continued to call on mrs quaid with a persistence which quite justified all cora's animadversions. miss quaid's penetration was at fault, but the count's was not. he was perfectly conscious of the change in her state of mind, and knew that his chance of being master of the stanley money-bags was far less than he had thought shortly after their late master's death. suspense was the one thing count litvinoff could not bear--at least, he could bear it when the balance of probabilities was in his favour; but when the chances did not seem to be on his side--no. he knew perfectly well that it is hardly 'correct' to ask a girl to marry one three months after her father's death; but he was not an enthusiastic devotee of 'correctness.' he habitually posed as a despiser of conventions, and this attitude very often stood him in good stead, even with people who preferred the stereotyped _rôles_ of life for themselves. avowed unconventionality serves as a splendid excuse for doing all sorts of pleasant things which conventional people daren't do; hence perhaps its growing popularity. 'he either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, who dares not put it to the touch, to gain or lose it all.' the lines ran in count litvinoff's head persistently one spring morning while he sat at his late breakfast. as he despatched his last mouthful of grilled sardine and looked round for the marmalade, the servant came in with a letter. 'it really is time i struck for fortune. i do hope this is not a bill,' he said to himself as he took it. 'i retrench and retrench, and still they come.' he tore it open. it was not a bill. it ran thus:-- 'i shall call upon you between four and five this afternoon; i wish to see you on an important matter.--petrovitch.' 'the mysterious stranger doesn't waste his words. he's almost as careful of them as the fellow with the dirty collar--bursch, or kirsch, or hirsch, or whatever it was. the best of being mixed up with the revolutionary party is that such beautifully unexpected things are always befalling one. i wonder why he couldn't have waited till to-morrow night. it lends a spice to an important matter to discuss it at forbidden times and in a secret manner at the houses of friends. that's another of our characteristics--to plot when we're supposed to be talking frivol only, and to play cards or go to sleep when we're supposed to be plotting. wonder what the important matter is. the distressed lady friend again, perhaps. well, before i commit myself on that matter, i'd better settle things one way or the other with _la belle_ clare. upon my soul, i don't much care which way they are settled. if i'm not to shine as the county magnate and the married man at aspinshaw, by heaven, i'll find out my own little girl, and go in for virtuous retirement in the _quartier latin_. when i do swallow my principles they go down whole, like oysters; and if miss stanley doesn't care to add the title of "countess" to her other endowments, some one will be glad to take that and me, even with nothing a year to keep state upon.' he pushed his chair back, and sat biting his moustache irresolutely, and frowning heavily at the breakfast-table. 'yes,' he said at last, rising; 'i'll have a shot for it now, as i've gone so far, and i'll shoot as straight and as steady as i can. as for the other matter--well, aspinshaw and the fruits thereof would not be a bad drug for inconvenient memories. i wonder if this is one of my good-looking days?' he added, moving towards the looking-glass, and scrutinising his reflection therein. he seemed satisfied, lighted the inevitable cigarette, and half an hour after noon was in mrs quaid's library, alone with clare stanley. mrs quaid, he had known, would be absent on some educational errand, and cora would be at the national gallery. he knew that miss stanley was not averse to a quiet morning spent in uninterrupted reading and copying, and he had rightly thought that he should have a very fair chance of finding her alone. the resolution of his, which had faltered before the remembrance of that other face, grew strong again as he saw her, for she looked charming, and it was not in his nature to be indifferent to the charms of any woman, even if she were not _the_ woman. miss stanley had been making notes in a ms. book, and litvinoff noticed with a feeling not altogether pleasurable that 'the prophetic vision' and the 'ethics of revolution' both lay open on the writing-table, and that she seemed to have been comparing them one with the other. 'i am afraid you will hate me for interrupting your studies,' he began, apparently ignorant of the direction those studies had been taking, 'but when the servant told me you were alone in the library, i could not resist the temptation of coming in.' 'i don't at all mind being interrupted,' she answered, when he had settled himself down in a chair opposite to her with the air of a man who, having come in, meant to stay. 'i was just looking through two of your books. one of them, indeed, i almost know by heart.' 'and that is?'--carelessly, as one who is sure of the answer-- '"the prophetic vision."' somehow count litvinoff did not look delighted. perhaps he wanted to talk about something else. 'but, oh,' she went on, 'what a long way off it all seems!' 'yes, it does; i was an enthusiastic young rebel when i first put on the prophet's mantle.' then, as a faint change in her face showed him that he had made a false move, he hastened to add, 'but it will all happen some day, you know. it is a true vision, but knocking about in the world has taught me that the immediately practicable is the thing to aim for.' 'oh, no, no, no,' she said. 'never let us lower our standard. we shall not do less noble work in the present for having the noblest of all goals before us.' then she looked at him, at his handsome, _insouciant_ face, at the half-cynical droop of his mouth, at the look in his eyes--the sort of look an old cardinal who knew the church and the world might turn on an enthusiastic young monk--and she felt a sudden regret for that heart-warm speech of hers. what had she in common with this perfectly-dressed, orchid-button-holed young man? why should she expect him to understand her? and yet had he not written "the prophetic vision"? she went on, smiling a little,-- 'you must make allowances for the hopeful faith of a new convert. perhaps when i've held my new belief a little longer i shall be less _en l'air_. but i must say i hope not.' 'your new beliefs make you very happy, then?' 'they make me want very much to live to see what will happen. it would be terrible to die now before anything is accomplished. you see, i can't help believing that we shall accomplish something, although i know you think me very high-flown and absurd.' 'you know i think you perfect,' he said, in a very low voice, and went on hurriedly: 'but, for heaven's sake, don't talk about dying; the idea is too horrible. can't you guess why i have seemed not sympathetic with your new religion? i have known what it is to believe strongly, to work unceasingly, never to leave off hoping, and trying to show others my hope. i have known what it is to have no life but the life of the cause; to go through year after year still hoping and striving. i have known all this, and more. i have known the heart-sickness of waiting for a dawn that never comes. i know how one may strain every nerve, tax every power, kill one's body, wear out one's brain, break one's heart against the iron of things as they are, and when all is sacrificed, all is gone, all is suffered, have achieved _nothing_. it is from this i would save you. that you should suffer is a worse evil than any your suffering could remedy. the cause will have martyrs enough without you.' 'martyrs, yes; but how can it have too many workers?' she asked, not looking at him. 'to be a worker is to be a martyr,' he answered, rising and standing near her; 'and that is the reason why you are the only convert i have never rejoiced over.' 'i don't know,' she was beginning when he interrupted her. 'don't say that,' he said. 'don't say you don't know why i can't endure the thought of your ever knowing anything but peace and happiness. you know it is because i love you, and my love for you has eaten up all my other loves. freedom, the revolution, my country, my own ambition, are all nothing to me. but if _you_ care for the cause i can still work in it, and with a thousand times more enthusiasm than it ever inspired me with before, for _you_. that can be your way of helping it. use me as your instrument. make any use you will of me, if only you are safe and happy, and _mine_.' his voice was low with the passion which for the moment thrilling through him made him quite believe his own words. clare had listened silently, her eyes cast down, and her nervous fingers diligently tearing an envelope into little bits, and when he had ended she still did not speak, but her breath came and went quickly. 'you,' he was beginning again, when she stretched out her hand to silence him. 'no, no,' she said; 'don't say any more--i can't bear it.' 'does that mean that you care?' 'it means that this seems the most terrible thing that could have happened to me. that it should be through me that you give up the right.' 'but through you, for you, i will become anything you choose.' 'and that is the worst of all,' she said, with very real distress. 'i can ask you to do nothing for my sake.' 'you cannot love me, then?' he asked, as earnestly as though his happiness hung on her answer. 'no,' she said steadily, 'i cannot love you. i am very, very sorry--' 'spare me your pity, at least,' he said. 'but one thing i must ask. why did you let me see you again after new year's day? for i told you the same thing then, and you knew then that i loved you.' it was true--but clare hated him for saying it. 'i have changed so much since then,' she said slowly. several things both bitter and true rose to his lips. he did not give them voice, however. he had never in his life said an unkind thing to a woman. it occurred to him that he was accepting his defeat rather easily, and he looked at her to measure the chances for and against the possible success of another appeal. but in her face was a decision against which he knew there could be no appeal. he felt angry with her for refusing him--angry and unreasonably surprised; and then, in one of the flashes of light that made it so hard for him to understand himself, he saw that if she was to blame for refusing his love, he was ten thousand times more to blame for having sought hers, and this truth brought others with it. his real feeling, he knew, was not anger but relief. he made a step forward. 'you are right,' he said. 'i congratulate you on your decision. you were talking of dying just now. you will live long enough to know how much congratulation you merit for having to-day refused to give yourself to a traitor and a villain.' 'a traitor--no, no,' she said, holding out her hand. 'no,' he said, 'i am not worthy. some day you will know that i ought never to have touched that hand of yours. good-bye.' and the door shut behind him, and clare was left standing in the middle of the room with her eyes widely opened, and her hand still outstretched. she stood there till she heard the front door closed, and then sank into a chair. she didn't want to go on making notes about 'the prophetic vision' any more. the interview had not been a pleasant one, and it was not pleasant to think over. one of the least pleasant things in this world is a granted wish, granted after it has ceased to be wished. and clare could not forget that she _had_ desired to win this man's admiration, at least. she could not forget that he had saved her father's life--that he had been the first to speak to her of many things once unknown or unconsidered, but now a part of her very life--and she could not forget that when she had first thought of the possibility of his asking her to marry him she had _not_ meant to refuse him. there had been much about him to attract her, and if she had never met petrovitch she might have given litvinoff, even now, a different answer. but in petrovitch she found all the qualities that had fascinated her in litvinoff, and all on a larger scale, and with a finer development. litvinoff now seemed to her like a dissolving view of petrovitch seen through the wrong end of a telescope. he lacked the definiteness of outline, the depth of tone, the intense reality of the other man. perhaps he seemed more brilliant and dashing; but hirsch's story had shown what petrovitch was. added to all this was one significant fact. she had admired in litvinoff one quality or another, and had desired to attract him. to petrovitch she herself had been attracted, not by any specific quality or qualities, but by himself--by the man as he was--and this attraction grew stronger with each meeting. a fortnight had now passed since the second time she had seen him, and somehow or other she had seen him very often in that time. she knew well enough that neither litvinoff nor petrovitch had come to marlborough villa to see its mistress. and she had been sufficiently certain about the count's motives for his visit, but could she be certain about the motive which brought the elder man there so constantly? of any effort to make him care for her she was not guilty. in her new frame of mind she would have felt any such attempt to be degrading, alike to herself and to him. and though she knew he came to see her, she could not be sure why he came. was his evident interest in her only the interest of an apostle in a convert? a certain humility had sprung up in her, along with many other flowers of the heart, and she did not admit to herself that there was a chance of his interest being of another nature. only, she thought, it would be the highest honour in the world and the deepest happiness to be the woman whom he loved. not the less because she knew well enough that the woman he loved would hold the second place in his heart, and that he would not wish to hold the first place in hers. that, for both of them, must be filled by the goddess whom litvinoff had once said he worshipped, and whom he had abjured and abandoned for her sake. she thought of this without a single thrill of gratified pride. miss stanley sat silent for half an hour, and in that time got through more thinking than we could record if we wrote steadily for half a year. at the end of that time miss quaid came home. 'i hear count litvinoff has been here,' she said, when she entered the study. 'what is it to be? am i to have a countess litvinoff for a friend?' 'no,' said clare, rising and shaking off her reverie; i shall never be anything to count litvinoff.' which was, perhaps, a too hasty conclusion. * * * * * to the reader who has followed the fortunes of count litvinoff so far we need hardly mention the fact that as soon as he was clear of marlborough villa he pulled out his cigar-case. it had always been a favourite theory of his that a cigar and not a mill-pond was the appropriate sequel to an unsuccessful love affair. not that it had ever occurred to him as even remotely possible that such an experience could ever be his. here it was, however, and he had one of those opportunities which always charm the thinker--that of being able to apply to his own case a theory invented for other people. he took a meditative turn round regent's park. it is a strange fact which we do not remember to have seen commented on by any other writer--that when a man comes away from an interview with a girl to whom he has been making love he is inevitably driven to think, not of her alone, but also of one, two, three or more of the other girls to whom he has from time to time made love in the remote or recent past. such is the depravity of the 'natural man' that these thoughts are not generally sad ones. but litvinoff's thoughts were genuinely sad. he had said to miss stanley that he was a traitor and a villain, and it had not been said for dramatic effect. he meant it. he would have given a good many years of any life that might lie before him to undo a few of the years that lay behind. 'i am not consistent enough for a villain,' he said to himself. 'i have failed in that part, and now i will go in for my natural _rôle_ of a fool, and i've a sort of idea that i shall get on better. and the first thing to be done is to find my little one. fool as i am, i've generally been able to do anything i've really set my mind on. the reason i've failed in my "deep-laid schemes" has been that i didn't always care whether i won or not. i can be in the same mind about this matter, however, for a long enough time to achieve what i want. as for principles, they bore me. if it hadn't been for my principles i shouldn't have got into half this trouble. what shall i do with myself till my mysterious friend turns up?' after a minute's hesitation he turned into the zoological gardens, where he spent some thought on the wasting of an hour or so among the beasts, incurred the undying hatred of an alligator by stirring him up with the ferule of his stick, irritated the llama to the point of expectoration, and grossly insulted the oldest inhabitant of the monkey-house. his luncheon was a bath bun and a glass of milk. 'a fourpenny luncheon,' he said to himself, 'is the first step in the path of virtue.' at half-past three he got back to his lodgings, and sat down with the resolution of going thoroughly into his financial affairs. to that he thought he would devote an hour or two, and in the evening he would try to find the lost clue in spray's buildings. this looking into his finances struck him as being a business-like sort of thing to do, and quite in harmony with his present frame of mind. he was soon busy at his light writing-table. presently he drew from a drawer his banker's pass-book, made bulky with cancelled cheques. he groaned earnestly. 'alas!' he said to himself, 'how sadly simple and easy it is to sign one's name on this nice smooth coloured paper. i suppose it's best to check these off--bankers' clerks are so dreadfully careless.' a most unfounded statement, born of ignorance of business, and a desire to seem to himself as one who understood it. suddenly he started, and singled out the cheque he had given to hirsch in the autumn. it bore on it, as endorsement, in a bold, free handwriting, the name, 'michael petrovitch.' 'hola!' he said; 'a namesake of mine. stay, though. this apostle of our cause does not keep to one handwriting.' he walked to the mantelpiece, and taking thence the letter he had received in the morning, he compared the writing. 'h'm--wonder what _this_ means?' he said, returning to his seat. 'the two writings are not the same, and yet there is something in this writing on the cheque which i seem to have seen before. we'll try for an explanation before he leaves this room.' he went on steadily with his self-imposed task of comparing each cheque with the entry in the book. he had half done them when a ring at the front door bell made him look up. 'aha! the mysterious petrovitch is punctual,' he said to himself. it was petrovitch, though perhaps those who had seen most of him in the last few months would have failed to recognise him. he looked at least ten years younger. the handsome long light beard was gone, and he was close shaved save for a heavy drooping blond moustache. as count litvinoff heard his visitor's steps upon the stairs he settled himself back in his chair, with an assumption of a business air, much like that of a very young lawyer about to receive a new client. there was a sharp rap at the room door. 'come in,' he said. the door opened. he sprang to his feet, stood one moment clutching at the table before him, his eyes wide with something that seemed almost terror, and his whole frame rigid with astonishment. then his expression changed to one of deepest love and delight. there was a crash of furniture, as he flung the little writing-table from him, and it fell shattered against the opposite wall. with a hysterical cry of 'ah, ah, ah, litvinoff! back from the dead!' he sprang across the room, threw his arms round the other's neck, and fell sobbing on his breast. chapter xxx. talking things over. before the echo of that cry had died away, the man who had uttered it swayed sideways, his face grew deadly white, the clasp of his arms loosened, and only the sudden firm grip of the other saved him from falling. petrovitch laid him on the sofa. then he passed into the adjoining bedroom, and came back with a wet sponge. 'what a fellow it is,' he said to himself, as he applied it to the hands and face of the insensible man. 'as brave as a lion, and as hysterical as a schoolgirl.' but he looked very kindly on the pale face as he administered his remedies. in a little while the eyes opened, and the younger man struggled into a sitting position, and looked into the face that bent over him. 'litvinoff, it _is_ you, then?' he said in a low voice, and covered his face with his hands. the joy of seeing once more the man he had loved seemed to be swallowed up in the shame of meeting the man he had wronged. 'yes, percival, it is i,' said petrovitch; 'but let this be the last time you call me litvinoff, and i must not call you percival either. i think i have a right to ask that. you have chosen to put on the prophet's mantle, and for all our sakes you must wear it a little longer.' 'what do you mean?' 'i mean simply that you must still be count litvinoff, and i must still be petrovitch.' 'then _you_ are petrovitch! why did you take a false name to mislead me?' he groaned. 'why did you let me go on wearing your name, and spending your money? why not have let me know at once, when every day made things worse? i would have gone out of life long ago rather than face this meeting.' 'and yet you seemed glad to see me, too?' said petrovitch, looking at him curiously. 'but i took no false name; my name is really petrovitch. my father's name was peter, you know. you ought to remember that. you have heard me called by it often enough.' 'i never thought of you by it, though; and besides, i thought you were dead. you know that i thought you were dead?' with a sudden, quick doubt in his voice. 'of course!' 'you know, don't you,' he went on eagerly, 'that i would gladly have given my life for yours, and that i never hoped for anything so good in this world as to see you alive? yes, in spite of everything, though i can't expect you to believe it,' he ended bitterly. 'i have never doubted it,' petrovitch answered; and with a sudden thrill of pity for the despair, the remorse, the longing, and the wretchedness in the other's face, he added, 'come, old friend, don't take this so much to heart. it is nothing that cannot be put right. you will see when we come to talk it over quietly. can't we have some tea?' petrovitch knew well enough that when the heart's cords are stretched almost unbearably by the strain of an intense emotion, it sometimes stems as though they could only be saved from giving way altogether by the direction of the mind to some utterly trivial detail of everyday life. many a woman's heart has been saved from breaking by the necessity of getting the children's dinner, and many a tragedy has been averted by the chief actor's having to take in the afternoon's milk. petrovitch repeated the question, 'can't we have some tea?' the other rose mechanically, went to a cupboard, and brought out a plated kettle and spirit-lamp, a small china tea set, and a plate of lemons, with a silver knife. he put these appliances on the table in an unmethodical, untidy sort of way, and was proceeding to light the spirit-lamp, when petrovitch, who had been watching him with a smile, took the match-box out of his hand. 'here, let me make tea. i see you are just as unsystematic as ever.' he lighted the lamp, and with a few deft touches put the rest of the tea-things in order, as the other, leaving the matter in his hands, strode up and down the room. 'oh, what is to be the end of all this?' he said at length; 'how long am i to go on bearing your name?' 'all this will soon be at an end, as far as i am concerned. i have nearly completed my arrangements for getting back to russia, and when i'm there you may guess it won't matter to me who bears my name. i shall not wish to use it. but while i am here i wish to be petrovitch. indeed, you can serve me best by letting it be as widely known as possible that count litvinoff is--well, where you are and not where i am, and after all it's nobody's business but yours and mine.' 'does no one else know of it at all?' 'only two men in st petersburg, and one in london.' 'and he is?' 'hirsch, whom you've seen, i think.' 'why the devil didn't he tell every one then?' 'because i asked him not to, and he considers himself under some sort of obligation to me.' 'like everyone else you come across. but how came _he_ to know it?' 'he had to be told when i came here. there was certain work i had to do; i can tell you about it another time, and he was the only man who could put me in the way of it. now count litvinoff, the tea is ready.' the other stopped in his walk. 'curse it!' he said passionately. 'call me a villain or a forger, or any other pretty name you like; i can stand that, but not your lips calling me by your name. it's a cruel revenge.' 'ah, we owe too much to our enemies for there to be any thought of revenge between friends, and i must teach myself to call you that. besides, what is there to revenge? you have only used the name i did not need.' 'no, i forged your name as well as stole it. you don't know all.' 'yes, i do, or pretty nearly all. as far as your taking my name goes, that has done no harm; rather good; and as for the money, that would have gone to you. you know, if i had had the giving of it, it would have gone to you. and i know you would never have touched it if you had not thought i was dead.' 'i wish i had never left you, though i did think it, and at the mercy of those curs. if only i had died by you!' 'you know well enough our rule is that none should be sacrificed without reason. why should you have given those hounds two lives instead of one?' 'i wish i had died that night under the orange trees at monte carlo. you did yourself a bad turn when you saved my life. i have done no good with it. i have only weighted myself with unpardonable sins.' 'as far as i am concerned,' petrovitch said, 'if there is anything to forgive, it is freely forgiven--freely and fully; and now let us shake hands after your english fashion, and of forgiveness let us talk no more. we are _friends_, and between such it is no question of pardon. and there are many other things we must speak of.' he held his hand out, and the younger man grasped it. there was a moment's pause. then,-- 'let me give you some fresh tea--that is cold,' said petrovitch cheerfully, pouring out another cup; 'don't you want to hear what happened to me after i was killed?' 'i can hardly realise yet that you are _not_ killed.' 'well, i'll tell you about it. the officer of that troop added medicine to his other accomplishments, besides which he was a distant relation of my mother's, and he insisted on seeing whether i could not be conjured back to life. i believe i gave them a good deal of trouble, but i seem to be a die-hard. my capture was kept very quiet, thanks to my family name, for the government didn't care about having it known that the head of the litvinoffs had tried to atone for the crimes of his family by taking the side of the people. my wound was a bad one, and even now troubles me sometimes. i used sometimes almost to wish it had settled me. fancy being in prison, and a russian prison, with a wound like that.' 'but how did you get away?' for answer petrovitch told him the story of his escape as he had told it to hirsch and to his other friends, intentionally making the recital a long one, so that his companion might have time to get used to the new situation before they began to talk of the future. 'and now,' he said, when he had ended, 'tell me how it fared with the secretary.' 'i hate to think of it,' said the man who had borne the litvinoff name for three years, and who, it seemed, was to bear it a little while longer. 'whenever i think of that night, i see nothing but your face--dead, as i thought--turned up from the snow in the hateful dawn. oh, my friend!' his voice faltered, and he held his hand out to petrovitch again. after a pause, he resumed, 'i tried all i knew to revive you, but you were as cold as ice, and your heart did not beat. i stayed by you a long, long time. it did not occur to me to leave you, but at last, in a flash, i realised that you were _gone_--that i was there in the snow _alone_. and then i thought of escape. i said good-bye to your body. i felt as if your self was far away somewhere, and then i sprang up and dashed off in the direction we had been taking. it was broad daylight then, but i saw nothing of the soldiers, though i knew afterwards they must have found you, because when we sent, your body was gone. i must have kept pretty straight, for i came to a house at last, and i went straight up to it. i thought it must be teliaboff's, and if it wasn't i felt i didn't much care. i went right in, asked for the master of the house, and when he came to me i told him all. it was teliaboff. he was very good to me, and kept me there nearly a fortnight. we could hear nothing of you--nothing at all. by the way, it was he who first, unconsciously, gave me the idea of personating you, for when i entered his house on that horrible morning he greeted me by your name. i undeceived him at once, but the idea took root and bore fruit later. he was kindness itself, and his little daughter--she was only twelve, i think--took a fancy to me. i believe that child's companionship saved me from going mad. 'then he got me a passport, and gave me money enough to get to vienna. when i got there i was penniless, and i knew you had had money there. i did not feel somehow that i was robbing _you_ when i forged your name--heaven knows that was easily done, i knew your signature so well--and went on to paris with your money as count michael litvinoff. when i took your money i meant honestly to spend it all in the cause you had worked for, and for a time i did. but--i don't know how to explain it--i suppose the revolution had not really taken hold of me. it was _you_ i had cared for, and your creed i had held, not for itself, but because it was _yours_. and when your personal influence was not near me i grew careless and idle, and worked for liberty only by fits and starts. it used to seem too much trouble to do things for the cause. it had been your approval i cared for, i think. you are so strong, i can't expect you to understand the imbecilities of such a weak fool as i am. from the moment when i ceased to spend all my time and all your money on your work, i seemed utterly degraded in my own eyes, and it did not seem to matter what i did, so i have gone on from bad to worse, and the principles _you_ would die for, have only been will-o'-the-wisp lights to lead me into direr troubles than i should ever have known without them. i have not kept michael litvinoff's name clean. and the evil i have done is nothing to what i have tried to do. i sent teliaboff his money back, but i have never heard from him. have you? do you know whether he is all right?' 'haven't you heard?' petrovitch asked gravely. 'heard? no! what? anything wrong?' 'hanged,' was the brief reply. 'hanged!' 'yes, and his little daughter--she was fourteen, then, i think--was hanged with him.' 'for--for helping me?' gasped litvinoff. 'no, for having "the prophetic vision" in her room.' 'my god!' cried litvinoff, springing up. 'how long will men bear it? let us go back this very day, and kill and kill and kill these fiends as long as we have an arm to strike or a finger to pull a trigger.' 'we are going back,' petrovitch said quietly. 'as for that deed, it is avenged. the man who was responsible for that murder got his sentence of death and his notice of it two days later. he lived through three months of terror, and then shot himself, to escape execution at the hands of some of us. don't talk more of him.' the two men sat silent for a little while, but litvinoff's eyes still blazed with excitement. petrovitch smoked quietly. 'how was it,' litvinoff asked presently, turning from the other subject with evident effort, 'that you did not let me know directly you came over?' 'i did not see any good to be gained by it,' answered petrovitch, who did not choose to tell his friend that he had waited to see with what grace the prophet's mantle was worn. 'i heard you speak at the agora. i read your writings. you seemed to be doing good. besides, it made concealment of my purposes more easy not to be known as litvinoff.' 'then what made you decide to tell me now?' was the very natural question. petrovitch hesitated, but only for a moment. then he said,-- 'frankly, because i thought you were meditating an action that would afterwards cause you more regret than anything else you have done, and i wished to prevent it.' 'and that action was?' 'taking another wife while your first wife still lived and still loved you.' petrovitch spoke slowly and distinctly. litvinoff leaned forward in his chair and looked at him amazedly. 'by heaven!' he said, leaning back with a sort of sigh, 'you seem to know everything.' 'i have made it my business to know.' 'not quite everything in this case, though,' litvinoff added, correcting himself, 'for i have no wife.' petrovitch's eyes flashed angrily. 'i was not speaking in the phrase of your london society. i did not suppose that you were going to commit an illegal act. i merely imagined that you had intended to commit a crime. i am not mistaken in supposing that you always led the woman in question to believe that you looked upon her as your wife?' 'you are not mistaken--you are right. i did contemplate a crime,' he said, walking over to the bookcase, and standing so that his face was not to be seen. 'i have no defence to offer; but at the time i first contemplated it i deceived myself with the idea that i had. but my wife left me. i did not leave her. i never could have left her; and if she had not left me that vile idea of marrying another woman would never have entered my head. however, that's all at an end now, i'm thankful to say, and i mean to find my wife'--there was no hesitation in his voice this time--'and legalise her position with bell, book, and candle, and any other rites that may seem to her desirable.' 'regardless of principles?' said petrovitch, with the faintest possible sneer. 'damn principles!' litvinoff cried, turning round, stung by the tone. 'i would have sacrificed them for a woman i merely admired, and they sha'n't stand between me and the woman i love.' 'how do you propose to find her?' 'i haven't the slightest idea. do you know where she is?' he added sharply. 'do you remember giving £ to a man named hirsch in the autumn?' was the counter-question. 'i do?' with an inquiring look. 'that was for your wife!' litvinoff drew a long breath. 'go on!' he said, simply. then petrovitch told him all that he knew of alice, and litvinoff listened intently. when petrovitch spoke of the night on blackfriars' bridge, he leaned forward breathing heavily, then rose suddenly, and, crossing to a couch, flung himself, face downwards, on it. petrovitch paused. 'go on! go on! go on!' said an impatient, stifled voice from the couch. so petrovitch resumed. when the tale was told, litvinoff rose. he was very pale, his lips trembled a little, and his dark eyes were shining and wet. 'when can i see you to-morrow? i am going to chislehurst now. i don't thank you; it would be absurd. thanks are idiotic under some circumstances. you saved my life--which i didn't care about--and now it seems you've saved what i do care for, as much as such a scamp as i can care for anything. but you don't need my words. i believe you understand me--if any one does.' petrovitch rose and laid his hand on his shoulder. 'do not go to-night,' he said. 'she is not strong yet, and you are too excited to meet her calmly. wait till to-morrow. you may trust her safely where she is for another night. besides, there is very, very much to be said between us--both of the past and future.' 'well, you have a right to command me,' litvinoff answered, frowning and a little stiffly, and then was silent a moment. then he said suddenly, flinging himself into his chair with the frown quite gone, 'you're right--you always are, and there _is_ much to be said. i wish to god there could be some way of wiping out the past, or rather of atoning for it. do you know, it seems to me that i shall have a chance of seeing my way to doing something _worth_ doing now you have come back. i could almost swear at this moment that i believed as heartily as ever in liberty, humanity, progress, and all the other things you taught me to swear by, but in my soul i know it is _you_ i believe in--always have believed in-- i've never believed in anything but you for more than three months at a time. peculiar, isn't it?' 'you haven't altered in the least,' said petrovitch smiling. 'you were never sure of your beliefs except when you were fighting for them. you should be back in russia. persecution is a splendid antidote to religious doubt. men like you ought not to live in england. there is too much freedom in the air and it doesn't agree with you. you get to think there is nothing worth fighting for here. there is, though, and some englishmen are beginning to find it out.' 'you are going back to russia?' litvinoff said, interrogatively. 'yes.' 'let me come with you,' he cried, impulsively. 'give your secretary another chance.' 'ah, my days of quiet writing are over now. the battle grows hot. i don't want a secretary, i want a comrade in arms. will you go to servia for me?' 'i'll go to hell, if you like,' was the direct reply. 'the two will soon be synonymous, if all i hear is correct. but what about your wife?' 'it used to be one of your principles,' litvinoff said, using the word, as it were, reluctantly, 'that if a man believes in anything enough to place himself in danger for it, he should not hesitate to risk all he holds precious for the same end; and my wife is not a coward, she would go with me.' 'poor little woman,' said petrovitch; 'but that was and is one of my principles. if you go to servia under my name i shall have a far better chance of getting back to st petersburg under someone else's. and the risk to your wife is of the slightest, for it is a peaceful errand i will send you on.' 'i hate peaceful errands.' 'i dare say there'll be a little excitement thrown in--but don't rush into danger. there is no need there, and it can do no good. i know hard fighting is the easiest; but our business is to do the thing which has to be done, be it peace or be it war.' 'ah!' said litvinoff, with enthusiasm; 'to act up to that ideal is easy enough for men like you, but you must remember that such men as you are as far above the rest of us as the christian martyrs are above the average church-goer. you are the saints of the new religion.' 'don't you think we'd better go and have some dinner?' said petrovitch, drily. chapter xxxi. 'my little girl.' the suggestion was a good one, and the dinner to which the two sat down had a steadying effect on the nerves of the younger man. he became calmer, and when they returned to his rooms he was able to bear his part in a long, earnest, quiet talk over events past and to come. the talk lasted far into the night, and before they parted it was settled that litvinoff should leave for servia in two days, taking with him certain important papers from petrovitch to another of the nihilist leaders. that he should there wait instructions, and should enter russia by the southern frontier, and rejoin the circle at st petersburg, leaving his assumed name at belgrade. that the following imaginative announcement should be inserted in as many english papers as possible for the special edification of the russian embassy. 'count michael litvinoff left london for dover this morning, _en route_ for belgrade. he was accompanied by countess litvinoff, an english lady to whom he was secretly married some time ago. count litvinoff, so well known to many of our readers through his "social enigma," his "hopes and fears for liberty," and his many revolutionary _brochures_, has never been a familiar figure in london society, his literary labours having compelled him to live in strict retirement. it will be remembered that he was the hero of an adventure on the russian frontier some years ago, was wounded, captured, and sent to a russian prison, from which he escaped to england.' it was also settled that the money for the journey should be taken from the remainder of the litvinoff capital. when litvinoff began to speak of the money he had spent and the debts he had incurred, petrovitch stopped him with,-- 'i'll see to your debts--and what is gone is gone. don't let us waste words over that.' it was arranged that petrovitch should seek out john hatfield and his wife, and should let them know that their daughter was happily married. they judged it best not to subject alice to an interview which could not but involve most painful explanations, and they agreed that it would be cruel both to her and to her parents to let them meet, merely to part again at once. of clare stanley neither of them spoke one word. a new day was some way into its small hours when they said good-bye. 'we meet in st petersburg, then, as soon as may be,' petrovitch said. 'i shall not see you again till then.' 'i hope by that time i shall have done something to prove to you that you have indeed brought me back to the ranks of duty and the revolution.' 'i don't need proof,' said the other with one last hand-pressure. and so they parted. next morning early, litvinoff went down into the city, where he paid a disproportionate sum of money for a paper which empowered him to marry his wife at once, instead of waiting three weeks for that privilege. then he went down to chislehurst. the sky was clear and pale and blue, and the sun shone divinely. the trees that had been brown seemed at a little distance to be wrapped in a grey gauze veil, as they always do when the green buds first break out to new life. as litvinoff walked up the hill to chislehurst common, he tried to think what he should say to alice, how she would look, how she would speak to him. with a touch of ingrained cynicism, he laughed at himself to find that his heart was beating tumultuously, and that his hands were trembling. 'and this is the man,' he said contemptuously to himself, 'who walked behind her for half-an-hour last autumn, and never spoke to her! no, not the same man,' he added, after a pause, 'i am purged of a crime since then.' the house where he was to seek alice was a little yellow-brick building near the church. he looked at the pretty old-fashioned churchyard as he passed, and then at the building itself. 'i suppose,' he said to it, 'you will be the balm the child will choose to ease her sorrow--and you will bring comfort to her, as you have to thousands of others. i don't grudge them their comfort, but i do grudge you your influence. however, you won't keep it much longer. _tant mieux._' his hand was on the garden gate--he unlatched it, and walked up to the smallest detached house he had ever beheld. he raised the diminutive knocker, and assaulted therewith the tiny brown door. would she open it? she did not. it opened--and litvinoff at first really thought it opened of its own accord. at anyrate it opened by some agency invisible to him. he stood and looked; but when the door slowly began to close again, he thought it was time for action. he came a step forward, and addressing nothing, said,-- 'is mrs litvinoff in?' then a very small girl in a yellow pinafore and a lilac frock showed herself from behind the door; but shyness and an incomplete knowledge of her native tongue combined to render her speechless. litvinoff, with an impatient but perfectly gentle movement, lifted her bodily from her position as guard, and placed her outside the door. 'the air will brighten your wits, _mon petit chou_,' he said. then he walked straight into the house, and looked round the two rooms on the ground floor. empty. he passed through the kitchen, whose proportions would have served for those of the corresponding apartment in a good-sized doll's house, and found himself in a brick-paved back yard, where there were a water-butt, a basket of wet linen, some clothes-lines, and the lady of the house. regardless of her astonishment, he addressed himself to her. 'oh, mrs litvinoff?' she answered curiously, 'she is out; she has gone to orpington for some butter for me, sir, and she won't be long.' 'how long?' 'perhaps an hour.' 'is she alone?' 'yes, sir.' 'if you'll be kind enough to tell me the way, i think i'll go and meet her.' 'and who shall i say called if you should miss her, and she comes back first?' 'say her husband,' answered litvinoff. the woman gave him profuse directions, for which he thanked her with his usual _empressement_, and turned at the gate to raise his hat in farewell. 'my stars!' said mrs bowen, as she watched him out of sight, 'he's a real gentleman, and no mistake. poor little mrs litvinoff,' she added, with a woman's instinctive interest in a romance, 'i hope they'll make it up and live happy ever after, that i do!' litvinoff walked along. his heart was lighter than it had been for many a long day. on these delicious fresh spring mornings-- when march makes sweet the weather with daffodil, and starling, and hours of fruitful breath, just to be alive is a rapture. of course it may be cancelled by care like any other joy. but litvinoff felt as if he had no cares. he was going to meet _the_ woman he loved, and the nearer he got to her the more he loved her. in love, as in friendship, nearness was everything to him. every figure in the distance he thought was her figure. if you have ever gone to meet a person whom you very intensely wished to meet, you will remember how constantly recurring is that illusion. you will remember the spasm of vindictive hate which seizes on you when the figure in the distance is neared, and dispels your illusion by being itself and not the one you wanted it to be. paul's cray common seemed a paradise to him. it does make a fairly good one under favourable circumstances, with its heather, and gorse, and larch, and oak saplings, and, fairest of all, its graceful swaying silver birches. the birds were singing madly, and as he felt the springy turf under his feet, and the warm spring sun on his shoulders, he began to sing, too, a tender little french song, all about green woodland paths, and youth, and love, and happiness. alice hatfield's heart was very sad, but it was a quiet sadness, that did not shut out the charm of the spring. under the influence of the young life blood of the year that seemed to be throbbing through that perfect day, she had felt strong, and had walked with more swiftness than usual, and now, as she was returning with a basket, in which her butter lay, under cool green leaves, she began to walk more slowly and to consider two pounds of butter heavier than she had thought it before. she had been revelling among the primroses and dog violets, and had filled up her basket with the pale, yellow primrose stars and the delicate pink and white wind-flowers. she was tired, certainly, and she turned aside and sat down on a felled tree, in a certain little pine copse that runs along by the road-side. the pine needles lay brown, and soft, and thick under her feet. a little bright-eyed, red-brown squirrel came half-way down one of the trees to look at her, but seemed to find her not quite as nice as he had expected, for he whisked his tail with undisguised contempt, and went back to his home with a lightning-like spiral scramble. he must have been a squirrel hard to please, for it is a fact that, in spite of illness and trouble, alice was far prettier now than when her sweet face had first caught count litvinoff's eyes on the birkenhead ferry. she sat quietly gazing through the pine trees, with her head turned from the road. presently she stooped to attempt the capture of a very young and very yellow frog which had hopped close to her feet, regardless of the pine needles. as she did so her heart stood still, for her ears caught the tramp, tramp of a man's footstep, and the ringing sound of a man's voice, a voice she knew,-- 'viens, suivons les sentiers ombreux, ou s'égarent les amoureux le printemps nous appelle, viens! soyons heureux!' she rose to her feet, and involuntarily uttered a low cry. she dared not turn her head. the singing stopped abruptly, there was a crash through the brambles, and in a moment a pair of strong arms were round her, and lips close to her ear murmured,-- 'my little girl!' she rested on his arm for one moment then she said, in a choked sort of voice, as she tried to release herself,-- 'it's no use, i cannot come back. you have not come here to ask me back. do, do leave me alone!' he held her fast. 'my darling,' he whispered, 'do you think i could leave you now i have found you? i _have_ come to ask you to come back to me. i have come to ask you to marry me. you will not send me away. i cannot do without my little one any longer. you love me still?' he added, a sudden doubt striking him at her continued silence, and he raised her chin with his hand till he could look in her face. she shrank from his hand, and hid her face against his neck. 'you know,' she answered, 'you know.' * * * * * so it came about that alice married her love who had not been true, and forgave him with all her heart; when she was leaving the church, leaning on her husband's arm, with a new world of love and joy opening before her, and litvinoff was looking down at her with eyes in which love deepened every moment, her father lay dead at the bottom of the tank in thornsett mill. the litvinoffs left england at once, and to this day alice does not know of her father's death, and her husband does not know of the dire disaster that followed on his double dealing. i doubt if they will ever learn it now. there is a good deal more that alice does not know. it is perhaps as well. wives are none the happier for knowing too much of their husbands' past. as it is, alice will follow him to the world's end, believing in him unquestioningly. chapter xxxii. 'hand in hand.' 'cannon street hotel, . _p.m._ 'dear mr petrovitch,--we were married this morning at st nicholas cole abbey, and we are leaving london by the night mail. i cannot go without thanking you with my whole heart for all you have done for me--for both of us. no words can ever tell you how much i feel what we owe to you. my husband says he owes more to you than i do, but i cannot think that. good-bye until we see you in russia. oh! heaven bless you, mr petrovitch, for all you have done for us.--yours always gratefully, alice litvinoff.' in the same envelope was a letter from alice's husband, and it did not begin in the same way as hers. it ran thus,-- 'my dear litvinoff,--i can't write to you under any but your own name, nor can i sign any other than my own. i kept yours as you wished, and alice believes herself to be countess litvinoff. i shall tell her all _that_ part of my story later, but i shall never tell her of my villainous and insensate desire for a rich wife, and for a life of ease which would have driven me mad in three months. alice and a life of adventure are worth all the broad acres in creation. nor shall i tell her that i knew her father. one thing more i must ask you to do for me. write to richard ferrier and let him know that we are married. i think i've used him rather badly. alice wishes you to say good-bye for her to her good friends mr and mrs toomey. some kind fate certainly kept watch over my wife while i was playing the fool and dangling after another woman. and fate has been a thousand times better to me than i deserve. with my dear wife, and the prospect of meeting you soon in russia, i feel all the old enthusiasm re-awakening. _vive la révolution!_--your old secretary and friend, armand percival. 'in signing that name i feel as though i were writing with my left hand, it is so awkward to me after all these years.' petrovitch sighed as he replaced the letters in their envelope. he had given himself up wholly to the cause he served, and he had suffered for it, and was prepared to suffer more, and generally he was contented, even glad, that it should be so. but sometimes a sudden sense of the utter loneliness of his life came over him, saddening and oppressing him. then he seemed to himself to be not a man with a life of his own to live and hopes of his own to cherish, but a power passing through the lives of others, helping, guiding, saving, and always after a while fading out of those lives. he had brought these two together, and they were all in all to each other, and he was much to them perhaps, but mainly because he _had_ brought them together. now he felt that they were lost to him, and he had loved them both--alice with the love of a strong man for a child, and the other with a deep attachment which dated from the first moment of their meeting, and which had unaccountably withstood all the other's shortcomings. unaccountably? no? the essence of love is its boundless capacity for pardon; the unaccountable part of it was that he should ever have loved him at all. and they were gone; and gone, as petrovitch knew well enough, to begin a life whose end, sooner or later, must be the scaffold or the death-in-life of perpetual imprisonment. he had led many a man and many a woman into that path, knowing all that it meant, and he was not sorry. was it not the path he had himself chosen as being the noblest that any man's feet could tread--the path of utter self-renunciation? but though he was never sorry he was often sad, and sadder than usual on the day when his two friends bade farewell to safety and english soil. he felt lonely and desolate. but michael petrovitch never felt his own moral pulse for more than half a minute at a time. he sighed, raised his hand to his chin, and smiled at finding himself reminded that the gesture of passing his hand over his beard, which had grown into a settled habit with him in moments of annoyance or excitement, was no longer possible. he turned to his table and wrote half-a-dozen letters. there were many arrangements still to make for his journey. then he rose, put on his hat, and started for marlborough villa. he had not cared to face that dinner where he was to have met his fellow revolutionist. he had written a hasty note of excuse, and had spent the evening and the best part of the night in conference with his morose friend hirsch, who was a little more morose even than usual on this occasion, owing to what he thought the absurd and unjust leniency with which the pseudo litvinoff had been treated. he would have been much better satisfied had some sudden and awful judgment overtaken the adventurer who had dared to personate his hero--even had that judgment come in the form of a trial for forgery at the old bailey; which fact showed that he was but a weaker brother in the faith that teaches that crime is a disease to be cured, not an offence to be punished. in that conversation with hirsch the date of petrovitch's departure had been finally settled, and now he had a few farewell visits to pay. one must certainly be to mrs quaid--he had a fancy that he would try to make his parting with miss stanley something more than it could be in the presence of that estimable lady. he thought that clare would not hesitate to say good-bye to him without her hostess's surveillance. at any rate, a chance of being alone with her to say his farewell was what he was bent on trying for. at marlborough villa he was shown into the morning-room. it was empty, but in a moment clare came in. he was standing with his back to the window. when she saw him she started visibly, and, with an unmistakable gesture of annoyance, was turning to leave the room, when he made a step forward, and she paused and looked at him, and, turning with a complete change of expression, held out her hand. 'how could i have been so absurd?' she said. 'do you know for the moment i really thought it was count litvinoff.' 'i don't wonder at your not quite recognising me. you see i had to sacrifice my beard. i am going back to russia next week. disguise will be _de rigeur_, and beards and disguises are incompatible.' 'going back to russia next week?' she repeated slowly, 'and i had so much to say--to ask--' 'do you still need advice?' he said, smiling. 'yes,' she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, 'more than ever, for now i have made up my mind. i am quite certain that my money ought to go--not to simply alleviating the miseries that wring one's heart, but to helping to overthrow the system that causes them. i have felt it a strong temptation to help first the individual sorrows that i know of; but i _know_ that the right thing to do is to help not those, but the revolution that will render them impossible. i am right, am i not?' 'yes,' he answered. they were standing by the window. this was not the sort of thing that one settles comfortably into chairs to 'talk over.' 'but now you are going,' she said, with a saddened falling cadence in her voice, that made music for the man at her side, 'and i shall have no one to tell me what to do. why need you go? is there nothing for you to do here? is russia so dear that it pushes all other claims out of sight?' 'it is not that i am a patriot. i love russia, i love my people, but i love england and her people too. but better than either do i love liberty, and i must be where her enemies are strongest, where the battle is hottest.' 'if that is so,' she said, reflectively, with her eyes downcast, 'everyone who loves liberty _best_ should be in front of the battle too?' 'i think so; but each must think for himself,' he was beginning, when they both turned at the sudden opening of the door. cora quaid came in; her fresh face quite pale; a newspaper in her hands. 'oh, how do you do, mr petrovitch. i did not know you were here. clare, such a terrible thing has happened, dear; mamma has just seen it in the paper.' she held out the sheet and pointed to a paragraph headed, 'shocking accident at firth vale.' the paragraph told briefly of the death of richard ferrier, and of the discovery of hatfield's body in the great tank, and concluded thus: 'the brother of the deceased, mr richard ferrier, states that his brother went out for a stroll on the previous night in his usual spirits. there is no clue to any explanation of the catastrophe, save that the man hatfield was formerly employed in this mill, and had been heard to say that he considered himself personally aggrieved at the closing of it. he was supposed to be in the south of england, and it is rumoured that he secretly returned to wreak vengeance on the young masters of the mill for the part they had taken in closing it.' clare read it through; her face grew white, and she passed it to petrovitch. he read it silently, his brow contracting. when he laid the paper down he looked at clare. she had sunk into a chair, her arms stretched out over her knees to their full length, and her hands clasped. 'poor fellow! poor dick!' she said; 'but, oh, cora! poor mrs hatfield! how will she bear it? oh! how cruel life is to some people. first her daughter, and now her husband, and she is alone in some strange place, where no one can get to her to help her to bear it!' 'how could you help her if you knew where she was?' asked petrovitch. 'i could tell her myself. i have had grief to bear--i know,' she answered. 'i would save her from hearing it from some careless stranger. i could go to her--' she broke off. her hazel eyes were full of tears. cora laid her hand on her friend's shoulder with a sympathetic touch. 'i happen to know where this mrs hatfield is,' said petrovitch, reflectively, 'and i agree with you, miss stanley, that it would be right for you to go to her.' clare rose instantly. as she did so the tears brimmed over, and two fell from her long lashes. 'i will go now,' she said, 'if you will tell me where she is.' 'i will take you to her now, if you like,' said petrovitch. cora looked at him a little curiously. 'we had better speak to mamma, i think,' she said; 'perhaps we can come with you, clare.' the two girls left the room, and petrovitch, for once, did not take up a book, but stood rapt in thought through the ten minutes that passed before the door opened again. clare came in alone. she was still dressed in black, of course, and had a little close crape bonnet that seemed to enhance the prettiness of the face it framed. 'i am quite ready,' she said. 'mrs quaid and cora cannot come. they have some people coming to lunch, and i am not sorry, for poor mrs hatfield ought not to be bothered by strangers.' 'come, then,' he said, and they went out together. as soon as they were outside he offered her his arm, as a matter of course, and she took it. 'how did you know her address?' asked clare, as they walked along. 'ah! that involves explanations,' he answered; 'to begin with, i must tell you that i met count litvinoff two days ago. it was from him i had mrs hatfield's address.' 'i remember he and poor hatfield used to be friends.' 'he gave me the address for a special reason and for a special purpose. he has married alice hatfield, and he wished to let her people know.' 'alice hatfield! but--how long ago? how did he know her?' 'he married her yesterday, and they have gone to servia together. miss stanley, it was with count litvinoff that alice left her home.' clare held her peace for a moment. her bewilderment would not let her find words. then she went on, 'but he acted as though he believed roland had taken her away. oh, how could he have been so base and--' 'do not judge him,' petrovitch interrupted; 'no one knows how he may have been tempted, and he has repented and atoned for his fault in as far as he could.' 'there are some things that cannot be atoned for,' said clare, compressing her lips. 'if it had not been for him this tragedy would never have happened. oh, when i think--' she broke off suddenly. 'when you think that he would have married you, owing all to alice hatfield, you can find no words to speak of his baseness. is it not so?' she looked at him in mute inquiry. how did he know so much? 'years ago,' he said, 'he and i were friends, and i love him still. he has told me much that has happened since last autumn. and i say, judge no man's actions, for of his temptations you cannot judge.' then they were both silent, and when clare spoke again it was to inquire how the trains went, and so on. 'i wish you would tell me--' clare began, when they were in the train _en route_ for dartford. 'there is much i would wish to tell you,' he interrupted, 'but not to-day, when you are going on an errand of kindness and mercy. you do not want to talk now, you want to think; and besides, i want to see you again. will you write to me to-night, and tell me when and where i can see you alone to-morrow.' 'yes, if you wish it,' she said. 'i had so much to ask you; and just now it seems as though i could think of nothing but that man, lying dead far north, and his poor wife here alone.' 'then it is a promise. we are comrades, since we serve in the same ranks; and between comrades a special farewell is necessary. now, we will not talk, since you do not desire it.' clare leaned back in her corner, and wondered how she should break the news to that poor widow. but when they reached earl's terrace, and found out the house where she was, they found, too, that there was no need to break the news to her. she knew it already, as clare saw in a moment. petrovitch did not come in, and the two women met alone. what clare said to her? it is beyond us to write that down; and if the words were set down here, despoiled of the tender tones, the eloquent gesture, the heart-warm tenderness of the young girl, who had herself felt grief, what would they be worth? in the presence of sorrow some women are inspired, but not with words that will bear reporting. mrs hatfield's grief was not violent. she wept, but not bitterly. 'it is the lord's will,' she said, and she believed her words. when she heard of her daughter's marriage she said simply, 'thank god for a' his mercies! i doubt he's been ower good to we i' mony ways, an' we mun bear what he's pleased to lay upo' us.' clare would have been more at ease to have seen her weep freely, but she seemed crushed. this last blow had mercifully benumbed her senses. not her gratitude, though, for when clare rose to go she rose too, and, taking the girl's hands in hers, looked at her and said,-- 'an' thee came a' th' way fro' lunnon to help an old wife to bear her burdens. eh! but thee'rt a bonnie lass, and as good as thee'rt comely. thee'll be the light o' some honest lad's e'en some day, and may thee ha' as good a man as mine were.' clare kissed the faded face. she had not so kissed many faces. she put her young, round, soft arms round the woman's neck, and said 'good-bye.' 'you'll see me again, or hear,' she said. 'there's some words as alice were fond o' saying time agone, and i'll say 'em to thee, my lass, for i'll not see thee agen, m'appen, and they say my meanin' clearer nor talk o' mine. "the lord bless thee and keep thee, the lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee, the lord lift up the light of his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."' mrs hatfield opened the gate for clare to pass out. petrovitch did not seem to see her, yet when clare was on his arm again he said,-- 'that woman is marked by death. she will not live three months. her heart is broken.' it was. his words came true. when the two were once more in the train clare's silent mood had passed. she would gladly have talked, but the carriage was full, and her companion's place being on the opposite side of the carriage, anything but an occasional word was impossible. she sat gazing out of the window, and he sat in the opposite corner looking at her fixedly. as they were passing over the bridge to the london terminus he leaned forward suddenly, and she, anticipating some words from his movement, withdrew her eyes from the sun-bathed, rippling river and fixed them on his. there she met such a look of passion, and love, and longing as she had never seen in any man's eyes before; and as she gazed, startled, spell-bound, his voice whispered these words, in a tone too low for any ears but hers, and yet distinct enough for every word to be plainly heard by her, and to make her heart bound responsively. only these words,-- 'whatever happens, i shall always love you.' then he leaned back again. clare drew a deep breath, and the train stopped at the charing cross platform. no other word was said between them till he had called a cab and placed her in it. then he said, 'do not write to me: i will write to you.' he pressed her hand, drew back, and the cab was driven off. as petrovitch walked back to his lodgings the sky grew quickly cloudy. it seemed as though the sunshine had gone away with clare stanley. by the time he reached osnaburgh street the rain was beginning to fall in big heavy splashes on the dusty pavement. he strode up the stairs to his room, locked the door, and flung himself down in the elbow-chair by the fireless grate. the rising wind blew the rain in gusts against the uncurtained window, and the large drops chased each other down the panes and obscured the view of the high houses opposite. all the sweetness had gone out of the weather. petrovitch noticed it, and felt glad that it was so. he sat quite still and quite silent, his elbow on the arm of his chair, and his forehead on his hand. now indeed the dark hour was upon saul. for six months his dream, his hope, his ambition had been to return to russia. now he was going at last, and the thought of it was maddening. he had known that he loved clare, but he had not known how much he loved her until that moment in the train, and then his sudden knowledge of the strength of his own passion had broken down all his resolutions. how could he have been such a fool as ever to speak the words which made it impossible for him to see her again? he had not meant to speak them. he could not understand how he had come to speak them. their utterance was the first unguarded action he had been guilty of for the last ten years. and he had thought with some reason that he could rely on his own cool-headedness and self-restraint. now it seemed he was mistaken. he was as much the slave of impulse as another--as much as the man who had assumed his name. it was incomprehensible to him. he quite failed to understand the full force of this new over-mastering emotion. clare! clare! the world seemed to mean nothing but clare. he thought of her apart from all the other facts and circumstances of life, of herself, her face, her eyes, her hair, her voice, her way of holding her head, the movement of her hands when she spoke, and it was a rapture to think of her like this, and to let the thought of her rush over and sweep away all other thoughts, even of his own life's aim. then slowly came back to him the remembrance of all the realities of his life, and he cursed what seemed to him his degradation. what sort of patriotism was it that the touch of a girl's hand could wither? what principles were they that the look in a girl's eyes could destroy? it was an utterly new experience for him, and he felt as though his patriotism and his faith were dead within him. in that hour he was man first, patriot after. but the hour of weakness was, after all, a brief one. his patriotism was not dead. it had been his master-passion too long for such an easy death to be possible, and as the dusk fell and deepened into night it rose up and met that other passion in the field and vanquished it. it was late when he rose and lighted his lamp. it shone upon a face white with the struggle he had gone through, but set and determined. he turned to his table and wrote,-- 'i love you! i told you so to-day. i did not mean to tell you, and i cannot account for or excuse the impulse that made me do so. 'but, having done so, i cannot ask you to meet me again as comrades meet. it would be embarrassing for you, and for me impossible. i know you do not love me. perhaps you will even despise me when you learn what has been the temptation i have undergone. to give up russia--the cause--the revolution--everything--and to stay at peace in england, and give my whole soul to the effort to win your love. i am glad to think i am not so unworthy of you as i should have been had i yielded to this--the strongest temptation of my life. i shall leave london to-morrow morning; i cannot stay so near you without seeing you. 'you will think me ungenerous in leaving you without any advice on the subject you desire to be advised on. you shall hear from me before long. perhaps when i am further from you i shall be better able to write you the sort of letter you will care to have from me. for those who love liberty, life is made up of renunciations, but no renunciation could be so difficult, so bitter, as is to me the renouncing of this least faint ghost of a chance of winning you. michael.' he went out and posted the letter, and when he came in again did not indulge in any more reflections. he busied himself with packing up his belongings, paying his rent, and making all his arrangements for leaving london the next morning. but when the next morning came, with a fresh radiance of blue skies and sunlight, all his plans were overturned, all his thought unsettled, by this telegram, 'clare stanley, marlborough villa, n.w., to michael petrovitch, , osnaburgh street, n.w.--you are not going without good-bye. please be in the guildhall at twelve.' most men in his position would have been there at eleven at the latest. but the clock was on the first stroke of twelve as he walked through the crowd of fat pigeons, who, as usual, were busily eating more than was good for them in the guildhall yard. he passed through the arched entrance and stood in the doorway. no one would have guessed by his face that he was keeping an appointment made by the woman he loved. he looked white and haggard, wretched and weary. his glance travelled round the large hall. in front of the statue of the earl of chatham stood the graceful black figure he looked for. he walked across to her. as his footsteps sounded on the stone floor she turned her head, but did not move to meet him. when he was quite close to her she held out her hand in silence. he took it, pressed it, and let it fall at once. he spoke almost sternly. 'why did you bring me here? i told you it was impossible for us to meet on the old terms.' 'i asked you to meet me _here_,' she said, 'because i had to come into the city on money affairs; and for the other, i have not asked you to do the impossible.' she, too, was very pale, and spoke with what seemed like an effort at lightness. 'it is unworthy of you,' he went on, hardly noticing her answer, 'to make my renunciation so much harder for me.' 'there are enough inevitable renunciations in life for us without our making others by misunderstandings,' she said, her eyelids downcast. he looked at her silently, as a man might in a dream which he feared to break by a word. at last he spoke, in a very low voice, with his eyes still on her face. 'this is glory to know,' he said, 'but do you think it makes the sacrifice more easy? before it was only a chance i gave up--now it is your very self i must renounce.' 'why?' her voice trembled a little now. 'because i must return to russia. my place is there, and where i go--' 'i, too, will go,' she interrupted. he caught her wrist. 'but if you go with me you go to almost certain death. 'does that matter?' she said, and looked full in his eyes. his fingers had closed on hers, and so they went out together into the bright english sunshine. not more serenely, not more gladly, than they would hereafter go, hand in hand, into the black darkness and oblivion that waits to swallow those who dare to set themselves against the bitter tyranny of russia. to each of them that day had given the most perfect gift of life, and both were content to offer up that gift--life itself even--for the sake of the liberty they loved--the liberty who, though she may not crown their lives--will consecrate their graves. the end. _the_ vagrant duke by george gibbs the vagrant duke the splendid outcast the black stone the golden bough the secret witness paradise garden the yellow dove the flaming sword madcap the silent battle the maker of opportunities the forbidden way the bolted door tony's wife the medusa emerald d. appleton and company publishers new york [illustration: peter struck him full on the head] _the_ vagrant duke by george gibbs author of "the splendid outcast," "the yellow dove," "the secret witness," etc. d. appleton and company new york london copyright, , by d. appleton and company copyright, , by the story press corporation printed in the united states of america contents chapter page prologue i introducing peter nichols ii new york iii the overall girl iv the job v new elements vi the house of terror vii music viii the placard ix shad is unpleasant x "hawk" xi ancient history xii confession xiii the chase xiv two letters xv superman xvi identification xvii peter becomes a conspirator xviii face to face xix yakimov reveals himself xx the russian pays xxi the inferno xxii retribution xxiii a visitor _the_ vagrant duke the vagrant duke _prologue_ _at the piano a man sat playing the "revolutionary Étude" of chopin. the room was magnificent in its proportions, its furnishings were massive, its paneled oak walls were hung with portraits of men and women in the costumes of a bygone day. through the lofty windows, the casements of which were open to the evening sky there was a vista of forest and meadow-land stretching interminably to the setting sun. the mosquelike cupola of a village church, a few versts distant, glimmered like a pearl in the dusky setting of wooded hills, and close by it, here and there, tiny spirals of opalescent smoke marked the dwellings of zukovo village._ _but the man at the piano was detached, a being apart from this scene of quiet, absorbed in his piano, which gave forth the turbulence which had been in the soul of the great composer. the expression upon the dark face of the young musician was rapt and eager, until he crashed the chords to their triumphant conclusion when he sank back in his chair with a gasp, his head bent forward upon his breast, his dark gaze fixed upon the keys which still echoed with the tumult._ _it was at this moment that a door at the side of the room was opened and a white-haired man in purple livery entered and stood in silence regarding rather wistfully the man at the piano, who raised his head abruptly like one startled from a dream._ _"what is it, vasili?" asked the musician._ _the servant approached softly a few steps._ _"i did not wish to intrude, highness, but----"_ _as the old servant hesitated, the young man shrugged and rose, disclosing a tall, straight figure, clad in a dark blue blouse, loose trousers and brown boots liberally bespattered with mud. the glow of the sun which shot across his face as he came forward into the light, showed swarthy features, level brows, a straight nose, a well turned chin, a small mustache and a generous mouth which revealed a capacity for humor. he was quite calm now, and the tones of his voice were almost boyish in their confidence and gayety._ _"well, what is it, vasili?" he repeated. "you have the air of one with much on your conscience. out with it. has sacha been fighting with you again?"_ _"no, master, not sacha," said the old man clearing his throat nervously, "it is something worse--much worse than sacha."_ _"impossible!" said the other with a laugh as he took up a cigarette from the table. "nothing could be worse than a russian cook when she gets into a rage----"_ _"but it is, master--something worse--much worse----"_ _"really! you alarm me." the grand duke threw himself into an armchair and inhaled luxuriously of his cigarette. and then with a shrug, "well?"_ _the old man came a pace or two nearer muttering hoarsely, "they've broken out in the village again," he gasped._ _the grand duke's brow contracted suddenly._ _"h-m. when did this happen?"_ _"last night. and this morning they burned the stables of prince galitzin and looted the castle."_ _the young man sprang to his feet._ _"you are sure of this?"_ _"yes, master. the word was brought by serge andriev less than ten minutes ago."_ _he took a few rapid paces up and down the room, stopping by the open window and staring out._ _"fools!" he muttered to himself. then turning to the old servitor, "but, vasili--why is it that i have heard nothing of this? to-day conrad, the forester, said nothing to me. and the day before yesterday in the village the people swept off their caps to me--as in the old days. i could have sworn everything would be peaceful at zukovo--at least, for the present----" he added as though in an afterthought._ _"i pray god that may be true," muttered vasili uncertainly. and then with unction, "in their hearts, they still love you, highness. they are children--your children, their hearts still full of reverence for the grand duke peter nicholaevitch in whom runs the same blood as that which ran in the sacred being of the little father--but their brains! they are drunk with the poison poured into their minds by the committeemen from moscow."_ _"ah," eagerly, "they returned?"_ _"last night," replied the old man wagging his head. "and your people forgot all that you had said to them--all that they owe to you. they are mad," he finished despairingly, "mad!"_ _the grand duke had folded his arms and was staring out of the window toward the white dome of the church now dyed red like a globule of blood in the sunset._ _the old man watched him for a moment, all the fealty of his many years of service in his gaze and attitude._ _"i do not like the look of things, highness. what does it matter how good their hearts are if their brains are bad?"_ _"i must go and talk with them, vasili," said the grand duke quietly._ _the old man took a step forward._ _"if i might make so free----"_ _"speak----"_ _"not to-night, master----"_ _"why not?"_ _"it will be dangerous. last night their voices were raised even against you."_ _"me! why? have i not done everything i could to help them? i am their friend--because i believe in their cause: and they will get their rights too but not by burning and looting----"_ _"and murder, master. two of prince galitzin's foresters were killed."_ _the grand duke turned. "that's bad. murder in zukovo!" he flicked his extinguished cigarette out of the window and made a gesture with his hand._ _"go, vasili. i want to think. i will ring if i need you."_ _"you will not go to zukovo to-night?"_ _"i don't know."_ _and with another gesture he waved the servant away._ _when vasili had gone, the grand duke sat, his legs across the chair by the window, his arms folded along its back while his dark eyes peered out, beyond the hills and forests, beyond the reddened dome of the village church into the past where his magnificent father nicholas petrovitch held feudal sway over all the land within his vision and his father's fathers from the time of his own great namesake held all russia in the hollow of their hands._ _the grand duke's eyes were hard and bright above the slightly prominent cheek bones, the vestiges of his oriental origin, but there was something of his english mother too in the contours of his chin and lips, which tempered the hardness of his expression. the lines at his brows were not the savage marks of anger, or the vengefulness that had characterized the pitiless blood which ran in his veins, but rather were they lines of disappointment, of perplexity at the problem that confronted him, and pity for his people who did not know where to turn for guidance. he still believed them to be his people, a heritage from his lordly parent, his children, who were responsible to him and to whom he was responsible. it was a habit of thought, inalienable, the product of the ages. but it was the calm philosophy of his english mother that had first given him his real sense of obligation to them, her teachings, even before the war began, that had shown him how terrible were the problems that confronted his future._ _his service in the army had opened his eyes still wider and when russia had deserted her allies he had returned to zukovo to begin the work of reconstruction in the ways his awakened conscience had dictated. he had visited their homes, offered them counsel, given them such money as he could spare, and had, he thought, become their friend as well as their hereditary guardian. all had gone well at first. they had listened to him, accepted his advice and his money and renewed their fealty under the new order of things, vowing that whatever happened elsewhere in russia, blood and agony and starvation should not visit zukovo._ _but the news that vasili brought was disquieting. it meant that the minds of his people were again disturbed. and the fact that prince galitzin had always been hated made the problems the grand duke faced none the less difficult. for his people had burned, pillaged and killed. they had betrayed him. and he had learned in the army what fire and the smell of blood could do...._ _with a quick nod of resolution he rose. he would go to them. he knew their leaders. they would listen to him. they_ must _listen...._ _he closed the piano carefully, putting away the loose sheets of music, picked up his cap and heavy riding crop from the divan, on his way to the door, pausing, his hand on the bell-rope as a thought brought a deeper frown to his brow.... why had conrad grabar, his chief forester, said nothing to-day? he must have known--for news such as this travels from leaf to leaf through the forest. conrad! and yet he would have sworn by the faithfulness of his old friend and hunting companion. perhaps conrad had not known...._ _the grand duke pulled the bell-rope, then went to the window again and stood as though listening for the voices of the woods. silence. the sun had sunk, a dull red ball, and the dusk was falling swiftly. the aspens below his window quivered slightly, throwing their white leaves upwards as though in pain. the stately pines that he loved, mute, solemn, changeless, filled the air with balsam, but they gave no answer to his problem. it was difficult to believe that, there, in the restless souls of men war could rage. and yet...._ _he peered out more intently. beyond the pine forest, a murky cloud was rising. a storm? hardly. for the sun had set in a clear sky. but there was a cloud surely, growing in darkness and intensity. he could see it more clearly now, billowing upward in grim portent._ _the grand duke started and then stared again. the cloud was of smoke. through the woods, tiny lights were sparkling, picked out with ominous brilliancy against the velvet dusk. peter nicholaevitch leaned far out of the window, straining his ears to listen. and now he seemed to hear the crackle of flames, the distant sound of hoarse voices, shouting and singing._ _and while he still listened, aware that a great crisis had come into his life, there was a commotion just below him, the sound of voices close at hand and he saw a man come running from the woods, approaching the gateway of the castle._ _he recognized him by the gray beard and thickset figure. it was boris rylov, the huntsman, and as he ran he shouted to some one in the courtyard below. the grand duke made out the words:_ _"they're burning the hunting lodge--where is the master----?"_ _peter nicholaevitch waited at the window no longer, but ran out of the room and down the flight of stairs into the great hall below. for he knew what had happened now. the red terror had come to zukovo._ _he went out to the garden terrace, crossing quickly to the courtyard where he met the frightened group of servants that had assembled._ _boris, the huntsman, much out of breath was waving his arms excitedly toward the cloud of smoke rising above the pine trees, now tinged a dirty orange color from beneath._ _"they came from all directions, master," he gasped, "like the black flies upon a dead horse--hundreds--thousands of them from the village and all the country round. i talked with the first that came, anton lensky, gleb saltykov, michael kuprin and conrad grabar----"_ _"conrad----!" gasped the grand duke._ _"yes, highness," muttered boris, his head bowed, "conrad grabar. they tried to restrain me. michael kuprin i struck upon the head with a stick--and then i fled--to warn your highness--that they mean to come hither."_ _the face of the grand duke, a trifle pale under its tan, was set in stern lines, but there was no fear in his manner as he quickly questioned, his eyes eagerly scrutinizing the frightened men and women about him while he spoke to them with cool decision._ _"thanks, friend rylov--you have done me a service i shall not forget." then to the others, "if there are any of you who fear to remain with me, you may go. i cannot believe that they will come to zukovo castle, but we will close the gate to the courtyard at once. i will talk with them from the terrace wall."_ _"master! highness!" broke in the huntsman violently, "you do not understand. you cannot stay here. they are mad. they will kill you. it is for that they come----"_ _"nevertheless--i mean to stay----"_ _"it is death----"_ _"go thou, then, and vasili, and ivan. for before they burn zukovo, i mean to talk with them----"_ _"it is madness----!"_ _"come, highness," broke in leo garshin, the head-groom, eagerly, "i will put the saddle upon vera, and you can go out of the iron gate from the stable-yard into the forest. nothing can catch you and you can reach the river----"_ _"no, leo----" put in the grand duke kindly. "i shall stay."_ _the servants glanced at one another, appalled at the master's attitude. some of them, had already disappeared into the castle but others, less timorous, had already rushed to close the courtyard gate._ _"you say they are many, friend rylov?" he asked again._ _"as the hairs of your head, master--from ivanovna, jaroslav--everywhere--and women, highness, more terrible than the men----"_ _"and the leaders----?"_ _"dmitri sidorov of the zemstvo and michael kositzin and anton lensky. see, yonder! where the road turns from the clearing--they come!"_ _the keen eyes of boris saw further through the forest than those of most men but in a moment those of the grand duke peter confirmed him. figures were moving in the twilight, along the roads and bypaths._ _to peter nicholaevitch they seemed like a great river which had flooded over its banks seeking new levels. behind them the flames from the wooden hunting lodge roared upward painting a lurid sky. he saw that the flood came rapidly, and above the roar of the flames came the sound of voices singing the russian version of the "marseillaise." the grand duke stood at the terrace wall watching their approach. he knew that if they meant to attack the castle the gate could not hold long, but he had hope that he might still be able to prevail upon them to listen to him. in a moment they saw him and began running forward toward the courtyard gate. he recognized individuals now--anton lensky, michael kuprin, with his head tied in a dirty handkerchief--and conrad grabar. the defection of his old instructor in wood-lore disturbed him. conrad must have known what was to happen and he had said nothing. if conrad had turned against him, what hope had he of prevailing against the others?_ _the singing died away and in its place, shouts and cries burst forth in a bedlam. "open the gate!" "let us in!"_ _the grand duke had heard that note in men's voices in the carpathian passes, and he knew what it meant, but while his gaze sought out the fat figure of michael kositzin who was the leader of the uprising, he held up his hand for silence._ _there was a roar of voices._ _"peter nicholaevitch wishes to speak."_ _"it is our turn to speak now."_ "nasha pora prishlà," (_our time has come_). _"let the little master speak."_ _"we know no little masters here!"_ _"no, nor old ones!"_ "smiert bourjouiam" (_death to the bourgeoisie_). _but as the young grand duke began to speak the voices of the most rabid of the peasants were hushed for a moment by the others._ _"my friends and my children" he began, "one word before you do something that you will forever regret. i am your friend. i am young--of the new generation. i have kept abreast of the new thought of the time and i believe in the new life that is for you and for us all. i have proved it to you by bringing the new life to zukovo by peaceful means, by friendliness and brotherhood while other parts of russia near by are in agony and darkness." (cries of "that is true.") "it was in my heart that i had brought the revolution to zukovo, a revolution against the old order of things which can be no more, implanting in you the strong seeds of peace and brotherhood which would kill out the ugly weeds of violence and enmity."_ _here a hoarse voice rang out: "fire--only fire can clean." then the reply of a woman, "yes,_ tovaristchi, _it is the only way."_ _peter nicholaevitch tried to seek out the speakers with his gaze. one of them was michael kuprin whom when a child the grand duke had seen flogged in this very courtyard._ _"there are sins of the past," he went on, raising his voice against the low murmur of the mob, "many sins against you, but one sin does not wash out another. murder, rapine, vengeance will never bring peace to zukovo. what you do to-day will be visited on you to-morrow. i pray that you will listen to me. i have fought for you and with you--with gleb saltykov and anton lensky, against the return of absolutism in russia. the old order of things is gone. do not stain the new with crime in zukovo. i beseech you to disperse--return to your homes and i will come to you to-morrow and if there are wrongs i will set them right. you have believed in me in the past. believe in me now and all may yet be well in zukovo. go, my friends, before it is too late----"_ _the crowd wavered, murmuring. but just then a shot rang out and the cap of the grand duke twitched around on his head._ _a roar went up from near the gate,_ "nasha pora prishlà! _break in the gate!" cried the voices and there were those of women among them shouting_ "tovaristchi! _forward!"_ _over the heads of those in the front ranks, peter nicholaevitch saw some men bringing from the forest the heavy trunk of a felled pine tree. they meant to break down the gate. he knew that he had failed but still he stood upright facing them. another shot, the bullet this time grazing his left arm. the sting of it angered him._ _"cowards!" he yelled, shaking his fist at them. "cowards!"_ _a volley followed but no other bullets struck him. behind him in the castle doorway he heard the voice of boris rylov, calling to him hoarsely._ _"come, master. for the love of god! there is yet time."_ _there was a crash of the heavy timbers at the gate._ _"come, master----"_ _with a shrug peter nicholaevitch turned and walked across the terrace toward the castle._ "bolvany!" _he muttered. "i've finished with them."_ _boris and vasili stood just within the door, pleading with him to hurry, and together they made their way through the deserted kitchens and over past the vegetable gardens to the stables, where leo garshin awaited them, the saddles on several horses. behind them they could now hear the triumphant cries as the courtyard gate crashed in._ _"hurry, master!" cried garshin eagerly._ _"where are the others?" asked the grand duke._ _"gone, highness. they have fled."_ _boris rylov was peering out past an iron door into the forest._ _"there is no one there?" asked garshin._ _"not yet. they have forgotten."_ _"come then, highness."_ _but the grand duke saw that the aged vasili was mounted first and then they rode out of the iron gate into a path which led directly into the forest. it was not until they were well clear of the buildings that a shout at one side announced that their mode of escape had been discovered. men came running, firing pistols as they ran. boris rylov, bringing up the rear, reined in his horse and turning emptied a revolver at the nearest of their pursuers. one man fell and the others halted._ _until they found the other horses in the stables pursuit was fruitless._ _peter nicholaevitch rode at the head of the little cavalcade, down the familiar aisles of the forest, his head bowed, a deep frown on his brows. it was vasili who first noticed the blood dripping from his finger ends._ _"master," he gasped, "you are wounded."_ _"it is nothing," said the grand duke._ _but vasili bound the arm up with a handkerchief while leo garshin and boris rylov watched the path down which they had come. they could hear the crackling of the flames at the hunting lodge to the southward and the cries of the mob at the castle, but there was no sign of pursuit. perhaps they were satisfied to appease their madness with pillage and fire. half an hour later boris pointed backward. a new glow had risen, a redder, deeper glow._ _"the castle, master----" wailed vasili._ _peter nicholaevitch drew rein at a cross-path, watched for a moment and then turned to his companions, for he had reached a decision._ _"my good friends," he said gently, "our ways part here."_ _"master! highness!"_ _but he was resolute._ _"i am going on alone. i will not involve you further in my misfortunes. you can do nothing for me--nor i anything for you except this. vasili knows. in the vault below the wine-cellar, hidden away, are some objects of value. they will not find them. when they go away you will return. the visit will repay you. divide what is there into equal parts--silver, plate and gold. as for me--forget me. farewell!"_ _they saw that he meant what he said. he offered these few faithful servitors his hand and they kissed his fingers--a last act of fealty and devotion and in a moment they stood listening to the diminishing hoof-beats of vera as the young master went out of their lives._ _"may god preserve him," muttered vasili._ _"amen," said boris rylov and leo garshin._ chapter i introducing peter nichols the british refugee ship _phrygia_ was about to sail for constantinople where her unfortunate passengers were to be transferred to other vessels sailing for liverpool and new york. after some difficulties the refugee made his way aboard her and announced his identity to the captain. if he had expected to be received with the honor due to one of his rank and station he was quickly undeceived, for captain blashford, a man of rough manners, concealing a gentle heart, looked him over critically, examined his credentials (letters he had happened to have about him), and then smiled grimly. "we've got room for one more--and that's about all." "i have no money----" began the refugee. "oh, that's all right," shrugged the captain, "you're not the only one. we've a cargo of twenty princes, thirty-two princesses, eighteen generals and enough counts and countesses to set up a new nation somewhere. your 'ighness is the only duke that has reached us up to the present speakin' and if there are any others, they'll 'ave to be brisk for we're sailin' in twenty minutes." the matter-of-fact tones with which the unemotional britisher made this announcement restored the lost sense of humor of the russian refugee, and he broke into a grim laugh. "an embarrassment of riches," remarked the grand duke. "riches," grunted the captain, "in a manner of speakin', yes. money is not so plentiful. but jools! good god! there must be half a ton of diamonds, rubies and emeralds aboard. all they're got left most of 'em, but complaints and narvousness. give me a cargo of wheat and i'm your man," growled the captain. "it stays put and doesn't complain," and then turning to peter--"ye're not expectin' any r'yal suite aboard the _phrygia_, are ye?" "no. a hammock for'rad will be good enough for me." "that's the way i like to 'ear a man talk. good god! as man to man, i arsk you,--with counts throwin' cigarette butts around an' princesses cryin' all over my clean white decks an' all, what's a self-respectin' skipper to do? but i 'ave my orders to fetch the odd lot to constantinople an' fetch 'em i will. oh! they're odd--all right. go below, sir, an' 'ave a look at 'em." but peter nicholaevitch shook his head. he had been doing a deal of quiet thinking in those starry nights upon the dnieper, and he had worked out his problem alone. "no, thanks," he said quietly, "if you don't mind, i think i'd rather preserve my incognito." "incognito, is it? oh, very well, suit yourself. and what will i be callin' your highness?" "peter nichols," said the grand duke with a smile, "it's as good as any other." "right you are, peter nichols. lay for'rad and tell the bos'n to show you up to my cabin." so peter nichols went forward, avoiding the cargo aft, until within a day's run of the bosphorus when he found himself accosted by no less a person than prince galitzin who had strolled out to get the morning air. he tried to avoid the man but galitzin planted himself firmly in his path, scrutinizing him eagerly. "you too, highness!" he said with an accent of grieved surprise. the grand duke regarded him in a moment of silence. "it must be evident to you, prince galitzin, that i have some object in remaining unknown." "but, your highness, such a thing is unnecessary. are we not all dedicated to the same misfortunes? misery loves company." "you mean that it makes you less miserable to discover that i share your fate?" "not precisely that. it is merely that if one holding your liberal views cannot escape the holocaust that has suddenly fallen there is little hope for the rest of us." "no," said the grand duke shortly. "there is no hope, none at all, for us or for russia." "where are you going?" "to america." "but, your highness, that is impossible. we shall all have asylum in england until conditions change. you should go there with us. it will lend influence to our mission." "no." "why?" "i am leaving russia for the present. she is outcast. for, not content with betraying others, she has betrayed herself." "but what are you going to do?" peter nicholaevitch smiled up at the sky and the fussy, fat, bejeweled sycophant before him listened to him in amazement. "prince galitzin," said the grand duke amusedly, "i am going to do that which may bring the blush of shame to your brow or the sneer of pity to your lips. i am going to fulfill the destiny provided for every man with a pair of strong hands, and a willing spirit--i am going to work." the prince stepped back a pace, his watery eyes snapping in incomprehension. "but your higher destiny--your great heritage as a prince of the royal blood of holy russia." "there is no holy russia, my friend, until she is born again. russia is worse than traitor, worse than liar, worse than murderer and thief. she is a fool." "all will come right in time. we go to england to wait." "i have other plans." "then you will not join us? princess anastasie, my daughter, is here. general seminoff----" "it is useless. i have made up my mind. leave me, if you please." prince galitzin disappeared quickly below to spread the information of his discovery among the disconsolate refugees and it was not long before it was known from one end of the _phrygia_ to the other that the fellow who called himself peter nichols was none other than the grand duke peter nicholaevitch, a cousin to his late majesty nicholas and a prince of the royal blood. peter nichols sought the captain in his cabin, putting the whole case before him. "h-m," chuckled the captain, "found ye out, did they? there's only a few of you left, that's why. better stay 'ere in my cabin until we reach constantinople. i'd be honored, 'ighness, to say nothin' of savin' you a bit of bother." "you're very kind." "not at all. make yourself at 'ome. there's cigarettes on the locker and a nip of the scotch to keep the chill out. here's a light. you've been worryin' me some, 'ighness. fact is i didn't know just how big a bug you were until to-day when i arsked some questions. you'll forgive me, 'ighness?" "peter nichols," corrected the grand duke. "no," insisted the captain, "we'll give you yer title while we can. you know we british have a bit of a taste for r'yalty when we know it's the real thing. i don't take much stock in most of my cargo aft. and beggin' yer 'ighness's pardon i never took much stock in russia since she lay down on the job and left the allies in the lurch----" "captain blashford," said the grand duke quietly. "you can't hurt my feelings." "but i do like you, 'ighness, and i want to do all that i can to 'elp you when we get to anchor." "thanks." "i take it that you don't want anybody ashore to know who ye are?" "exactly. most of these refugees are going to england. i have reasons for not wishing to go with them." "where then do you propose to go?" "to the united states," said the grand duke eagerly. "without money?" "i'd have no money if i went to england unless i subsisted on the charity of my friends. my branch of the family is not rich. the war has made us poorer. such securities as i have are in a vault in kiev. it would be suicide for me to attempt to reclaim them now. i'm going to try to make my own way." "impossible!" the grand duke laughed at the englishman's expression. "why?" "yer 'ands, 'ighness." the grand duke shrugged and grinned. "i'll risk it. i'm not without resources. will you help me to a ship sailing for america?" "yes--but----" "oh, i'll work my passage over--if nobody bothers me." "by george! i like your spirit. give me your 'and, sir. i'll do what i can. if the _bermudian_ hasn't sailed from the horn yet, i think i can manage it for ye." "and keep me clear of the rest of your passengers?" added his highness. "righto. they'll go on the _semaphore_. you stay right 'ere and mum's the word." and captain blashford went out on deck leaving peter nichols to his cigarette and his meditations. many times had the grand duke peter given thanks that the blood of his mother flowed strongly in his veins. he was more british than russian and he could remember things that had happened since he had grown to adolescence which had made the half of him that was english revolt against the russian system. it was perhaps his musical education rather than his university training or his travels in england and france that had turned him to the _intelligentsia_. in the vast republic of art and letters he had imbibed the philosophy that was to threaten the very existence of his own clan. the spread of the revolution had not dismayed him, for he believed that in time the pendulum would swing back and bring a constitutional government to russia. but in the weeks of struggle, privation, and passion a new peter nicholaevitch was born. the failure of his plans in the sudden flood of anarchy which had swept over zukovo, the treachery of those he had thought faithful and the attempt upon his life had changed his viewpoint. it takes a truly noble spirit to wish to kiss the finger that has pulled the trigger of a revolver, the bullet from which has gone through one's hat. from disappointment and dismay peter nicholaevitch had turned to anger. they hadn't played the game with him. it wasn't cricket. his resolution to sail for the united states was decided. to throw himself, an object of charity, upon the mercies of the earl of shetland, his mother's cousin, was not to be thought of. to his peasants he had preached the gospel of labor, humility and peace, in that state of life to which they had been called. he had tried to exemplify it to them. he could do no less now, to himself. by teaching himself, he could perhaps fit himself to teach them. in england it would perhaps be difficult to remain incognito, and he had a pride in wishing to succeed alone and unaided. only the united states, whose form of government more nearly approached the ideal he had for russia, could offer him the opportunities to discover whether or not a prince could not also be a man. to the princess anastasie he gave little thought. that their common exile and the chance encounter under such circumstances had aroused no return of an entente toward what had once been a half-sentimental attachment convinced him of how little it had meant to him. there were no royal prohibitions upon him now. to marry the princess anastasie and settle in london, living upon the proceeds of her wealthy father's american and british securities, was of course the easiest solution of his difficulties. a life of ease, music, good sportsmanship, the comfort that only england knows.... she was comely too--blond, petite, and smoked her cigarette very prettily. their marriage had once been discussed. she wanted it still, perhaps. something of all this may have been somewhere in the back of prince galitzin's ambitious mind. the one course would be so easy, the other---- peter nicholaevitch rose and carefully flicked his cigarette through the open port. no. one does not pass twice through such moments of struggle and self-communion as he had had in those long nights of his escape along the dnieper. he had chosen. peter nichols! the name amused him. if captain blashford was a man of his word to-night would be the end of the grand duke peter nicholaevitch, and the princess anastasie might find some more ardent suitor to her grace and beauty. she did not seek him out. perhaps the hint to galitzin had been sufficient and the grand duke from his hiding place saw her pretty figure set ashore among the miscellany of martyred "r'yalty." he turned away from his port-hole with a catch of his breath as the last vestige of his old life passed from sight. and then quietly took up a fresh cigarette and awaited the captain. the details were easily arranged. blashford was a man of resource and at night returned from a visit to the captain of the _bermudian_ with word that all was well. he had been obliged to relate the facts but captain armitage could keep a secret and promised the refugee a job under his steward who was short-handed. and so the next morning, after shaving and dressing himself in borrowed clothes, peter nichols shook captain blashford warmly by the hand and went aboard his new ship. peter nichols' new job was that of a waiter at the tables in the dining saloon. he was a very good waiter, supplying, from the wealth of a continental experience, the deficiencies of other waiters he had known. he wore a black shell jacket and a white shirt front which remained innocent of gravy spots. the food was not very good nor very plentiful, but he served it with an air of such importance that it gained flavor and substance by the reflection of his deference. there were english officers bound for malta, frenchmen for marseilles and americans of the red cross without number bound for new york. girls, too, clear-eyed, bronzed and hearty, who talked war and politics beneath his very nose, challenging his own theories. they noticed him too and whispered among themselves, but true to his ambition to do every task at the best of his bent, he preserved an immobile countenance and pocketed his fees, which would be useful ere long, with the grateful appreciation of one to whom shillings and franc pieces come as the gifts of god. many were the attempts to draw him into a conversation, but where the queries could not be answered by a laconic "yes, sir," or "no, sir," this paragon of waiters maintained a smiling silence. "i'm sure he's a prince or something," he heard one young girl of a hospital unit say to a young medico of the outfit. "did you ever see such a nose and brows in your life? and his hands----! you can never mistake hands. i would swear those hands had never done menial work for a thousand years." all of which was quite true, but it made the waiter peter uncomfortably careful. there were no women in the kitchen, but there was an amatory stewardess, fat and forty, upon whom the factitious technique of the saloon fell with singular insipidity. he fled from her. peter, the waiter, was already a good democrat but he was not ready to spread his philosophy out so thin. he slept forward, messed abaft the galley, enriched his vocabulary and broadened his point of view. there is no leveler like a ship's fo'c'sle, no better school of philosophy than that of men upon their "beam ends." there were many such--poles, slovaks, roumanians, an armenian or two, refugees, adventurers from america, old, young, dissolute, making a necessity of virtue under that successful oligarchy, the ship's bridge. in the americans peter was interested with an englishman's point of view. he had much to learn, and he invented a tale of his fortunes which let him into their confidences, especially into that of jim coast, waiter like himself, whose bunk adjoined his own. jim coast was a citizen of the world, inured to privation under many flags. he had been born in new jersey, u. s. a., of decent people, had worked in the cranberry bogs, farmed in pennsylvania, "punched" cattle in wyoming, "prospected" in the southwest, looted ranches in mexico, fought against diaz and again with the insurgents in venezuela, worked on cattle-ships and so, by easy stages, had drifted across the breadth of europe living by his wits at the expense of the credulous and the unwary. and now, for the first time in many years, he was going home--though just what that meant he did not know. he had missed great fortune twice--"by the skin of his teeth," as he picturesquely described it, once in a mine in arizona and again in a land-deal in the argentine. there were reasons why he hadn't dared to return to the united states before. he was a man with a grievance, but, however free in his confidences in other respects, gave the interested peter no inkling as to what that grievance was. no more curious acquaintanceship could possibly be imagined, but privation, like politics, makes strange bedfellows, and, from tolerance and amusement, pete, as the other called him, found himself yielding, without stint, to the fantastic spell of jim coast's multifarious attractions. he seemed to have no doubts as to the possibility of making a living in america and referred darkly to possible "coups" that would net a fortune. he was an agreeable villain, not above mischief to gain his ends, and peter, who cherished an ideal, made sure that, once safe ashore, it would be best if they parted company. but he didn't tell jim coast so, for the conversational benefits he derived from that gentleman's acquaintance were a liberal education. we are admonished that they are blessed who just stand and wait, and peter nichols, three days out of new york harbor, found himself the possessor of forty dollars in tips from the voyage with sixty dollars coming to him as wages--not so bad for a first venture upon the high seas of industry. it was the first real money he had ever made in his life and he was proud of it, jingling it contentedly in his pockets and rubbing the bills luxuriously one against the other. but his plans required more than this, for he had read enough to know that in the united states one is often taken at one's own estimate, and that if he wasn't to find a job as a ditch-digger, he must make a good appearance. and so it was now time to make use of the one grand ducal possession remaining to him, a gold ring set with a gorgeous ruby that had once belonged to his father. this ring he had always worn and had removed from his finger at ushan, in the fear that its magnificence might betray him. he had kept it carefully tied about his neck in a bag on a bit of string and had of course not even shown it to jim coast who might have deemed it an excuse to sever their strange friendship. through the head steward he managed a message to captain armitage and was bidden to the officer's cabin, where he explained the object of his visit, exhibited his treasure and estimated its value. the captain opened his eyes a bit wider as he gazed into the sanguine depths of the stone. "if i didn't know something of your history, nichols," he said with a wink, "i might think you'd been looting the strong box of the sultan of turkey. pigeon's blood and as big as my thumb nail! you want to sell it?" "i need capital." "what do you want for it?" "it's worth a thousand pounds of english money. perhaps more, i don't know. i'll take what i can get." "i see. you're afraid to negotiate the sale ashore?" "exactly. i'd be arrested." "and you don't want explanations. h-m--leave it with me over night. i'll see the purser. he'll know." "thanks." the captain offered the waiter in the shell-jacket the hospitality of his cabin, but peter nichols thanked him gratefully and withdrew. the result of this arrangement was that the ruby ring changed owners. the purser bought it for two thousand in cash. he knew a good thing when he saw it. but peter nichols was satisfied. chapter ii new york the duke-errant had prepared himself for the first glimpse of the battlements of lower new york, but as the _bermudian_ came up the bay that rosy spring afternoon, the western sun gilding the upper half of the castellated towers which rose from a sea of moving shadows, it seemed a dream city, the fortress of a fairy tale. his fingers tingled to express this frozen music, to relieve it from its spell of enchantment, and phrases of debussy's "cathédrale engloutie" came welling up within him from almost forgotten depths. "_parbleu!_ she's grown some, pete, since i saw her last!" this from his grotesque companion who was not moved by concord of sweet sounds. "they've buried the trinity clean out of sight." "the trinity?" questioned peter solemnly. "bless your heart----" laughed coast, "i'd say so----but i mean, the church----and that must be the woolworth building yonder. where's yer st. paul's and kremlin now? some village,--what?" "gorgeous!" muttered peter. "hell of a thing to tackle single-handed, though, eh, boh?" something of the same thought was passing through peter's mind but he only smiled. "i'll find a job," he said slowly. "waitin'!" sneered coast. "fine job that for a man with your learnin'. 'hey, waiter! some butter if you please,'" he satirized in mincing tones, "'this soup is cold--this beef is underdone. oh, _cawn't_ you give me some service here!' i say, don't you hear 'em--people that never saw a servant in their own home town. pretty occupation for an old war horse like me or a globe-trotter like you. no. none for me. i'll fry my fish in a bigger pan. _allons!_ pete. i like you. i'll like you more when you grow some older, but you've got a head above your ears that ain't all bone. i can use you. what d'ye say? we'll get ashore, some way, and then we'll show the u. s. a. a thing or two not written in the books." "we'll go ashore together, jim. then we'll see." "righto! but i'll eat my hat if i can see you balancin' dishes in a broadway chop house." peter couldn't see that either, but he didn't tell jim coast so. their hour on deck had struck, for a final meal was to be served and they went below to finish their duties. that night they were paid off and discharged. the difficulties in the way of inspection and interrogation of peter nichols, the alien, were obviated by the simple expedient of his going ashore under cover of the darkness and not coming back to the ship--this at a hint from the sympathetic armitage who gave the ex-waiter a handclasp and his money and wished him success. midnight found peter and jim coast on broadway in the neighborhood of forty-second street with peter blinking comfortably up at the electric signs and marveling at everything. the more coast drank the deeper was his cynicism but peter grew mellow. this was a wonderful new world he was exploring and with two thousand dollars safely tucked on the inside of his waistcoat, he was ready to defy the tooth of adversity. in the morning peter nichols came to a decision. and so over the coffee and eggs when coast asked him what his plans were he told him he was going to look for a job. coast looked at him through the smoke of his cigar and spoke at last. "i didn't think you'd be a quitter, pete. the world owes us a livin'--you and me----bah! it's easy if you'll use your headpiece. if the world won't give, i mean to take. the jobs are meant for little men." "what are you going to do?" "an enterprisin' man wouldn't ask such a question. half the people in the world takes what the other half gives. you ought to know what half _i_ belong to." "i'm afraid i belong to the other half, jim coast," said peter quietly. "_sacré--!_" sneered the other, rising suddenly. "where you goin' to wait, pete? at the ritz or the commodore? in a month you'll be waitin' on _me_. it'll be _mister_ coast for you then, _mon garçon_, but you'll still be pete." he shrugged and offered his hand. "well, we won't quarrel but our ways split here." "i'm sorry, jim. good-by." he saw coast slouch out into the street and disappear m the crowd moving toward broadway. he waited for a while thinking deeply and then with a definite plan in his mind strolled forth. first he bought a second-hand suit case in seventh avenue, then found a store marked "gentlemen's outfitters" where he purchased ready-made clothing, a hat, shoes, underwear, linen and cravats, arraying himself with a sense of some satisfaction and packing in his suitcase what he couldn't wear, went forth, found a taxi and drove in state to a good hotel. * * * * * new york assimilates its immigrants with surprising rapidity. through this narrow funnel they pour into the "melting pot," their racial characteristics already neutralized, their souls already inoculated with the spirit of individualism. prepared as he was to accept with a good grace conditions as he found them, peter nichols was astonished at the ease with which he fitted into the niche that he had chosen. his room was on the eighteenth floor, to which and from which he was shot in an enameled lift operated by a uhlan in a monkey-cap. he found that it required a rather nice adjustment of his muscles to spring forth at precisely the proper moment. there was a young lady who presided over the destinies of the particular shelf that he occupied in this enormous cupboard, a very pretty young lady, something between a french duchess and a lady's maid. her smile had a homelike quality though and it was worth risking the perilous catapulting up and down for the mere pleasure of handing her his room key. having no valuables of course but his money which he carried in his pockets there was no danger from unprincipled persons had she been disposed to connive at dishonesty. his bedroom was small but neat and his bathroom was neat but small, tiled in white enamel, containing every device that the heart of a clean man could desire. he discovered that by dropping a quarter into various apertures he could secure almost anything he required from tooth paste to razor blades. there was a telephone beside his bed which rang at inconvenient moments and a bible upon the side table proclaimed the religious fervor of this extraordinary people. a newspaper was sent in to him every morning whether he rang for it or not, and every time he did ring, a lesser uhlan brought a thermos bottle containing iced water. this perplexed him for a time but he was too much ashamed of his ignorance to question. you see, he was already acquiring the first ingredient of the american character--omniscience, for he found that in new york no one ever admits that he doesn't know everything. but it was all very wonderful, pulsing with life, eloquent of achievement. he was in no haste. by living with some care, he found that the money from his ruby would last for several months. meanwhile he was studying his situation and its possibilities. summing up his own attainments he felt that he was qualified as a teacher of the piano or of the voice, as an instructor in languages, or if the worst came, as a waiter in a fashionable restaurant--perhaps even a head-waiter--which from the authority he observed in the demeanor of the lord of the hotel dining room seemed almost all the honor that a person in america might hope to gain. but, in order that no proper opportunity should slip by, he scanned the newspapers in the hope of finding something that he could do. as the weeks passed he made the discovery that he was being immensely entertained. he was all english now. it was not in the least difficult to make acquaintances. almost everybody spoke to everybody without the slightest feeling of restraint. he learned the meaning of the latest american slang but found difficulty in applying it, rejoiced in the syncopation of the jazz, america's original contribution to the musical art, and by the end of a month thought himself thoroughly acclimated. but he still surprised inquiring glances male and female cast in his direction. there was something about his personality which, disguise it as he might under american-made garments and american-made manners, refused to be hidden. it was his charm added to his general good nature and adaptability which quickly made peter nichols some friends of the better sort. if he had been willing to drift downward he would have cast in his lot with jim coast. instead, he followed decent inclinations and found himself at the end of six weeks a part of a group of young business men who took him home to dine with their wives and gave him the benefit of their friendly advice. to all of them he told the same story, that he was an englishman who had worked in russia with the red cross and that he had come to the united states to get a job. it was a likely story and most of them swallowed it. but one clever girl whom he met out at dinner rather startled him by the accuracy of her intuitions. "i have traveled a good deal, mr. nichols," she said quizzically, "but i've never yet met an englishman like you." "it is difficult for me to tell whether i am to consider that as flattery or disapproval," said peter calmly. "you talk like an englishman, but you're entirely too much interested in everything to be true to type." "ah, really----" "englishmen are either bored or presumptuous. you're neither. and there's a tiny accent that i can't explain----" "don't try----" "i must. we americans believe in our impulses. my brother dick says you're a man of mystery. i've solved it," she laughed, "i'm sure you're a russian grand duke incognito." peter laughed and tried bravado. "you are certainly all in the mustard," he blundered helplessly. and she looked at him for a moment and then burst into laughter. these associations were very pleasant, but, contrary to peter's expectations, they didn't seem to be leading anywhere. the efforts that he made to find positions commensurate with his ambitions had ended in blind alleys. he was too well educated for some of them, not well enough educated for others. more than two months had passed. he had moved to a boarding house in a decent locality, but of the two thousands dollars with which he had entered new york there now remained to him less than two hundred. he was beginning to believe that he had played the game and lost and that within a very few weeks he would be obliged to hide himself from these excellent new acquaintances and go back to his old job. then the tide of his fortune suddenly turned. dick sheldon, the brother of the girl who was "all in the mustard," aware of peter's plight, had stumbled across the useful bit of information and brought it to peter at the boarding house. "didn't you tell me that you'd once had something to do with forestry in russia?" he asked. peter nodded. "i was once employed in the reafforestation of a large estate," he replied. "then i've found your job," said sheldon heartily, clapping peter on the back. "a friend of sheldon, senior's, jonathan k. mcguire, has a big place down in the wilderness of jersey--thousands of acres and he wants a man to take charge--sort of forestry expert and general superintendent, money no object. i reckon you could cop out three hundred a month as a starter." "that looks good to me," said peter, delighted that the argot fell so aptly from his lips. and then, "you're not spoofing, are you?" "devil a spoof. it's straight goods, nichols. will you take it?" peter had a vision of the greasy dishes he was to escape. "will i?" he exclaimed delightedly. "can i get it?" "sure thing. mcguire is a millionaire, made a pot of money somewhere in the west--dabbles in the market. that's where dad met him. crusty old rascal. daughter. living down in jersey now, alone with a lot of servants. queer one. maybe you'll like him--maybe not." peter clasped his friend by the hands. "moloch himself would look an angel of mercy to me now." "do you think you can make good?" "well, rather. whom shall i see? and when?" "i can fix it up with dad, i reckon. you'd better come down to the office and see him about twelve." peter sheldon, senior, looked him over and asked him questions and the interview was quite satisfactory. "i'll tell you the truth, as far as i know it," said sheldon, senior (which was more than peter nichols had done). "jonathan k. mcguire is a strange character--keeps his business to himself----. how much he's worth nobody knows but himself and the treasury department. does a good deal of buying and selling through this office. a hard man in a deal but reasonable in other things. i've had his acquaintance for five years, lunched with him, dined with him--visited this place in jersey, but i give you my word, mr. nichols, i've never yet got the prick of a pin beneath that man's skin. you may not like him. few people do. but there's no harm in taking a try at this job." "i shall be delighted," said nichols. "i don't know whether you will or not," broke in sheldon, senior, frankly. "something's happened lately. about three weeks ago jonathan k. mcguire came into this office hurriedly, shut the door behind him, locked it--and sank into a chair, puffing hard, his face the color of putty. he wouldn't answer any questions and put me off, though i'd have gone out of my way to help him. but after a while he looked out of the window, phoned for his car and went again, saying he was going down into jersey." "he was sick, perhaps," ventured peter. "it was something worse than that, mr. nichols. he looked as though he had seen a ghost or heard a banshee. then this comes," continued the broker, taking up a letter from the desk. "asks for a forester, a good strong man. you're strong, mr. nichols? er--and courageous? you're not addicted to 'nerves'? you see i'm telling you all these things so that you'll go down to black rock with your eyes open. he also asks me to engage other men as private police or gamekeepers, who will act under your direction. queer, isn't it? rather spooky, i'd say, but if you're game, we'll close the bargain now. three hundred a month to start with and found. is that satisfactory?" "perfectly," said peter with a bow. "when do i begin?" "at once if you like. salary begins now. fifty in advance for expenses." "that's fair enough, mr. sheldon. if you will give me the directions, i will go to-day." "to-morrow will be time enough." sheldon, senior, had turned to his desk and was writing upon a slip of paper. this he handed to peter with a check. "that will show you how to get there," he said as he rose, brusquely. "glad to have met you. good-day." and peter felt himself hand-shaken and pushed at the same time, reaching the outer office, mentally out of breath from the sudden, swift movement of his fortunes. sheldon, senior, had not meant to be abrupt. he was merely a business man relaxing for a moment to do a service for a friend. when peter nichols awoke to his obligations he sought out sheldon, junior, and thanked him with a sense of real gratitude and sheldon, junior, gave him a warm handclasp and godspeed. * * * * * the pennsylvania station caused the new superintendent of jonathan k. mcguire to blink and gasp. he paused, suit case in hand, at the top of the double flight of stairs to survey the splendid proportions of the waiting room where the crowds seemed lost in its great spaces. in europe such a building would be a cathedral. in america it was a railway station. and the thought was made more definite by the gregorian chant of the train announcer which sounded aloft, its tones seeking concord among their own echoes. this was the portal to the new life in which peter was to work out his own salvation and the splendor of the immediate prospect uplifted him with a sense of his personal importance in the new scheme of things of which this was a part. he hadn't the slightest doubt that he would be able to succeed in the work for which he had been recommended, for apart from his music--which had taken so many of his hours--there was nothing that he knew more about or loved better than the trees. he had provided himself the afternoon before with two books by american authorities and other books and monographs were to be forwarded to his new address. as he descended the stairs and reached the main floor of the station, his glance caught the gaze of a man staring at him intently. the man was slender and dark, dressed decently enough in a gray suit and soft hat and wore a small black mustache. all of these facts peter took note of in the one glance, arrested by the strange stare of the other, which lingered while peter glanced away and went on. peter, who had an excellent memory for faces, was sure that he had never seen the man before, but after he had taken a few steps, it occurred to him that in the stranger's eyes he had noted the startled distention of surprise and recognition. and so he stopped and turned, but as he did so the fellow dropped his gaze suddenly, and turned and walked away. the incident was curious and rather interesting. if peter had had more time he would have sought out the fellow and asked him why he was staring at him, but there were only a few moments to spare and he made his way out to the concourse where he found his gate and descended to his train. here he ensconced himself comfortably in the smoking car, and was presently shot under the hudson river (as he afterwards discovered) and out into the sunshine of the flats of new jersey. he rolled smoothly along through the manufacturing and agricultural districts, his keenly critical glances neglecting nothing of the waste and abundance on all sides. he saw, too, the unlovely evidences of poverty on the outskirts of the cities, which brought to his mind other communities in a far country whose physical evidences of prosperity were no worse, if no better, than these. then there came a catch in his throat and a gasp which left him staring but seeing nothing. the feeling was not nostalgia, for that far country was no home for him now. at last he found himself muttering to himself in english, "my home--my home is here." after a while the mood of depression, recurrent moments of which had come to him in new york with diminishing frequency, passed into one of contemplation, of calm, like those which had followed his nights of passion on the dnieper, and at last he closed his eyes and dozed. visions of courts and camps passed through his mind--of brilliant uniforms and jeweled decorations; of spacious polished halls, resplendent with ornate mirrors and crystal pendant chandeliers; of diamond coronets, of silks and satins and powdered flunkies. and then other visions of gray figures crouched in the mud; of rain coming out of the dark and of ominous lights over the profile of low hills; of shrieks; of shells and cries of terror; of his cousin, a tall, bearded man on a horse in a ravine waving an imperious arm; of confusion and moving thousands, the creak of sanitars, the groans of men calling upon mothers they would never see. and then with a leap backward over the years, the vision of a small man huddled against the wall of a courtyard being knouted until red stains appeared on his gray blouse and then mingled faintly in the mist and the rain until the small man sank to the full length of his imprisoned arms like one crucified.... peter nichols straightened and passed a hand across his damp forehead. through the perspective of this modern civilization what had been passing before his vision seemed very vague, very distant, but he knew that it was not a dream.... all about him was life, progress, industry, hope--a nation in the making, proud of her brief history which had been built around an ideal. if he could bring this same ideal back to russia! in his heart he thanked god for america--imperfect though she was, and made a vow that in the task he had set for himself he should not be found wanting. twice he changed trains, the second time at a small junction amid an ugliness of clay-pits and brickyards and dust and heat. there were perhaps twenty people on the platform. he walked the length of the station and as he did so a man in a gray suit disappeared around the corner of the building. but peter nichols did not see him, and in a moment, seated in his new train in a wooden car which reminded him of some of the ancient rolling stock of the st. petersburg and moscow railroad, he was taken haltingly and noisily along the last stage of his journey. but he was aware of the familiar odor of the pine balsam in his nostrils, and as he rolled through dark coverts the scent of the growing things in the hidden places in the coolth and damp of the sandy loam. he saw, too, tea-colored streams idling among the sedges and charred wildernesses of trees appealing mutely with their blackened stumps like wounded creatures in pain, a bit of war-torn galicia in the midst of peace. miles and miles of dead forest land, forgotten and uncared for. there was need here for his services. with a wheeze of steam and a loud crackling of woodwork and creaking of brakes the train came to a stop and the conductor shouted the name of the station. rather stiffly the traveler descended with his bag and stood upon the small platform looking about him curiously. the baggage man tossed out a bundle of newspapers and a pouch of mail and the train moved off. apparently peter nichols was the only passenger with pickerel river as a destination. and as the panting train went around a curve, at last disappearing, it seemed fairly reasonable to peter nichols that no one with the slightest chance of stopping off anywhere else would wish to get off here. the station was small, of but one room and a tiny office containing, as he could see, a telegraph instrument, a broken chair with a leather cushion, a shelf and a rack containing a few soiled slips of paper, but the office had no occupant and the door was locked. this perhaps explained the absence of the automobile which mr. sheldon had informed him would meet him in obedience to his telegram announcing the hour of his arrival. neither within the building nor without was there any person or animate thing in sight, except some small birds fluttering and quarreling along the telegraph wires. there was but one road, a sandy one, wearing marks of travel, which emerged from the scrub oak and pine and definitely concluded at the railroad track. this, then, was his direction, and after reassuring himself that there was no other means of egress, he took up his black suitcase and set forth into the wood, aware of a sense of beckoning adventure. the road wound in and out, up and down, over what at one time must have been the floor of the ocean, which could not be far distant. had it not been for the weight of his bag peter would have enjoyed the experience of this complete isolation, the fragrant silences broken only by the whisper of the leaves and the scurrying of tiny wild things among the dead tree branches. but he had no means of knowing how far he would have to travel or whether, indeed, there had not been some mistake on sheldon, senior's, part or his own. but the directions had been quite clear and the road must of course lead somewhere--to some village or settlement at least where he could get a lodging for the night. and so he trudged on through the woods which already seemed to be partaking of some of the mystery which surrounded the person of jonathan k. mcguire. the whole incident had been unusual and the more interesting because of the strange character of his employer and the evident fear he had of some latent evil which threatened him. but peter nichols had accepted his commission with a sense of profound relief at escaping the other fate that awaited him, with scarcely a thought of the dangers which his acceptance might entail. he was not easily frightened and had welcomed the new adventure, dismissing the fears of jonathan k. mcguire as imaginary, the emanations of age or an uneasy conscience. but as he went on, his bag became heavier and the perspiration poured down his face, so reaching a cross-path that seemed to show signs of recent travel he put the suitcase down and sat on it while he wiped his brow. the shadows were growing longer. he was beginning to believe that there was no such place as black rock, no such person as jonathan k. mcguire and that sheldon, senior, and sheldon, junior, were engaged in a conspiracy against his peace of mind, when above the now familiar whisperings of the forest he heard a new sound. faintly it came at first as though from a great distance, mingling with the murmur of the sighing wind in the pine trees, a voice singing. it seemed a child's voice--delicate, clear, true, as care-free as the note of a bird--unleashing its joy to the heavens. peter nichols started up, listening more intently. the sounds were coming nearer but he couldn't tell from which direction, for every leaf seemed to be taking up the lovely melody which he could hear quite clearly now. it was an air with which he was unfamiliar, but he knew only that it was elemental in its simplicity and under these circumstances startlingly welcome. he waited another long moment, listening, found the direction from which the voice was coming, and presently noted the swaying of branches and the crackling of dry twigs in the path near by, from which, in a moment, a strange figure emerged. at first he thought it was a boy, for it wore a pair of blue denim overalls and a wide-brimmed straw hat, from beneath which the birdlike notes were still emitted, but as the figure paused at the sight of him, the song suddenly ceased--he saw a tumbled mass of tawny hair and a pair of startled blue eyes staring at him. "hello," said the figure, after a moment, recovering its voice. "good-afternoon," said peter nichols, bowing from the waist in the most approved continental manner. you see he, too, was a little startled by the apparition, which proclaimed itself beneath its strange garments in unmistakable terms to be both feminine and lovely. chapter iii the overall girl they stood for a long moment regarding each other, both in curiosity; peter because of the contrariety of the girl's face and garments, the girl because of peter's bow, which was the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened in burlington county. after a pause, a smile which seemed to have been hovering uncertainly around the corners of her lips broke into a frank grin, disclosing dimples and a row of white teeth, the front ones not quite together. "could you tell me," asked peter very politely as he found his voice, "if this road leads to black rock?" she was still scrutinizing him, her head, birdlike, upon one side. "that depends on which way you're walkin'," she said. she dropped her "g" with careless ease, but then peter had noticed that many americans and english people, some very nice ones, did that. peter glanced at the girl and then down the road in both directions. "oh, yes, of course," he said, not sure whether she was smiling at or with him. "i came from a station called pickerel river and i wish to go to black rock." "you're _sure_ you want to go there?" "oh, yes." "i guess that's because you've never been to black rock, mister." "no, i haven't." the girl picked a shrub and nibbled at it daintily. "you'd better turn and go right back." her sentence finished in a shrug. "what's the matter with black rock?" he asked curiously. "it's just the little end of nothin'. that's all," she finished decisively. the quaint expression interested him. "i must get there, nevertheless," he said; "is it far from here?" "depends on what you call far. mile or so. didn't the 'lizzie' meet the six-thirty?" peter stared at her vacuously, for this was greek. "the 'lizzie'?" "the tin 'lizzie'--jim hagerman's bus--carries the mail and papers. sometimes he gives me a lift about here." "no. there was no conveyance of any sort and i really expected one. i wish to get to mr. jonathan k. mcguire's." "oh!" the girl had been examining peter furtively, as though trying vainly to place him definitely in her mental collection of human bipeds. now she stared at him with interest. "oh, you're goin' to mcguire's!" peter nodded. "if i can ever find the way." "you're one of the new detectives?" "detective!" peter laughed. "no. not that i'm aware. i'm the new superintendent and forester." "oh!" the girl was visibly impressed, but a tiny frown puckered her brow. "what's a forester?" she asked. "a fellow who looks after the forests." "the forests don't need any lookin' after out here in the barrens. they just grow." "i'm going to teach them to grow better." the girl looked at him for a long moment of suspicion. she had taken off her hat and the ruddy sunlight behind her made a golden halo all about her head. her hands he had noted were small, the fingers slender. her nose was well shaped, her nostrils wide, the angle of her jaw firmly modeled and her slender figure beneath the absurd garments revealed both strength and grace. but he did not dare to stare at her too hard or to question her as to her garments. for all that peter knew it might be the custom of burlington county for women to wear blue denim trousers. and her next question took him off his guard. "you city folk don't think much of yourselves, do you?" "i don't exactly understand what you mean," said peter politely, marking the satirical note. "to think you can make these trees grow better!" she sniffed. "oh, i'm just going to help them to help themselves." "that's god's job, master." peter smiled. she wouldn't have understood, he thought, so what was the use of explaining. there must have been a superior quality in peter's smile, for the girl put on her hat and came down into the road. "i'm goin' to black rock," she said stiffly, "follow me." and she went off with a quick stride down the road. peter nichols took up his bag and started, with difficulty getting to a place beside her. "if you don't mind," he said, "i'd much rather walk with you than behind you." she shrugged a shoulder at him. "suit yourself," she said. in this position, peter made the discovery that her profile was quite as interesting as her full face, but she no longer smiled. her reference to the deity entirely eliminated peter and the profession of forestry from the pale of useful things. he was sorry that she no longer smiled because he had decided to make friends at black rock and he didn't want to make a bad beginning. "i hope you don't mind," said peter at last, "if i tell you that you have one of the loveliest voices that i have ever heard." he marked with pleasure the sudden flush of color that ran up under her delicately freckled tan. her lips parted and she turned to him hesitating. "you--you heard me!" "i did. it was like the voice of an angel in heaven." "angel! oh! i'm sorry. i--i didn't know any one was there. i just sing on my way home from work." "you've been working to-day?" she nodded. "yes--farmerettin'." "farmer----?" "workin' in the vineyard at gaskill's." "oh, i see. do you like it?" "no," she said dryly. "i just do it for my health. don't i look sick?" peter wasn't used to having people make fun of him. even as a waiter he had managed to preserve his dignity intact. but he smiled at her. "i was wondering what had become of the men around here." "they're so busy walkin' from one place to another to see where they can get the highest wages, that there's no time to work in between." "i see," said peter, now really amused. "and does mr. jonathan mcguire have difficulty in getting men to work for him?" "most of his hired help come from away--like you----but lately they haven't been stayin' long." "why?" she slowed her pace a little and turned to look at him curiously. "do you mean that you don't know the kind of a job you've got?" "not much," admitted peter. "in addition to looking after the preserve, i'm to watch after the men--and obey orders, i suppose." "h-m. preserve! sorry, mr. what's your name----" "peter nichols----" put in peter promptly. "well, mr. peter nichols, all i have to say is that you're apt to have a hard time." "yes, i'm against it!" translated peter confidently. the girl stopped in the middle of the road, put her hands on her hips and laughed up at the purpling sky. her laugh was much like her singing--if angels in paradise laugh (and why shouldn't they?). then while he wondered what was so amusing she looked at him again. "_up_ against it, you mean. you're english, aren't you?" "er--yes--i am." "i thought so. there was one of you in the glass factory. he always muffed the easy ones." "oh, you work in a glass factory?" "winters. manufacturin' whiskey and beer bottles. now we're goin' dry, they'll be makin' pop and nursin' bottles, i guess." "do you help in the factory?" "yes, and in the office. i can shorthand and type a little." "you must be glad when a summer comes." "i am. in winter i can't turn around without breakin' something. they dock you for that----" "and that's why you sing when you can't break anythin'?" "i suppose so. i like the open. it isn't right to be cooped up." they were getting along beautifully and peter was even beginning to forget the weight of his heavy bag. she was a quaint creature and quite as unconscious of him as though he hadn't existed. he was just somebody to talk to. peter ventured. "er--would you mind telling me your name?" she looked at him and laughed friendly. "you must have swallowed a catechism, mr. nichols. but everybody in black rock knows everybody else--more'n they want to, i guess. there's no reason i shouldn't tell you. i don't mind your knowin'. my name is beth cameron." "beth----?" "yes, bess--the minister had a lisp." peter didn't lack a sense of humor. "funny, isn't it?" she queried with a smile as he laughed, "bein' tied up for life to a name like that just because the parson couldn't talk straight." "beth," he repeated, "but i like it. it's like you. i hope you'll let me come to see you when i get settled." "h-m," she said quizzically. "you don't believe in wastin' your time, do you?" and then, after a brief pause, "you know they call us pineys back here in the barrens, but just the same we think a lot of ourselves and we're a little offish with city folks. you can't be too particular nowadays about the kind of people you go with." peter stared at her and grinned, his sense of the situation more keenly touched than she could be aware of. "particular, are you? i'm glad of that. all the more credit to me if you'll be my friend." "i didn't say i was your friend." "but you're going to be, aren't you? i know something about singing. i've studied music. perhaps i could help you." "you! you've studied? lord of love! you're not lyin', are you?" he laughed. "no. i'm not lying. i was educated to be a musician." she stared at him now with a new look in her eyes but said nothing. so peter spoke again. "do you mean to say you've never thought of studying singing?" "oh, yes," she said slowly at last, "i've thought of it, just as i've thought of goin' in the movies and makin' a million dollars. lots of good _thinkin'_ does!" "you've thought of the movies?" "yes, once. a girl went from the glass factory. she does extra ladies. she visited back here last winter. i didn't like what it did to her." "oh!" peter was silent for a while, aware of the pellucid meaning of her "it." he was learning quite as much from what she didn't say as from what she did. but he evaded the line of thought suggested. "you do get tired of black rock then?" "i would if i had time. i'm pretty busy all day, and--see here--mr.--er--nichols. if i asked as many questions as you do, i'd know as much as daniel webster." "i'm sorry," said peter, "i beg your pardon." they walked on in silence for a few moments, peter puzzling his brain over the extraordinary creature that chance had thrown in his way. he could see that she was quite capable of looking out for herself and that if her smattering of sophistication had opened her eyes, it hadn't much harmed her. he really wanted to ask her many more questions, but to tell the truth he was a little in awe of her dry humor which had a kind of primitive omniscience and of her laughter which he was now sure was more _at_, than with, him. but he had, in spite of her, peered for a moment into the hidden places of her mind and spirit. it was this intrusion that she resented and he could hardly blame her, since they had met only eighteen minutes ago. she trotted along beside him as though quite unaware of the sudden silence or of the thoughts that might have been passing in his mind. it was beth who broke the silence. "is your bag heavy?" she asked. "not at all," said peter, mopping the perspiration from his forehead. "but aren't we nearly there?" "oh, yes. it's just a mile or so." peter dropped his bag. "that's what you said it was, back there." "did i? well, maybe it isn't so far as that now. let me carry your bag a while." thus taunted, he rose, took the bag in his left hand and followed. "city folks aren't much on doin' for themselves, are they? the taxi system is very poor down here yet." her face was expressionless, but he knew that she was laughing at him. he knew also that his bag weighed more than any army pack. it seemed too that she was walking much faster than she had done before--also that there was malicious humor in the smile she now turned on him. "seems a pity to have such a long walk--with nothin' at the end of it." "i don't mind it in the least," gasped peter. "and if you don't object to my asking you just one more question," he went on grimly, "i'd like you to tell me what is frightening mr. jonathan k. mcguire?" "oh, mcguire. i don't know. nobody does. he's been here a couple of weeks now, cooped up in the big house. never comes out. they say he sees ghosts and things." "ghosts!" she nodded. "he's hired some of the men around here to keep watch for them and they say some detectives are coming. you'll help too, i guess." "that should be easy." "maybe. i don't know. my aunt works there. she's housekeeper. it's spooky, she says, but she can't afford to quit." "but they haven't _seen_ anything?" asked peter incredulously. "no. not yet. i guess it might relieve 'em some if they did. it's only the things you don't see that scare you." "it sounds like a great deal of nonsense about nothing," muttered peter. "all right. wait until you get there before you do much talkin'." "i will, but i'm not afraid of ghosts." and then, as an afterthought, "are you?" "not in daylight. but from what aunt tillie says, it must be something more than a ghost that's frightenin' jonathan k. mcguire." "what does she think it is?" "she doesn't know. mr. mcguire won't say. he won't allow anybody around the house without a pass. oh, he's scared all right and he's got most of black rock scared too. he was never like this before." "are you scared?" asked peter. "no. i don't think i am really. but it's spooky, and i don't care much for shootin'." "what makes you think there will be shooting?" "on account of the guns and pistols. whatever the thing is he's afraid of, he's not goin' to let it come near him if he can help it. aunt tillie says that what with loaded rifles, shotguns and pistols lyin' loose in every room in the house, it's as much as your life is worth to do a bit of dustin'. and the men--shad wells, jesse brown, they all carry automatics. first thing they know they'll be killin' somebody," she finished with conviction. "who is shad wells----?" "my cousin, shadrack e. wells. he was triplets. the other two died." "shad," mused peter. "sounds like a fish, doesn't it? but he isn't." and then more slowly, "shad's all right. he's just a plain woodsman, but he doesn't know anything about making the trees grow," she put in with prim irony. "you'll be his boss, i guess. he won't care much about that." "why?" "because he's been runnin' things in a way. i hope you get along with him." "so do i----" "because if you don't, shad will eat you at one gobble." "oh!" said peter with a smile. "but perhaps you exaggerate. don't you think i might take two--er--gobbles?" beth looked him over, and then smiled encouragingly. "maybe," she said, "but your hands don't look over-strong." peter looked at his right hand curiously. it was not as brown as hers, but the fingers were long and sinewy. "they are, though. when you practice five hours a day on the piano, your hands will do almost anything you want them to." a silence which peter improved by shifting his suitcase. the weight of it had ceased to be amusing. and he was about to ask her how much further black rock was when there was a commotion down the road ahead of them, as a dark object emerged from around the bend and amid a whirl of dust an automobile appeared. "it's the 'lizzie'," exclaimed beth unemotionally. and in a moment the taxi service of black rock was at peter's disposal. "carburetor trouble," explained the soiled young man at the wheel briefly, without apology. and with a glance at peter's bag-- "are you the man for mcguire's on the six-thirty?" peter admitted that he was and the boy swung the door of the tonneau open. "in here with me, beth," he said to the girl invitingly. in a moment, the small machine was whirled around and started in the direction from which it had come, bouncing peter from side to side and enveloping him in dust. jim hagerman's "lizzie" wasted no time, once it set about doing a thing, and in a few moments from the forest they emerged into a clearing where there were cows in a meadow, and a view of houses. at the second of these, a frame house with a portico covered with vines and a small yard with a geranium bed, all enclosed in a picket fence, the "lizzie" suddenly stopped and beth got down. "much obliged, jim," he heard her say. almost before peter had swept off his hat and the girl had nodded, the "lizzie" was off again, through the village street, and so to a wooden bridge across a tea-colored stream, up a slight grade on the other side, where jim hagerman stopped his machine and pointed to a road. "that's mcguire's--in the pines. they won't let me go no further." "how much do i owe you?" asked peter, getting down. "it's paid for, mister. slam the door, will ye?" and in another moment peter was left alone. it was now after sunset, and the depths of the wood were bathed in shadow. peter took the road indicated and in a moment reached two stone pillars where a man was standing. beyond the man he had a glimpse of lawns, a well-kept driveway which curved toward the wood. the man at the gate was of about peter's age but tall and angular, well tanned by exposure and gave an appearance of intelligence and capacity. "i came to see mr. mcguire," said peter amiably. "and what's your name?" "nichols. i'm the new forester from new york." the young man at the gate smiled in a satirical way. "nichols. that was the name," he ruminated. and then with a shout to some one in the woods below, "hey, andy. come take the gate." all the while peter felt the gaze of the young man going over him minutely and found himself wondering whether or not this was the person who was going to take him at a gobble. it was. for when the other man came running peter heard him call the gateman, "shad." "are you mr. shad wells?" asked peter politely with the pleasant air of one who has made an agreeable discovery. "that's my name. who told you?" "miss beth cameron," replied peter. "we came part of the way together." "h-m! come," he said laconically and led the way up the road toward the house. peter didn't think he was very polite. had it not been for the precautions of his guide, peter would have been willing quite easily to forget the tales that had been told him of black rock. the place was very prettily situated in the midst of a very fine growth of pines, spruce and maple. at one side ran the tea-colored stream, tumbling over an ancient dam to levels below, where it joined the old race below the ruin that had once been a mill. the mcguire house emerged in a moment from its woods and shrubbery, and stood revealed--a plain square georgian dwelling of brick, to which had been added a long wing in a poor imitation of the same style and a garage and stables in no style at all on the slope beyond. it seemed a most prosaic place even in the gathering dusk and peter seemed quite unable to visualize it as the center of a mystery such as had been described. and the laconic individual who had been born triplets was even less calculated to carry out such an illusion. but just as they were crossing the lawn on the approach to the house, the earth beneath a clump of bushes vomited forth two men, like the fruit of the dragon's teeth, armed with rifles, who barred their way. both men were grinning from ear to ear. "all right, jesse," said shad with a laugh. "it's me and the new forester." he uttered the words with an undeniable accent of contempt. the armed figures glanced at peter and disappeared, and peter and mr. shad wells went up the steps of the house to a spacious portico. there was not a human being in sight and the heavy wooden blinds to the lower floor were tightly shut. before his guide had even reached the door the sound of their footsteps had aroused some one within the house, the door was opened the length of its chain and a face appeared at the aperture. "who is it?" asked a male voice. "shad wells and mr. nichols, the man from new york." "wait a minute," was the reply while the door was immediately shut again. peter glanced around him comparing this strange situation with another that he remembered, when a real terror had come, a tangible terror in the shape of a countryside gone mad with blood lust. he smiled toward the bush where the armed men lay concealed and toward the gate where the other armed man was standing. it was all so like a situation out of an _opéra bouffe_ of offenbach. what he felt now in this strange situation was an intense curiosity to learn the meaning of it all, to meet the mysterious person around whom all these preparations centered. peter had known fear many times, for fear was in the air for weeks along the russian front, the fear of german shells, of poison gas, and of that worst poison of all--russian treachery. but that fear was not like this fear, which was intimate, personal but intangible. he marked it in the scrutiny of the man who opened the door and of the aged woman who suddenly appeared beside him in the dim hallway and led him noiselessly up the stair to a lighted room upon the second floor. at the doorway the woman paused. "mr. nichols, mr. mcguire," she said, and peter entered. chapter iv the job the room was full of tobacco smoke, through which peter dimly made out a table with an oil lamp, beside which were chairs, a sofa, and beyond, a steel safe between the windows. as peter nichols entered, a man advanced from a window at the side, the shutter of which was slightly ajar. it was evident that not content to leave his safety in the hands of those he had employed to preserve it, he had been watching too. he was in his shirt sleeves, a man of medium height, compactly built, and well past the half century mark. the distinguishing features of his face were a short nose, a heavy thatch of brows, a square jaw which showed the need of the offices of a razor and his lips wore a short, square mustache somewhat stained by nicotine. in point of eagerness the manner of his greeting of the newcomer left nothing to be desired. peter's first impression was that jonathan k. mcguire was quite able to look out for himself, which confirmed the impression that the inspection to which peter had been subjected was nothing but a joke. but when his employer began speaking rather jerkily, peter noticed that his hands were unsteady and that neither the muscles of his face nor of his body were under complete control. normally, he would have seemed much as sheldon, senior, had described him--a hard-fisted man, a close bargainer who had won his way to his great wealth by the sheer force of a strong personality. there was little of softness in his face, little that was imaginative. this was not a man to be frightened at the unseen or to see terrors that did not exist. otherwise, to peter he seemed commonplace to the last degree, of irish extraction probably, the kind of person one meets daily on broadway or on the strand. in a fur coat he might have been taken for a banker; in tweeds, for a small tradesman; or in his shirt as peter now saw him, the wristbands and collar somewhat soiled from perspiration, for a laboring man taking his rest after an arduous day. in other words, he was very much what his clothes would make of him, betraying his origins in a rather strident voice meant perhaps to conceal the true state of his mind. "glad to see you, mr. nichols. thought you were never comin'," he jerked out. "i walked most of the way from pickerel river. something went wrong, with the 'lizzie.'" "oh--er--'lizzie'. the flivver! i couldn't send my own car. i've got only one down here and i might need it." "it doesn't matter in the least--since i'm here." "sit down, mr. nichols," went on mcguire indicating a chair. "you've been well recommended by mr. sheldon. i talked to him yesterday over long distance. he told you what i wanted?" "something. not much," said peter with a view to getting all the information possible. "you wanted a forester----?" "er--er--yes, that's it. a forester." and then he went on haltingly--"i've got about twenty thousand acres here--mostly scrub oak--pine and spruce. i've sold off a lot to the government. a mess of it has been cut--there's been a lot of waste--and the fire season is coming around. that's the big job--the all-the-year job. you've had experience?" "yes--in russia. i'm a trained woodsman." "you're a good all-round man?" "exactly what----?" began peter. "you know how to look after yourself--to look after other men, to take charge of a considerable number of people in my employ?" "yes. i'm used to dealing with men." "it's a big job, mr. nichols--a ticklish kind of a job for a furriner--one with some--er--unusual features--that may call for--er--a lot of tact. and--er--courage." it seemed to peter that jonathan k. mcguire was talking almost at random, that the general topic of forestry was less near his heart to-night than the one that was uppermost in peter's mind, the mystery that surrounded his employer and the agencies invoked to protect him. it seemed as if he were loath to speak of them, as if he were holding peter off at arm's length, so to say, until he had fully made up his mind that this and no other man was the one he wanted, for all the while he was examining the visitor with burning, beady, gray eyes, as though trying to peer into his mind. "i'm not afraid of a forester's job, no matter how big it is, if i have men enough," said peter, still curious. "and you're a pretty good man in a pinch, i mean----" he put in jerkily, "you're not easy scared--don't lose your nerve." "i'll take my chances on that," replied peter calmly. "i'm used to commanding men, in emergencies--if that's what you mean." "yes. that's what i mean. er--you're an englishman, mr. sheldon says." "er--yes," said peter, "an englishman," for this was the truth now more than ever before, and then repeated the story he had told in new york about his work in russia. while peter was talking, mcguire was pacing up and down the room with short nervous strides, nodding his head in understanding from time to time. when peter paused he returned to his chair. "you british are a pretty steady lot," said mcguire at last. "i think you'll do. i like the way you talk and i like your looks. younger than i'd hoped maybe, but then you're strong--mr. sheldon says you're strong, mr. nichols." "oh, yes," said peter, his curiosity now getting the better of him. "but it might be as well, mr. mcguire, if you let me know just what, that is unusual, is to be required of me. i assume that you want me to take command of the men policing your grounds--and immediate property?" "er--yes. that will have to be put in shape at once--at once." he leaned suddenly forward in his chair, his hairy hands clutching at his knees, while he blurted out with a kind of relieved tension, "no one must come near the house at night. no one, you understand----" "i understand, sir----" said peter, waiting patiently for a revelation. "there'll be no excuse if any one gets near the house without my permission," he snarled. and then almost sullenly again--"you understand?" "perfectly. that should not be difficult to----" "it may be more difficult than you think," broke in mcguire, springing to his feet again, and jerking out his phrases with strange fury. "nothing is to be taken for granted. nothing," he raged. peter was silent for a moment, watching mcguire who had paced the length of the room and back. "i understand, sir," he said at last. "but doesn't it seem to you that both i and the man under me could do our work with more intelligence if we knew just who or what is to be guarded against?" mr. mcguire stopped beside him as though transfixed by the thought. then his fingers clutched at the back of a chair to which he clung for a moment in silence, his brows beetling. and when he spoke all the breath of his body seemed concentrated in a hoarse whisper. "you won't know that. you understand, i give the orders. you obey them. i am not a man who answers questions. don't ask them." "oh, i beg your pardon. so long as this thing you fear is human----" "human! a ghost! who said i was afraid? sheldon? let him think it. this is _my_ business. there are many things of value in this house," and he glanced towards the safe. "i'm using the right of any man to protect what belongs to him." "i see," said peter. the man's tension relaxed as he realized peter's coolness. "call it a fancy if you like, mr. nichols----" he said with a shrug. "a man of my age may have fancies when he can afford to gratify 'em." "that's your affair," said peter easily. "i take it then that the systematic policing of the grounds is the first thing i am to consider." "exactly. the systematic policing of the grounds--the dividing of your men into shifts for day and night work--more at night than in the day. three more men come to-morrow. they will all look to you for orders." "and who is in charge now?" "a man named wells--a native--the foreman from one of the sawmills--but he--er--well, mr. nichols--i'm not satisfied. that's why i wanted a man from outside." "i understand. and will you give the necessary orders to him?" "wells was up here to-day, i told him." "how many men are on guard here at the house?" "ten and with the three coming--that makes thirteen----" mcguire halted--"thirteen--but you make the fourteenth," he added. peter nodded. "and you wish me to take charge at once?" "at once. to-night. to-morrow you can look over the ground more carefully. you'll sleep in the old playhouse--the log cabin--down by the creek. they'll show you. it's connected with this house by 'phone. i'll talk to you again to-morrow; you'd better go down and get something to eat." mcguire went to the door and called out "tillie!" and as a faint reply was heard, "get mr. nichols some supper." peter rose and offered his hand. "i'll try to justify your faith in me, sir. much obliged." "good-night." peter went down the stairs with mingled feelings. if the words of beth cameron had created in his mind a notion that the mystery surrounding black rock was supernatural in character, the interview with jonathan k. mcguire had dispelled it. that mcguire was a very much frightened man was certain, but it seemed equally certain to peter that what he feared was no ghost or banshee but the imminence of some human attack upon his person or possessions. here was a practical man, who bore in every feature of his strongly-marked face the tokens of a successful struggle in a hard career, the beginnings of which could not have been any too fortunate. a westerner whose broad hands and twisted fingers spoke eloquently of manual labor, a man who still possessed to all appearances considerable physical strength--a prey to the fear of some night danger which was too ominous even to be talked about. it was the quality of his terror that was disturbing. peter was well acquainted with the physical aspects of fear--that is the fear of violence and death. that kind of fear made men restless and nervous, or silent and preoccupied; or like liquor it accentuated their weaknesses of fiber in sullenness or bravado. but it did not make them furtive. he could not believe that it was the mere danger of death or physical violence that obsessed his employer. that sort of danger perhaps there might be, but the fear that he had seen in mcguire's fanatical gray eyes was born of something more than these. whatever it was that mcguire feared, it reached further within--a threat which would destroy not his body alone, but something more vital even than that--the very spirit that lived within him. of his career, peter knew nothing more than sheldon, senior, had told him--a successful man who told nothing of his business except to the treasury department, a silent man, with a passion for making money. what could he fear? whom? what specter out of the past could conjure up the visions he had seen dancing between mcguire's eyes and his own? these questions it seemed were not to be answered and peter, as he sat down at the supper table, put them resolutely from his mind and addressed himself to the excellent meal provided by the housekeeper. for the present, at least, fortune smiled upon him. the terrors of his employer could not long prevail against the healthy appetite of six-and-twenty. but it was not long before peter discovered that the atmosphere of the room upstairs pervaded the dining room, library and halls. there were a cook and housemaid he discovered, neither of them visible. the housekeeper, if attentive, was silent, and the man who had opened the front door, who seemed to be a kind of general factotum, as well as personal bodyguard to mr. mcguire, crept furtively about the house in an unquiet manner which would have been disturbing to the digestion of one less timorous than peter. before the meal was finished this man came into the room and laid a police whistle, a large new revolver and a box of cartridges beside peter's dish of strawberries. "these are for you, sir," he whispered sepulchrally. "mr. mcguire asked me to give them to you--for to-night." "thanks," said peter, "and you----" "i'm stryker, sir, mr. mcguire's valet." "oh!" peter's accent of surprise came from his inability to reconcile stryker with the soiled shirt and the three days' growth of beard on the man upstairs, which more than ever testified to the disorder of his mental condition. and as stryker went out and his footsteps were heard no more, the housekeeper emerged cautiously from the pantry. "is everything all right, mr. nichols?" she asked in a stage whisper. "right as rain. delicious! i'm very much obliged to you." "i mean--er--there ain't anythin' else ye'd like?" "nothing, thanks," said peter, taking up the revolver and breaking it. he had cut the cover of the cartridge box and had slipped a cartridge into the weapon when he heard the voice of the woman at his ear. "d'ye think there's any danger, sir?" she whispered, while she nervously eyed the weapon. "i'm sure i don't know. not to you, i'd say," he muttered, still putting the cartridges in the pistol. as an ex-military man, he was taking great delight in the perfect mechanism of his new weapon. "what is it----? i mean, d'ye think----," she stammered, "did mr. mcguire say--just what it is he's afraid of?" "no," said peter, "he didn't." and then with a grin, "do you know?" "no, sir. i wish t'god i did. then there'd be somethin' to go by." "i'm afraid i can't help you, mrs. ----" "tillie bergen. i've been housekeeper here since the new wing was put on----" "oh, yes," said peter, pausing over the last cartridge as the thought came to him. "then you must be beth cameron's aunt?" "beth?" the woman's sober face wreathed in a lovely smile. "d'ye know beth?" "since this afternoon. she showed me the way." "oh. poor beth." "poor!" "oh, we're all poor, mr. nichols. but beth she's--different from the rest of us somehow." "yes, she _is_ different," admitted peter frankly. mrs. bergen sighed deeply. "ye don't know how different. and now that--all this trouble has come, i can't get home nights to her. and she can't come to see me without permission. how long d'ye think it will last, sir?" "i don't know," said peter, slipping the revolver and cartridges into his pockets. and then gallantly, "if i can offer you my services, i'd be glad to take you home at night----" "it's against orders. and i wouldn't dare, mr. nichols. as it is i've got about as much as i can stand. if it wasn't for the money i wouldn't be stayin' in the house another hour." "perhaps things won't be so bad after a time. if anything is going to happen, it ought to be pretty soon." she regarded him wistfully as he moved toward the door. "an' ye'll tell me, sir, if anything out o' the way happens." "i hope nothing is going to happen, mrs. bergen," said peter cheerfully. stryker appeared mysteriously from the darkness as peter went out into the hall. "the upstairs girl made up your bed down at the cabin, sir. the chauffeur took your bag over. you'll need these matches. if you'll wait, sir, i'll call mr. wells." peter wondered at the man in this most unconventional household, for stryker, with all the prescience of a well-trained servant, had already decided that peter belonged to a class accustomed to being waited on. going to the door he blew one short blast on a police whistle, like peter's, which he brought forth from his pocket. "that will bring him, sir," he said. "if you'll go out on the portico, he'll join you in a moment." peter obeyed. the door was closed and fastened behind him and almost before he had taken his lungs full of the clean night air (for the house had been hot and stuffy), a shadow came slouching across the lawn in the moonlight. peter joined the man at once and they walked around the house, while peter questioned him as to the number of men and their disposition about the place. there were six, he found, including wells, with six more to sleep in the stable, which was also used as a guardhouse. peter made the rounds of the sentries. none of them seemed to be taking the matter any too seriously and one at least was sound asleep beneath some bushes. peter foresaw difficulties. under the leadership of shad wells the strategic points were not covered, and, had he wished, he could have found his way, by using the cover of shadow and shrubbery, to the portico without being observed. he pointed this out to wells who, from a supercilious attitude, changed to one of defiance. "you seem to think you know a lot, mister?" he said. "i'd like to see ye try it." peter laughed. "very well. take your posts and keep strict watch, but don't move. if i don't walk across the lawn from the house in half an hour i'll give you ten dollars. in return you can take a shot if you see me." he thought the men needed the object lesson. peter was an excellent "point." he disappeared into the woods behind him and making his way cautiously out, found a road, doubling to the other side of the garage along which he went on his hands and knees and crawling from shrub to shrub in the shadows reached the portico without detection. here he lighted a fag and quietly strolled down to the spot where he had left shad wells, to whom he offered a cigarette by way of consolation. wells took it grudgingly. but he took it, which was one point gained. "right smart, aren't ye?" said shad. "no," said peter coolly. "anybody could have done it,--in three ways. the other two ways are through the pine grove to the left and from the big sycamore by the stream." "and how do you know all that?" "i was in the army," said peter. "it's a business like anything else." and he pointed out briefly where the five men should be stationed and why, and shad, somewhat mollified by the cigarette, shrugged and agreed. "we'll do sentry duty in the regular way," went on peter cheerfully, "with a corporal of the guard and a countersign. i'll explain in detail to-morrow." and then to shad, "i'll take command until midnight, when you'll go on with the other shift until four. i'll make it clear to the other men. the countersign is the word 'purple.' you'd better go and turn in. i'll call you at twelve." peter watched the figure of the woodsman go ambling across the lawn in the direction of the garage and smiled. he also marked the vertical line of light which showed at a window on the second floor where another kept watch. the man called jesse, the one who had been asleep beneath the bushes, and who, fully awake, had watched peter's exhibition of scouting, now turned to peter with a laugh. "i guess you're right, mister. s'long's we're paid. but i'd like to know just what this 'ere thing is the ol' man's skeered of." "you know as much as i do. it will probably have two legs, two hands and a face and carry a gun. you'd better be sure you're not asleep when it comes. but if you care to know what i think, you can be pretty sure that it's coming--and before very long." "to-night?" "how do i know? have a cigarette? you cover from the road to the big cedar tree; and keep your eyes open--especially in the shadows--and don't let anybody get you in the back." and so making the rounds, instilling in their minds a sense of real emergency, peter gave the men their new sentry posts and made friends. he had decided to stay up all night, but at twelve he called shad wells and went down to look over his cabin which was a quarter of a mile away from the house near cedar creek (or "crick" in the vernacular). the key was in the cabin door so he unlocked it and went in, and after striking a match found a kerosene lamp which he lighted and then looked about him. the building had only one room but it was of large dimensions and contained a wooden bed with four posts, evidently some one's heirloom, a bureau, washstand, two tables and an easy chair or two. behind the bed was a miscellaneous lot of rubbish, including a crib, a rocking horse, a velocipede, beside some smaller toys. whom had these things belonged to? a grandson of mcguire's? and was the daughter of mcguire like her father, unlovely, soiled and terror-stricken? his desultory mental queries suddenly stopped as he raised his eyes to the far corner of the room, for there, covered with an old shawl, he made out the lines of a piano. he opened the keyboard and struck a chord. it wasn't so bad--a little tuning--he could do it himself.... so this was his new home! he had not yet had the time or the opportunity to learn what new difficulties were to face him on the morrow, but the personal affairs of his employer had piqued his interest and for the present he had done everything possible to insure his safety for the night. to-morrow perhaps he would learn something more about the causes of this situation. he would have an opportunity too to look over the property and make a report as to its possibilities. to a man inured as peter was to disappointments, what he had found was good. he had made up his mind to fit himself soldierlike into his new situation and he had to admit now that he liked the prospect. as though to compensate for past mischief, fate had provided him with the one employment in the new land for which he was best suited by training and inclination. it was the one "job" in which, if he were permitted a fair amount of freedom of action and initiative, he was sure that he could "make good." the trees he could see were not the stately pines of zukovo, but they were pines, and the breeze which floated in to him through the cabin door was laden with familiar odors. the bed looked inviting, but he resolutely turned his back to it and unpacked his suitcase, taking off his tailor-made clothing and putting on the flannel shirt, corduroy trousers and heavy laced boots, all of which he had bought before leaving new york. then he went to the doorway and stood looking out into the night. the moonbeams had laid a patine of silver upon the floor of the small clearing before the door, and played softly among the shadows. so silent was the night that minute distant sounds were clearly audible--the stream seemed to be tinkling just at his elbow, while much farther away there was a low murmur of falling water at the tumbling dam, mingling with the sighs of vagrant airs among the crowns of the trees, the rustle and creak of dry branches, the whispering of leaf to leaf. wakeful birds deceived by the moon piped softly and were silent. an owl called. and then for the briefest moment, except for the stream, utter silence. peter strode forth, bathed himself in the moonlight and drank deep of the airs of the forest. america! he had chosen! her youth called to his. he wanted to forget everything that had gone before, the horrors through which he had passed, both physical and spiritual,--the dying struggles of the senile nation, born in intolerance, grown in ignorance and stupidity which, with a mad gesture, had cast him forth with a curse. he had doffed the empty prerogatives of blood and station and left them in the mire and blood. the soul of russia was dead and he had thought that his own had died with hers, but from the dead thing a new soul might germinate as it had now germinated in him. he had been born again. _novaya jezn!_ the new life! he had found it. he listened intently as though for its heartbeats, his face turned up toward the silent pines. for a long while he stood so and then went indoors and sat at the old piano playing softly. chapter v new elements some of the men on guard in the middle watch reported that they had heard what seemed to be the sounds of music very far away in the woods and were disturbed at the trick their ears had played upon them. but peter didn't tell them the truth. if listening for the notes of a piano would keep them awake, listen they should. he slept until noon and then went to the house for orders. morning seemed to make a difference in the point of view. if the moon had made the night lovely, the sun brought with it the promise of every good thing. the walk through the woods to black rock house was a joy, very slightly alleviated by the poor condition of the trees under which peter passed. it was primeval forest even here, with valuable trees stunted and poor ones vastly overgrown according to nature's law which provides for the survival of the fittest. this was the law too, which was to be applied to peter. would he grow straight and true in this foreign soil or gnarled and misshapen like the cedars and the maples that he saw? yes. he would grow and straight ... straight. optimism seemed to be the order of the new day. at the house he found that his employer had put on a clean shirt and was freshly shaven. the windows of the room were opened wide to the sunlight which streamed into the room, revealing its darkest corners. mcguire himself seemed to have responded to the effulgence of the sun and the balmy air which swept across his table. his manner was now calm, his voice more measured. when peter came into the room, mr. mcguire closed the heavy doors of the steel safe carefully and turned to greet him. "oh, glad to see you, nichols," he said more cheerfully. "a quiet night, i understand." "yes," laughed nichols, "except for the man who got through the guards and smoked a cigarette on your portico." "what!" gasped mcguire. "don't be alarmed, sir. it was only myself. i wanted to show shad wells the defects of his police system." "oh! ah! ha, ha, yes, of course. very good. and you weren't shot at?" "oh, no, sir--though i'd given them leave to pot me if they could. but i think you're adequately protected now." "good," said mcguire. "have a cigar. i'm glad you've come. i wanted to talk to you." and when they had lighted their cigars, "it's about this very guard. i--i'm afraid you'll have to keep your men under cover at least in the daytime." "under cover?" "well, you see," went on mcguire in some hesitation, "my daughter (he called it darter) peggy is motoring down from new york to-day. i don't want her, but she's coming. i couldn't stop her. she doesn't know anything about this--er--this guarding the house. and i don't want her to know. she mustn't know. she'd ask questions. i don't want questions asked. i'll get her away as soon as i can, but she mustn't be put into any danger." "i see," said peter examining the ash of his cigar. "you don't want her to know anything about the impending attempts upon your life and property." "yes, that's it," said mcguire impatiently. "i don't want her to find out. er--she couldn't understand. you know women, nichols. they talk too much." he paused "it's--er--necessary that none of her friends in new york or mine should know of--er--any danger that threatens me. and of course--er--any danger that threatens me would--in a way--threaten her. you see?" "i think so." "i've put all weapons under cover. i don't want her to see 'em. so when she comes--which may be at any moment--nothing must be said about the men outside and what they're there for. in the daytime they must be given something to do about the place--trimming the lawns, pruning trees or weeding the driveway. pay 'em what they ask, but don't let any of 'em go away. you'll explain this to the new men. as for yourself--er--of course you're my new superintendent and forester." mcguire got up and paced the floor slowly looking at peter out of the tail of his eye. "i like you, nichols. we'll get along. you've got courage and intelligence--and of course anybody can see you're a gentleman. you'll keep on taking your meals in the house----" "if you'd like me to go elsewhere----" "no. i see no reason why peggy shouldn't like you. i hope she will. but she's very headstrong, has been since a kid. i suppose i humor her a bit--who wouldn't? i lost my oldest girl and her boy with the 'flu.' her husband's still in france. and peggy's got a will of her own, peg has," he finished in a kind of admiring abstraction. "got a society bee in her bonnet. wants to go with all the swells. i'm backin' her, nichols. she'll do it too before she's through," he finished proudly. "i haven't a doubt of it," said peter soberly, though very much amused at his employer's ingenuousness. here then, was the weak spot in the armor of this relentless millionaire--his daughter. the older one and her child were dead. that accounted for the toys in the cabin. peggy sounded interesting'--if nothing else, for her vitality. "i'd better see about this at once, then. if she should come----" peter rose and was about to leave the room when there was a sound of an automobile horn and the sudden roar of an exhaust outside. he followed mcguire to the window and saw a low red runabout containing a girl and a male companion emerging from the trees. a man in the road was holding up his hands in signal for the machine to stop and had barely time to leap aside to avoid being run down. the car roared up to the portico, the breathless man, who was shad wells, pursuing. peter was glad that he had had the good sense not to shoot. he turned to his employer, prepared for either anger or dismay and found that mcguire was merely grinning and chuckling softly as though to himself. "just like her!" he muttered, "some kid, that!" meanwhile shad wells, making a bad race of it was only halfway up the drive, when at a signal and shout from mcguire, he stopped running, stared, spat and returned to his post. there was a commotion downstairs, the shooting of bolts, the sounds of voices and presently the quick patter of feminine footsteps which mcguire, now completely oblivious of peter, went to meet. "well, daughter!" "hello, pop!" peter caught a glimpse of a face and straggling brown hair, quickly engulfed in mcguire's arms. "what on earth----" began mcguire. "thought we'd give you a little touch of high life, pop. it was so hot in town. and the hotel's full of a convention of rough necks. i brought freddy with me and mildred and jack are in the other car. we thought the rest might do us good." the voice was nasal and pitched high, as though she were trying to make herself audible in a crowd. peter was ready to revise his estimate that her face was pretty, for to him no woman was more beautiful than her own voice. "but you can't stay here, peg," went on mcguire, "not more than over night--with all these people. i'm very busy----" "h-m. we'll see about that. i never saw the woods look prettier. we came by lakewood and brown's mills and--why who----?" as she sidled into the room she suddenly espied peter who was still standing by the window. "who----? why--oh, yes, this is my new superintendent and forester. meet my daughter,--mr. nichols." peter bowed and expressed pleasure. miss mcguire swept him with a quick glance that took in his flannel shirt, corduroy breeches and rough boots, nodded pertly and turned away. peter smiled. like beth cameron this girl was very particular in choosing her acquaintances. "i nearly killed a guy in the driveway," she went on, "who was he, pop?" "er--one of the gardeners, i've told them to keep people off the place." "well. i'd like to see him keep _me_ off! i suppose he'll be trying to hold up mildred and jack----" she walked to the window passing close beside peter, paying as little attention to his presence as if he had been, an article of furniture. "can't you get this man to go down," she said indicating peter, "and tell them it's all right?" "of course," said peter politely. "i'll go at once. and i'd like to arrange to look over part of the estate with wells, mr. mcguire," he added. "all right, nichols," said the old man with a frown. and then significantly--"but remember what i've told you. make careful arrangements before you go." "yes, sir." peter went down the stairs, amused at his dismissal. on the veranda he found a young man sitting on some suitcases smoking a cigarette. this was freddy, of course. he afterwards learned that his last name was mordaunt, that he was a part of peggy's ambitions, and that he had been invalided home from a camp and discharged from the military service. as freddy turned, peter bowed politely and passed on. having catalogued him by his clothing, freddy like peggy had turned away, smoking his cigarette. peter thought that some americans were born with bad manners, some achieved bad manners, and others had bad manners thrust upon them. impoliteness was nothing new to him, since he had been in america. it was indigenous. personally, he didn't mind what sort of people he met, but he seemed to be aware that a new element had come to black rock which was to make disquietude for jonathan k. mcguire and difficulty for himself. and yet too there was a modicum of safety, perhaps, in the presence of these new arrivals, for it had been clear from his employer's demeanor that the terrors of the night had passed with the coming of the day. he commented on this to shad wells, who informed him that night was always the old man's bad time. "seems sort o' like he's skeered o' the dark. 'tain't nateral. 'fraid o' ghosts, they say," he laughed. "well," said peter, "we've got our orders. and the thing he fears isn't a ghost. it's human." "sure?" "yes. and since he's more afraid after dark he has probably had his warning. but we're not to take any chances." having given his new orders to jesse, who was to be in charge during their absence, they struck into the woods upon the other side of the creek for the appraisal of a part of the strip known as the "upper reserve." from an attitude of suspicion and sneering contempt peter's companion had changed to one of indifference. the unfailing good humor of the new superintendent had done something to prepare the ground for an endurable relation between them. like beth cameron shad had sneered at the word "forester." he was the average lumberman, only interested in the cutting down of trees for the market--the commercial aspect of the business--heedless of the future, indifferent to the dangers of deforestation. peter tried to explain to him that forestry actually means using the forest as the farmer uses his land, cutting out the mature and overripe trees and giving the seedlings beneath more light that they may furnish the succeeding crop of timber. he knew that the man was intelligent enough, and explained as well as he could from such statistics as he could recall how soon the natural resources of the country would be exhausted under the existing indifference. "quite a bit of wood here, mister--enough for my job," said shad. but after a while peter began to make him understand and showed him what trees should be marked for cutting and why. they came to a burned patch of at least a hundred acres. "is there any organized system for fighting these fires?" peter asked. "system! well, when there's a fire we go and try to put it out----" laughed wells. "how do the fires start?" "campers--hunters mos'ly--in the deer season. railroads sometimes--at the upper end." "and you keep no watch for smoke?" "where would we watch from?" "towers. they ought to be built--with telephone connection to headquarters." "d'ye think the old man will stand for that?" "he ought to. it's insurance." "oh!" "it looks to me, wells," said peter after a pause, "that a good 'crown' fire and a high gale, would turn all this country to cinders--like this." "it's never happened yet." "it may happen. then good-by to your jobs--and to black rock too perhaps." "i guess black rock can stand it, if the old man can." they walked around the charred clearing and mounted a high sand dune, from which they could see over a wide stretch of country. with a high wooden platform here the whole of the upper reserve could be watched. they sat for a while among the sandwort and smoked, while peter described the work in the german forests that he had observed before the war. shad had now reached the point of listening and asking questions as the thought was more and more borne into his mind that this new superintendent was not merely talking for talk's sake, but because he knew more about the woods than any man the native had ever talked with, and wanted shad to know too. for peter had an answer to all of his questions, and shad, though envious of peter's grammar--for he had reached an age to appreciate it--was secretly scornful of peter's white hands and carefully tied black cravat. this dune was at the end of the first day's "cruise" and shad had risen preparatory to returning toward black rock when they both heard a sound,--away off to their right, borne down to them clearly on the breeze--the voice of a girl singing. "beth," said shad with a kindling eye. and then carelessly spat, to conceal his emotions. "what on earth can she be doing in here?" asked peter. "only half a mile from the road. it's the short cut from gaskill's." "i see," from peter. "do you reckon you can find your way back alone, nichols?" said shad, spitting again. peter grinned. "i reckon i can try," he said. shad pointed with his long arm in the general direction of heaven. "that way!" he muttered and went into the scrub oak with indecent haste. peter sat looking with undisguised interest at the spot where he had disappeared, tracing him for a while through the moving foliage, listening to the crackling of the underbrush, as the sounds receded. it was time to be turning homeward, but the hour was still inviting, the breeze balmy, the sun not too warm, so peter lay back among the grasses in the sand smoking a fresh cigarette. far overhead buzzards were wheeling. they recalled those other birds of prey that he had often watched, ready to swoop down along the lines of the almost defenseless russians. here all was so quiet. the world was a very beautiful place if men would only leave it so. the voice of the girl was silent now. shad had probably joined her. somehow, peter hadn't been able to think of any relationship, other than the cousinly one, between shad wells and beth. he had only known the girl for half an hour but as aunt tillie bergen had said, her niece seemed different from the other natives that peter had met. her teeth were sound and white, suggesting habits of personal cleanliness; her conversation, though careless, showed at the very least, a grammar school training. and shad--well, shad was nothing but a "piney." pity--with a voice like that--she ought to have had opportunities--this scornful little beth. peter closed his eyes and dozed. he expected to have no difficulty in finding his way home, for he had a pocket compass and the road could not be far distant. he liked this place. he would build a tower here, a hundred-foot tower, of timbers, and here a man should be stationed all day--to watch for wisps of smoke during the hunting season. smoke ... tower ... in a moment he snored gently. "halloo!" came a voice in his dream. "halloo! halloo!" peter started rubbing his eyes, aware of the smoking cigarette in the grasses beside him. stupid, that! to do the very thing he had been warning shad wells against. he smeared the smoking stub out in the sand and sat up yawning and stretching his arms. "halloo!" said the voice in his dream, almost at his ear. "tryin' to set the woods afire?" the question had the curious dropping intonation at its end. but the purport annoyed him. nothing that she could have said could have provoked him more! behind her he saw the dark face of shad wells break into a grin. "i fell asleep," said peter, getting to his feet. beth laughed. "lucky you weren't burnt to death. _then_ how would the trees get along?" peter's toe burrowed after the defunct cigarette. "i know what i'm about," he muttered, aware of further loss of dignity. "oh, do you? then which way were you thinkin' of goin' home?" peter glanced around, pointed vaguely, and beth cameron laughed. "i guess you'd land in egg harbor, or thereabouts." her laugh was infectious and peter at last echoed it. "you's better be goin' along with us. shad asked me to come and get you, didn't you, shad?" peter glanced at the woodsman's black scowl and grinned, recalling his desertion and precipitate disappearance into the bushes. "i'm sure i'm very much obliged to you both," said peter diplomatically. "but i think i can find my way in." "not if you start for hammonton or absecon, you can't. i've known people to spend the night in the woods a quarter of a mile from home." "i shouldn't mind that." "but shad would. he'd feel a great responsibility if you didn't turn up for the ghost-hunt. wouldn't you, shad?" shad wagged his head indeterminately, and spat. "come on," he said sullenly, and turned, leading the way out to the northward, followed by beth with an inviting smile. she still wore her denim overalls which were much too long for her and her dusty brown boots seemed like a child's. between moments of avoiding roots and branches, peter watched her strong young figure as it followed their leader. yesterday, he had thought her small; to-day she seemed to have increased in stature--so uncertain is the masculine judgment upon any aspect of a woman. but his notions in regard to her grace and loveliness were only confirmed. there was no concealing them under her absurd garments. her flanks were long and lithe, like a boy's, but there was something feminine in the way she moved, a combination of ease and strength made manifest, which could only come of well-made limbs carefully jointed. every little while she flashed a glance over her shoulder at him, exchanging a word, even politely holding back a branch until he caught it, or else when he was least expecting it, letting it fly into his face. from time to time shad wells would turn to look at them and peter could see that he wasn't as happy as he might have been. but beth was very much enjoying herself. they had emerged at last into the road and walked toward black rock, beth in the center and peter and shad on either side. "i've been thinkin' about what you said yesterday," said beth to peter. "about----?" "singin' like an angel in heaven," she said promptly aware of shad's bridling glance. "oh, well," repeated peter, "you do--you know." "it was very nice of you--and you a musician." "musician!" growled shad. "he ain't a musician." "oh, yes, he is, and he says i've a voice like an angel. _you_ never said that, shad wells." "no. nor i won't," he snapped surlily. peter would have been more amused if he hadn't thought that shad wells was unhappy. he needed the man's allegiance and he had no wish to make an enemy of him. "musician!" shad growled. "then it was you the men heard last night." "i found a piano in the cabin. i was trying it," said peter. shad said nothing in reply but he put every shade of scorn into the way in which he spat into the road. "a piano----!" beth gasped. "where? what cabin?" "the playhouse--where i live," said peter politely. "oh." there was a silence on the part of both of his companions, awkwardly long. so peter made an effort to relieve the tension, commenting on the new arrivals at black rock house. at the mention of peggy's name beth showed fresh excitement. "miss mcguire! here? when----?" "this morning. do you know her?" "no. but i've seen her. i think she's just lovely." "why?" "she wears such beautiful clothes and--and hats and veils." peter laughed. "and that's your definition of loveliness." "why, yes," she said in wonder. "last year all the girls were copyin' her, puttin' little puffs of hair over their ears--i tried it, but it looked funny. is she going to be here long? has she got a 'beau' with her? she always had. it's a wonder she doesn't run over somebody, the way she drives." "she nearly got me this mornin'," growled shad. "i wish she would--if you're going to look like a meat-ax, shad wells." there was no reconciling them now, and when beth's home was reached, all three of them went different ways. what a rogue she was! and poor shad wells who was to have taken peter at a gobble, seemed a very poor sort of a creature in beth's hands. she amused peter greatly, but she annoyed him a little too, ruffled up the shreds of his princely dignity, not yet entirely inured to the trials of social regeneration. and shad's blind adoration was merely a vehicle for her amusement. it would have been very much better if she hadn't used peter's compliment as a bait for shad. peter had come to the point of liking the rough foreman even if he was a new kind of human animal from anything in peter's experience. and so was beth. a new kind of animal--something between a harrier and a skylark, but wholesome and human too, a denim dryad, the spirit of health, joy and beauty, a creature good to look at, in spite of her envy of the fashionable miss peggy mcguire with her modish hats, cerise veils and ear puffs, her red roadsters and her beaux. poverty sat well upon beth and the frank blue eyes and resolute chin gave notice that whatever was to happen to her future she was honorable and unafraid. but if there was something very winning about her, there was something pathetic too. her beauty was so unconscious of her ridiculous clothing, and yet peter had come to think of it as a part of her, wondering indeed what she would look like in feminine apparel, in which he could not imagine her, for the other girls of black rock had not so far blessed his vision. aunt tillie bergen had told him, over his late breakfast, of the difficulties that she and beth had had to keep their little place going and how beth, after being laid off for the summer at the factory, had insisted upon working in the gaskill's vineyard to help out with the household. there ought to be something for beth cameron, better than this--something less difficult--more ennobling. thinking of these things peter made his way back to the cabin. nothing of a disturbing nature had happened around black rock house, except the arrival of the remainder of mcguire's unwelcome house party, which had taken to wandering aimlessly through the woods, much to the disgust of jesse brown, who, lost in the choice between "dudes" and desperadoes, had given up any attempt to follow peter's careful injunctions in regard to mcguire. it was still early and the supper hour was seven, so peter unpacked his small trunk which had arrived in his absence and then, carefully shutting door and windows, sat at the piano and played quietly at first, a "reverie" of tschaikowsky, a "berceuse" of césar cui, the "valse triste" of jean sibelius and then forgetting himself--launched forth into chopin's c minor Étude. his fingers were stiff for lack of practice and the piano was far from perfect, but in twenty minutes he had forgotten the present, lost in memories. he had played this for anastasie galitzin. he saw the glint of the shaded piano lamp upon her golden head, recalled her favorite perfume.... silver nights upon the castle terrace.... golden walks through the autumn forest.... suddenly a bell rang loudly at peter's side, it seemed. then while he wondered, it rang again. of course--the telephone. he found the instrument in the corner and put the receiver to his ear. it was mcguire's voice. "that you, nichols?" it asked in an agitated staccato. "yes, sir." "well, it's getting dark, what have you done about to-night?" "same as last night," said peter smiling, "only more careful." "well, i want things changed," the gruff voice rose. "the whole d--n house is open. i can't shut it with these people here. your men will have to move in closer--but keep under cover. can you arrange it?" "yes, i think so." "i'll want you here--with me--you understand. you were coming to supper?" "yes, sir." "well--er--i've told my daughter and so--would you mind putting on a dress suit----? er--if you have one--a tuxedo will do." "yes, sir," said peter. "that's all right." "oh--er--thanks. you'll be up soon?" "yes." "good-by." with a grin, peter hung up the receiver, recalling the soiled, perspiring, unquiet figure of his employer last night. but it seemed as though mcguire were almost as much in awe of his daughter as of the danger that threatened, for, in the mcguire household, miss peggy, it appeared, was paramount. peter's bathroom was cedar creek. in his robe, he ran down the dusky path for a quick plunge. then, refreshed and invigorated, he lighted his lamp and dressed leisurely. he had come to his cravat, to which he was wont to pay more than a casual attention, when he was aware of a feeling of discomfort--of unease. in the mirror something moved, a shadow, at the corner of the window. he waited a moment, still fingering his cravat, and then sure that his eyes had made no mistake, turned quickly and, revolver in hand, rushed outside. just as he did so a man with a startled face disappeared around the corner of the cabin. peter rushed after him, shouting and turned the edge just in time to see his shape leap into the bushes. "who goes there?" shouted peter crisply. "halt, or i'll fire." but the only reply was a furious crashing in the undergrowth. peter fired twice at the sound, then followed in, still calling. no sound. under the conditions a chase was hopeless, so peter paused listening. and then after a few moments a more distant crackling advised him that his visitor had gotten well away. and so after a while he returned to the cabin and with his weapon beside him finished his interrupted toilet. but his brows were in a tangle. the mystery surrounding him seemed suddenly to have deepened. for the face that he had seen at the window was that of the stranger who had stared at him so curiously--the man of the soft hat and dark mustache--who had seemed so startled at seeing him in the pennsylvania station when he was leaving new york. chapter vi the house of terror who--what was this stranger who seemed so interested in his whereabouts? peter was sure that he had made no mistake. it was an unusual face, swarthy, with high cheek bones, dark eyes, a short nose with prominent nostrils. perhaps it would not have been so firmly impressed on his memory except for the curious look of startled recognition that peter had surprised on it at the station in new york. this had puzzled him for some moments in the train but had been speedily lost in the interest of his journey. the man had followed him to black rock. but why? what did he want of peter and why should he skulk around the cabin and risk the danger of peter's bullets? it seemed obvious that he was here for some dishonest purpose, but what dishonest purpose could have any interest in peter? if robbery, why hadn't the man chosen the time while peter was away in the woods? peter grinned to himself. if the man had any private sources of information as to peter's personal assets, he would have known that they consisted of a two-dollar watch and a small sum in money. if the dishonest purpose were murder or injury, why hadn't he attacked peter while he was bathing, naked and quite defenseless, in the creek? there seemed to be definite answers to all of these questions, but none to the fact of the man's presence, to the fact of his look of recognition, or to the fact of his wish to be unobserved. was he a part of the same conspiracy which threatened mcguire? or was this a little private conspiracy arranged for peter alone? and if so, why? so far as peter knew he hadn't an enemy in america, and even if he had made one, it was hardly conceivable that any one should go to such lengths to approach an issue and then deliberately avoid it. but there seemed no doubt that something was up and that, later, more would be heard from this curious incident. it seemed equally certain that had the stranger meant to shoot peter he could easily have done so in perfect safety to himself through the window, while peter was fastening his cravat. reloading his revolver and slipping it into his pocket, peter locked the cabin carefully, and after listening to the sounds of the woods for awhile, made his way up the path to black rock house. he had decided to say nothing about the incident which, so far as he could see, concerned only himself, and so when the men on guard questioned him about the shots that they had heard he told them that he had been firing at a mark. this was quite true, even if the mark had been invisible. shad wells was off duty until midnight so peter went the rounds, calling the men to the guardhouse and telling them of the change in the orders. they were to wait until the company upon the portico went indoors and then, with jesse in command, they were to take new stations in trees and clumps of bushes which peter designated much nearer the house. the men eyed his dinner jacket with some curiosity and not a little awe, and peter informed them that it was the old man's order and that he, peter, was going to keep watch from inside the house, but that a blast from a whistle would fetch him out. he also warned them that it was mcguire's wish that none of the visitors should be aware of the watchmen and that therefore there should be no false alarms. curiously enough peter found mcguire in a state very nearly bordering on calm. he had had a drink. he had not heard the shots peter had fired nor apparently had any of the regular occupants of the house. the visitors had possibly disregarded them. from the pantry came a sound with which peter was familiar, for stryker was shaking the cocktails. and when the ladies came downstairs the two men on the portico came in and peter was presented to the others of the party, miss delaplane, mr. gittings and mr. mordaunt. the daughter of the house examined peter's clothing and then, having apparently revised her estimate of him, became almost cordial, bidding him sit next miss delaplane at table. mildred delaplane was tall, handsome, dark and aquiline, and made a foil for peggy's blond prettiness. peter thought her a step above peggy in the cultural sense, and only learned afterward that as she was not very well off, peggy was using her as a rung in the social ladder. mordaunt, peter didn't fancy, but gittings, who was jovial and bald, managed to inject some life into the party, which, despite the effect of the cocktails, seemed rather weary and listless. mcguire sat rigidly at the head of the table, forcing smiles and glancing uneasily at doors and windows. peter was worried too, not as to himself, but as to any possible connection that there might be between the man with the dark mustache and the affairs of jonathan mcguire. mildred delaplane, who had traveled in europe in antebellum days, found much that was interesting in peter's fragmentary reminiscences. she knew music too, and in an unguarded moment peter admitted that he had studied. it was difficult to lie to women, he had found. and so, after dinner, that information having transpired, he was immediately led to the piano-stool by his hostess, who was frequently biased in her social judgments by mildred delaplane. peter played cyril scott's "song from the east," and then, sure of miss delaplane's interest, an Étude of scriabine, an old favorite of his which seemed to express the mood of the moment. and all the while he was aware of jonathan mcguire, seated squarely in the middle of the sofa which commanded all the windows and doors, with one hand at his pocket, scowling and alert by turns, for, though the night had fallen slowly, it was now pitch black outside. peter knew that mcguire was thinking he hadn't hired his superintendent as a musician to entertain his daughter's guests, but that he was powerless to interfere. nor did he wish to excite the reprobation of his daughter by going up and locking himself in his room. peggy, having finished her cigarette with freddy on the portico, had come in again and was now leaning over the piano, her gaze fixed, like mildred's, upon peter's mobile fingers. "you're really too wonderful a superintendent to be quite true," said peggy when peter had finished. "but _do_ give us a 'rag.'" peter shook his head. "i'm sorry, but i can't do ragtime." "quit your kidding! i want to dance." "i'm not--er--kidding," said peter, laughing. "i can't play it at all--not at all." peggy gave him a look, shrugged and walked to the door. "fred-die-e!" she called. peter rose from the piano-stool and crossed to mcguire. the man's cigar was unsmoked and tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. "i don't think you need worry, sir," whispered peter. "the men are all around the house, but if you say, i'll go out for another look around." "no matter. i'll stick it out for a while." "you're better off here than anywhere, i should say. no one would dare----" here freddy at the piano struck up "mary" and further conversation was drowned in commotion. mildred delaplane was preëmpted by mr. gittings and peggy came whirling alone toward peter, arms extended, the passion for the dance outweighing other prejudices. peter took a turn, but four years of war had done little to improve his steps. "i'm afraid all my dancing is in my fingers," he muttered. suddenly, as freddy mordaunt paused, peggy stopped and lowered her arms. "good lord!" she gasped. "what's the matter with pop?" mcguire had risen unsteadily and was peering out into the darkness through the window opposite him, his face pallid, his lips drawn into a thin line. peggy ran to him and caught him by the arm. "what is it, pop? are you sick?" "n-no matter. just a bit upset. if you don't mind, daughter, i think i'll be going up." "can i do anything?" "no. stay here and enjoy yourselves. just tell stryker, will you, nichols, and then come up to my room." peggy was regarding him anxiously as he made his way to the door and intercepted peter as he went to look for the valet. "what is it, mr. nichols?" she asked. "he may be sick, but it seems to me----" she paused, and then, "did you see his eyes as he looked out of the window?" "indigestion," said peter coolly. "you'll see after him, won't you? and if he wants me, just call over." "i'm sure he won't want you. a few home remedies----" and peter went through the door. stryker had appeared mysteriously from somewhere and had already preceded his master up the stair. when peter reached the landing, mcguire was standing alone in the dark, leaning against the wall, his gaze on the lighted bedroom which, the valet was carefully examining. "what is it, sir?" asked peter coolly. "you thought you saw something?" "yes--out there--on the side portico----" "you must be mistaken--unless it was one of the watchmen----" "no, no. i saw----" "what, sir?" "no matter. do you think peggy noticed?" "just that you didn't seem quite yourself----" "but not that i seemed--er----" "alarmed? i said you weren't well." peter took the frightened man's arm and helped him into his room. "i'm not, nichols," he groaned. "i'm not myself." "i wouldn't worry, sir. i'd say it was physically impossible for any one to approach the house without permission. but i'll go down and have another look around." "do, nichols. but come back up here. i'll want to talk to you." so peter went down. and, evading inquiries in the hallway, made his way out through the hall and pantry. here a surprise awaited him, for as he opened the door there was a skurry of light footsteps and in a moment he was in the pantry face to face with beth cameron, who seemed much dismayed at being discovered. "what on earth are you doing here?" he asked in amazement. she glanced at his white shirt front and then laughed. "i came to help aunt tillie dish up." "you!" he didn't know why he should have been so amazed at finding her occupying a menial position in this household. she didn't seem to belong to the back stairs! and yet there she was in a plain blue gingham dress which made her seem much taller, and a large apron, her tawny hair casting agreeable shadows around her blue eyes, which he noticed seemed much darker by night than by day. she noticed the inflection of his voice and laughed. "why not? i thought aunt tillie would need me--and besides i wanted to peek a little." "ah, i see. you wanted to see miss peggy's new frock through the keyhole?" "yes--and the other one. aren't they pretty?" "i suppose so." "i listened, too. i couldn't help it." "eavesdropping!" she nodded. "oh, mr. nichols, but you do play the piano beautifully!" "but not like an angel in heaven," said peter with a smile. "almost--if angels play. you make me forget----" she paused. "what----?" "that's there's anything in the world except beauty." in the drawing-room freddy, having found himself, had swept into a song of the cabarets, to which there was a "close harmony" chorus. "there's that----," he muttered, jerking a thumb in the direction from which he had come. but she shook her head. "no," she said. "that's different." "how--different?" "wrong--false--un--unworthy----" as she groped for and found the word he stared at her in astonishment. and in her eyes back of the joy that seemed to be always dancing in them he saw the shadows of a sober thought. "but don't you like dance music?" he asked. "yes, i do, but it's only for the feet. your music is for--for _here_." and with a quick graceful gesture she clasped her hands upon her breast. "i'm glad you think so, because that's where it comes from." at this point peter remembered his mission, which beth's appearance had driven from his mind. "i'll play for you sometime," he said. he went past her and out to the servants' dining-room. as he entered with beth at his heels, mrs. bergen, the housekeeper, turned in from the open door to the kitchen garden, clinging to the jamb, her lips mumbling, as though she were continuing a conversation. but her round face, usually the color and texture of a well ripened peach, was the color of putty, and seemed suddenly to have grown old and haggard. her eyes through her metal-rimmed spectacles seemed twice their size and stared at peter as though they saw through him and beyond. she faltered at the door-jamb and then with an effort reached a chair, into which she sank gasping. beth was kneeling at her side in a moment, looking up anxiously into her startled eyes. "why, what is it, aunt tillie?" she whispered quickly. "what it is? tell me." the coincidence was too startling. could the same thing that had frightened mcguire have frightened the housekeeper too? peter rushed past her and out of the open door. it was dark outside and for a moment he could see nothing. then objects one by one asserted themselves, the orderly rows of vegetable plants in the garden, the wood-box by the door, the shrubbery at the end of the portico, the blue spruce tree opposite, the loom of the dark and noncommittal garage. he knew that one of his men was in the trees opposite the side porch and another around the corner of the kitchen, in the hedge, but he did not want to raise a hue and cry unless it was necessary. what was this thing that created terror at sight? he peered this way and that, aware of an intense excitement, in one hand his revolver and in the other his police whistle. but he saw no object move, and the silence was absolute. in a moment--disappointed--he hurried back to the servants' dining-room. mrs. bergen sat dazed in her chair, while beth, who had brought her a glass of water, was making her drink of it. "tell me, what is it?" beth was insisting. "nothing--nothing," murmured the woman. "but there is----" "no, dearie----" "are you sick?" "i don't feel right. maybe--the heat----" "but your eyes look queer----" "do they----?" the housekeeper tried to smile. "yes. like they had seen----" a little startled as she remembered the mystery of the house, beth cast her glance into the darkness outside the open door. "you _are_--frightened!" she said. "no, no----" "what was it you saw, mrs. bergen," asked peter gently. he was just at her side and at the sound of his voice she half arose, but recognizing peter she sank back in her chair. peter repeated his question, but she shook her head. "won't you tell us? what was it you saw? a man----?" her eyes sought beth's and a look of tenderness came into them, banishing the vision. but she lied when she answered peter's question. "i saw nothin', mr. nichols--i think i'll go up----" she took another swallow of the water and rose. and with her strength came a greater obduracy. "i saw nothin'----" she repeated again, as she saw that he was still looking at her. "nothin' at all." peter and beth exchanged glances and beth, putting her hand under the housekeeper's arm, helped the woman to the back stairs. peter stood for a moment in the middle of the kitchen floor, his gaze on the door through which the woman had vanished. aunt tillie too! she had seen some one, some thing--the same some one or thing that mcguire had seen. but granting that their eyes had not deceived them, granting that each had seen something, what, unless it were supernatural, could have frightened mcguire and aunt tillie too? even if the old woman had been timid about staying in the house, she had made it clear to peter that she was entirely unaware of the kind of danger that threatened her employer. peter had believed her then. he saw no reason to disbelieve her now. she had known as little as peter about the cause for mcguire's alarm. and here he had found her staring with the same unseeing eyes into the darkness, with the same symptoms of nervous shock as mcguire had shown. what enemy of mcguire's could frighten aunt tillie into prostration and seal her lips to speech? why wouldn't she have dared to tell peter what she had seen? what was this secret and how could she share it with mcguire when twenty-four hours ago she had been in complete ignorance of the mystery? why wouldn't she talk? was the vision too intimate? or too horrible? peter was imaginative, for he had been steeped from boyhood in the superstitions of his people. but the war had taught him that devils had legs and carried weapons. he had seen more horrible sights than most men of his years, in daylight, at dawn, or silvered with moonlight. he thought he had exhausted the possibilities for terror. but he found himself grudgingly admitting that he was at the least a little nervous--at the most, on the verge of alarm. but he put his whistle in his mouth, drew his revolver again and went forth. first he sought out the man in the spruce tree. it was andy. he had seen no one but the people on the porch and in the windows. it was very dark but he took an oath that no one had approached the house from his side. "you saw no one talking with mrs. bergen by the kitchen door?" "no. i can't see th' kitchen door from here." peter verified. a syringa bush was just in line. "then you haven't moved?" asked peter. "no. i was afraid they'd see me." "they've seen something----" "you mean----?" "i don't know. but look sharp. if anything comes out this way, take a shot at it." "you think there's something----" "yes--but don't move. and keep your eyes open!" peter went off to the man in the hedge behind the kitchen--jesse brown. "see anything?" asked peter. "nope. nobody but the chauffeur." "the chauffeur?" "he went up to th' house a while back." "oh--how long ago?" "twenty minutes." "i see." and then, "you didn't see any one come away from the kitchen door?" "no. he's thar yet, i reckon." peter ran out to the garage to verify this statement. by the light of a lantern the chauffeur in his rubber boots was washing the two cars. "have you been up to the house lately?" "why, no," said the man, in surprise. "you're sure?" asked peter excitedly. "sure----" "then come with me. there's something on." the man dropped his sponge and followed peter, who had run back quickly to the house. it was now after eleven. from the drawing-room came the distracting sounds from the tortured piano, but there was no one on the portico. so peter, with jesse, andy and the chauffeur made a careful round of the house, examining every bush, every tree, within a circle of a hundred yards, exhausting every possibility for concealment. when they reached the kitchen door again, peter rubbed his head and gave it up. a screech owl somewhere off in the woods jeered at him. all the men, except jesse, were plainly skeptical. but he sent them back to their posts and, still pondering the situation, went into the house. it was extraordinary how the visitor, whoever he was, could have gotten away without having been observed, for though the night was black the eyes of the men outside were accustomed to it and the lights from the windows sent a glimmer into the obscurity. of one thing peter was now certain, that the prowler was no ghost or banshee, but a man, and that he had gone as mysteriously as he had come. peter knew that his employer would be anxious until he returned to him, but he hadn't quite decided to tell mcguire of the housekeeper's share in the adventure. he had a desire to verify his belief that mrs. bergen was frightened by the visitor for a reason of her own which had nothing to do with jonathan mcguire. any woman alarmed by a possible burglar or other miscreant would have come running and crying for help. mrs. bergen had been doggedly silent, as though, rather than utter her thoughts, she would have bitten out her tongue. it was curious. she had seemed to be talking as though to herself at the door, and then, at the sound of footsteps in the kitchen behind her, had turned and fallen limp in the nearest chair. the look in her face, as in mcguire's, was that of terror, but there was something of bewilderment in both of them too, like that of a solitary sniper in the first shock of a shrapnel wound, a look of anguish that seemed to have no outlet, save in speech, which was denied. to tell mcguire what had happened in the kitchen meant to alarm him further. peter decided for the present to keep the matter from him, giving the housekeeper the opportunity of telling the truth on the morrow if she wished. he crossed the kitchen and servants' dining-room and just at the foot of the back stairs met mrs. bergen and beth coming down. so he retraced his steps into the kitchen, curious as to the meaning of her reappearance. at least she had recovered the use of her tongue. "i couldn't go to bed, just yet, mr. nichols," she said in reply to peter's question. "i just couldn't." peter gazed at her steadily. this woman held a clew to the mystery. she glanced at him uncertainly but she had recovered her self-possession, and her replies to his questions, if anything, were more obstinate than before. "i saw nothin', mr. nichols--nothin'. i was just a bit upset. i'm all right now. an' i want beth to go home. that's why i came down." "but, aunt tillie, if you're not well, i'm going to stay----" "no. ye can't stay here. i want ye to go." and then, turning excitedly to peter, "can't ye let somebody see her home, mr. nichols?" "of course," said peter. "but i don't think she's in any danger." "no, but she can't stay here. she just can't." beth put her arm around the old woman's shoulder. "i'm not afraid." aunt tillie was already untying beth's apron. "i know ye're not, dearie. but ye can't stay here. i don't want ye to. i don't want ye to." "but if you're afraid of something----" "who said i was afraid?" she asked, glaring at peter defiantly. "i'm not. i just had a spell--all this excitement an' extra work--an' everything." she lied. peter knew it, but he saw no object to be gained in keeping beth in black rock house, so he went out cautiously and brought the chauffeur, to whom he entrusted the safety of the girl. he would have felt more comfortable if he could have escorted her himself, but he knew that his duty was at the house and that whoever the mysterious person was it was not beth that he wanted. but what was mrs. bergen's reason for wishing to get rid of her? as beth went out of the door he whispered in her ear, "say nothing of this--to any one." she nodded gravely and followed the man who had preceded her. when the door closed behind beth and the chauffeur, peter turned quickly and faced the housekeeper. "now," he said severely, "tell me the truth." she stared at him with a falling jaw in a moment of alarm--then closed her lips firmly. and, as she refused to reply, "do you want me to tell mr. mcguire that you were talking to a stranger at the kitchen door?" she trembled and sinking in a chair buried her face in her hands. "i don't want to be unkind, mrs. bergen, but there's something here that needs explaining. who was the man you talked to outside the door?" "i--i can't tell ye," she muttered. "you must. it's better. i'm your friend and beth's----" the woman raised her haggard face to his. "beth's friend! are ye? then ask me no more." "but i've got to know. i'm here to protect mr. mcguire, but i'd like to protect you too. who is this stranger?" the woman lowered her head and then shook it violently. "no, no. i'll not tell." he frowned down at her head. "did you know that to-night mcguire saw the stranger--the man that _you_ saw--and that he's even more frightened than you?" the woman raised her head, gazed at him helplessly, then lowered it again, but she did not speak. the kitchen was silent, but an obbligato to this drama, like the bray of the ass in the overture to "midsummer night's dream," came from the drawing-room, where freddy mordaunt was now singing a sentimental ballad. "i'm sorry, mrs. bergen, but if mr. mcguire is in danger to-night, i've got to know it." "to-night!" she gasped, as though clutching at a straw. "not to-night. nothin'll happen to-night. i'm sure of that, mr. nichols." "how do you know?" she threw out her arms in a wide gesture of desperation. "for the love o' god, go 'way an' leave me in peace. don't ye see i ain't fit to talk to anybody?" she gasped with a choking throat. "_he_ ain't comin' back again--not to-night. i'll swear it on th' bible, if ye want me to." their glances met, hers weary and pleading, and he believed her. "all right, mrs. bergen," he said soothingly. "i'll take your word for it, but you'll admit the whole thing is very strange--very startling." "yes--strange. god knows it is. but i--i can't tell ye anything." "but what shall i say to mr. mcguire--upstairs. i've got to go up--now." "say to him----?" she gasped helplessly, all her terrors renewed. "ye can't tell him i was talkin' to anybody." and then more wildly, "ye mustn't. i wasn't. i was talkin' to myself--that's the god's truth, i was--when ye come in. it was so strange--an' all. don't tell him, mr. nichols," she pleaded at last, with a terrible earnestness, and clutching at his hand. "for my sake, for beth's----" "what has beth to do with it?" "more'n ye think. oh, god----" she broke off. "what am i sayin'----? beth don't know. she mustn't. he don't know either----" "who? mcguire?" "no--no. don't ask any more questions, mr. nichols," she sobbed. "i can't speak. don't ye see i can't?" so peter gave up the inquisition. he had never liked to see a woman cry. "oh, all right," he said more cheerfully, "you'd better be getting to bed. perhaps daylight will clear things up." "and ye won't tell mcguire?" she pleaded. "i can't promise anything. but i won't if i'm not compelled to." she gazed at him uncertainly, her weary eyes wavering, but she seemed to take some courage from his attitude. "god bless ye, sir." "good-night, mrs. bergen." and then, avoiding the drawing-room, peter made his way up the stairs with a great deal of mental uncertainty to the other room of terror. chapter vii music stryker, who kept guard at the door of mcguire's room, opened it cautiously in response to peter's knock. he found mcguire sitting rigidly in a rocking-chair at the side of the room, facing the windows, a whisky bottle and glass on the table beside him. his face had lost its pallor, but in his eyes was the same look of glassy bewilderment. "why the h---- couldn't you come sooner?" he whined the question, not angrily, but querulously, like a child. "i was having a look around," replied peter coolly. "oh! and did you find anybody?" "no." "h-m! i thought you wouldn't." peter hesitated. he meant to conceal the housekeeper's share in the night's encounters, but he knew that both andy and the chauffeur would talk, and so, "there _was_ somebody outside, mr. mcguire," he said. "you were not mistaken, a man prowling in the dark near the kitchen. andy thought it was the chauffeur, who was in the garage washing the cars." "ah!" mcguire started up, battling for his manhood. it seemed to peter that his gasp was almost one of relief at discovering that his eyes had not deceived him, that the face he had seen was that of a real person, instead of the figment of a disordered mind. "ah! why didn't they shoot him?" "i've just said, sir, andy thought it was the chauffeur." mcguire was pacing the floor furiously. "he has no business to think. i pay him to act. and you--what did you do?" "three of us searched the whole place--every tree, every bush--every shadow----. the man has gone." "gone," sneered the other. "a h---- of a mess you're making of this job!" peter straightened angrily, but managed to control himself. "very well, mr. mcguire," he said. "then you'd better get somebody else at once." he had never given notice before but the hackneyed phrase fell crisply from his lips. for many reasons, peter didn't want to go, but he bowed and walked quickly across the room. "good-night," he said. before he had reached the door the frightened man came stumbling after him and caught him by the arm. "no, no, nichols. come back. d'ye hear? you mustn't be so d---- touchy. come back. you can't go. i didn't mean anything. come now!" peter paused, his hand on the knob, and looked down into the man's flabby, empurpled countenance. "i thought you meant it," he said. "no. i--i didn't. i--i like you, nichols--liked you from the very first--yesterday. of course you can't be responsible for all the boneheads here." peter had "called the bluff." perhaps the lesson might have a salutary effect. and so, as his good humor came back to him, he smiled pleasantly. "you see, mr. mcguire, you could hardly expect andy to shoot the chauffeur. they're on excellent terms." mcguire had settled down into a chair near the table, and motioned peter to another one near him. "sit down, nichols. another glass, stryker. so." he poured the whisky with an assumption of ease and they drank. "you see, nichols," he went on as he set his empty glass down, "i know what i'm about. there _is_ somebody trying to get at me. it's no dream--no hallucination. you know that too, now. i saw him--i would have shot him through the window--if it hadn't been for peggy--and the others--but i--i didn't dare--for reasons. she mustn't know----" and then eagerly, "she doesn't suspect anything yet, does she, nichols?" peter gestured over his shoulder in the direction of the sounds which still came from below. "no. they're having a good time." "that's all right. to-morrow they'll be leaving for new york, i hope. and then we'll meet this issue squarely. you say the man has gone. why do you think so?" "isn't it reasonable to think so? his visit was merely a reconnoissance. i think he had probably been lying out in the underbrush all day, getting the lay of the land, watching what we were doing--seeing where the men were placed. but he must know now that he'll have to try something else--that he hasn't a chance of getting to you past these guards, if you don't want him to." "but he nearly succeeded to-night," mumbled mcguire dubiously. peter was silent a moment. "i'm not supposed to question and i won't. but it seems to me, mr. mcguire, that if this visitor's plan were to murder you, to get rid of you, he would have shot you down to-night, through the window. from his failure to do so, there is one definite conclusion to draw--and that is that he wants to see you--to talk with you----" mcguire fairly threw himself from his chair as he roared, "i can't see him. i won't. i won't see anybody. i've got the law on my side. a man's house is his castle. a fellow prowls around here in the dark. he's been seen--if he's shot it's his own lookout. and he _will_ be shot before he reaches me. you hear me? your men must shoot--shoot to kill. if they fail i'll----" he shrugged as if at the futility of his own words, which came stumbling forth, born half of fear, half of braggadocio. peter regarded him soberly. it was difficult to conceive of this man, who talked like a madman and a spoiled child, as the silent, stubborn, friendless millionaire, as the power in finance that sheldon, senior, had described him to be. the love of making money had succumbed to a more primitive passion which for the time being had mastered him. from what had been revealed, it seemed probable that it was not death or bodily injury that he feared, for peter had seen him stand up at the window, a fair target for any good marksman, but an interview with this nocturnal visitor who seemed bent upon bringing it about. indeed, the childish bravado of his last speech had voiced a wish, but beneath the wish peter had guessed a protest against the inevitable. peter acknowledged mcguire's right to seclusion in his own house, but he found himself wondering whether death for the intruder as proposed by his employer were a justifiable means of preserving it, especially if the strange visitor did not himself use violence to gain his ends. and so, when mcguire presently poured himself another glass of whisky, and drank it, peter took the liberty of asking the question. "i am ignorant of your laws in this country, mr. mcguire, but doesn't it seem that short of forcible entry of this house we would hardly be justified in shooting the man?" "i take the responsibility for that." "i understand. but what i was going to propose was a hunt through the woods to-morrow. a description of this man would be helpful. for instance, whether he was smoothly shaven or whether he had a beard--or--or a mustache?" mcguire scowled. "the man has a slight growth of beard--of mustache. but what difference does that make? no one has a right here--without my permission." peter sipped at his glass. as he had suspected, there were two of them. "that's true. but even with this, we can move with more intelligence. this forest is your property. if we find any person who can't give an account of himself, we could take him into custody and turn him over to the proper authorities." "no. no," cried mcguire. "and have him set loose after a trivial examination? little good that would do. this man who is trying to reach me----" mcguire stopped suddenly, glaring at his superintendent with bloodshot eyes, and peter very politely waited for him to go on. but he brought his empty glass down on the table with a crash which shattered it. "he mustn't reach me," he roared. "i won't see him. that's understood. he's a man i'd have no more compunction about shooting than----" mcguire, with a curious suddenness, stopped again. then rose and resumed his habit of pacing the floor. for a moment it had almost seemed as if he were on the point of a revelation. but the mood passed. instead of speaking further he threw out his arms in a wide gesture. "i've said enough," he growled, "more than enough. you know your duty." and he gestured toward the door. "do it!" he finished brusquely. peter had already risen, and stryker unemotionally opened the door for him. "i'll stay on duty all night, mr. mcguire," he said quietly. "i'd advise you to turn in and get some sleep. you need it." "yes. yes, i will. thanks, nichols," said mcguire, following him to the door and offering a flabby hand. "don't mind what i've said to-night. i think we understand each other. stryker will see that the house is locked when the young people come up. keep your men to the mark and take no chances." "good-night." the remainder of the night, as mrs. bergen had predicted, proved uneventful, and at daylight peter went to his cabin and tumbled into bed, too tired to think further of mcguire's visitors--or even of the man with the black mustache. the next day he lay abed luxuriously for a while after he had awakened, but no amount of quiet thinking availed to clarify the mystery. there were two men, one bearded, interested in watching mcguire, another with a black mustache, interested in peter. and so, after wondering again for some puzzling moments as to how mrs. bergen, the housekeeper, had come to be involved in mcguire's fortunes, he gave the problem up. foreseeing difficulties over breakfast at the house, he had arranged to make his own coffee on a small oil stove which happened to be available, and so peter set the pot on to boil and while he dressed turned over in his mind the possibilities of the future. it seemed quite certain that the antagonism, whatever its nature, between his employer and the prowling stranger must come to an issue of some sort almost at once. the intruder, if he were the sort of man who could inspire terror, would not remain content merely to prowl fruitlessly about with every danger of being shot for his pains, and mcguire could hardly remain long in his present situation without a physical or mental collapse. why hadn't mcguire taken flight? why indeed had he come to black rock house when it seemed that he would have been much safer amongst the crowds of the city, where he could fall back upon the protection of the police and their courts for immunity from this kind of persecution? pieced together, the phrases his employer had let slip suggested the thought that he had come to black rock to escape publicity in anything that might happen. and mcguire's insistence upon the orders that the guards should shoot to kill also suggested, rather unpleasantly, the thought that mcguire knew who the visitor was and earnestly desired his death. but mrs. bergen could have no such wish, for, unlike mcguire, she had shown a reticence in her fears, as though her silence had been intended to protect rather than to accuse. beth cameron, too, was in some way unconsciously involved in the adventure. but how? he drank his coffee and ate his roll, a prey to a very lively curiosity. beth interested him. and if aunt tillie bergen, her only near relative, showed signs of inquietude on the girl's account, the mysterious visitor surely had it in his power to make her unhappy. as he washed up the dishes and made his bed, peter decided that he would find beth to-night when she came back from work and ask her some questions about her aunt tillie. beth cameron saved him that trouble. he was sitting at the piano, awaiting a telephone call to black rock house, where he was to have a conference with his employer on the forestry situation. he was so deeply absorbed in his music that he was unaware of the figure that had stolen through the underbrush and was now hidden just outside the door. it was beth. she stood with the fingers of one hand lightly touching the edge of the door-jamb, the other hand at her breast, while she listened, poised lightly as though for flight. but a playful breeze twitched at the hem of her skirt, flicking it out into the patch of sunlight by the doorsill, and peter caught the glint of white from the tail of his eye. the music ceased suddenly and before beth could flee into the bushes peter had caught her by the hand. now that she was discovered she made no effort to escape him. "i--i was listening," she gasped. "why, beth," he exclaimed, voicing the name in his thoughts. "how long have you been here?" "i--i don't know. not long." "i'm so glad." she was coloring very prettily. "you--you told me you--you'd play for me sometime," she said demurely. "of course. won't you come in? it's rather a mess here, but----" he led her in, glancing at her gingham dress, a little puzzled. "i thought you'd be farmeretting," he said. but she shook her head. "i quit--yesterday." he didn't ask the reason. he was really enjoying the sight of her. few women are comely in the morning hours, which have a merciless way of exaggerating minute imperfections. beth hadn't any minute imperfections except her freckles, which were merely nature's colorings upon a woodland flower. she seemed to fill the cabin with morning fragrance, like a bud just brought in from the garden. "i'm very glad you've come," he said gallantly, leading her over to the double window where there was a chintz-covered seat. "i've wanted very much to talk to you." she followed him protestingly. "but i didn't come to be talked to. i came to listen to you play." "you always arrive in the midst of music," he laughed. "i played you in, without knowing it. that was an elfentanz----" "what's that?" "a dance of the elves--the fairies." and then, with a laugh, "and the little devils." "the little devils? you mean _me_!" "elf--fairy and devil too--but mostly elf." "i'm not sure i like that--but i _do_ like the music. please play it again." she was so lovely in her eagerness that he couldn't refuse, his fingers straying from the dance by slow transitions into something more quiet, the "romance" of sibelius, and then after that into a gay little _scherzo_, at the end of which he turned suddenly to find her flushed and breathless, regarding him in a kind of awe. "how lovely!" she whispered. "there were no devils in that." "no, only fairies." "angels too--but somethin' else--that quiet piece--like the--the memory of a--a--sorrow." "'romance,' it's called," he explained gently. "oh!" "the things we dream. the things that ought to be, but aren't." she took a deep breath. "yes, that's it. that's what it meant. i felt it." and then, as though with a sudden shyness at her self-revelation, she glanced about. "what a pretty place! i've never been here before." "how did you find your way?" "oh, i knew where the cabin was. i came through the woods and across the log-jam below the pool. then i heard the music. i didn't think you'd mind." "mind! oh, i say. i don't know when i've been so pleased." "are you really? you _say_ a lot." "didn't i play it?" that confused her a little. "oh!" she said demurely. "and now, will you talk to me?" "yes, of course. but----" "but what----?" "i--i'm not sure that i ought to be here." "why not?" "it's kind of--unusual." he laughed. "you wouldn't be you, if you weren't unusual." she glanced at him uneasily. "you see, i don't know you very well." "you're very exclusive in black rock!" he laughed. "i guess we _have_ to be exclusive whether we want to or not," she replied. "don't you think i'll do?" "maybe. i oughtn't to have come, but i just couldn't keep away." "i'm glad you did. i wanted to see you." "it wasn't that," she put in hastily. "i had to hear you play again. that's what i mean." "i'll play for you whenever you like." "will you? then play again, now. it makes me feel all queer inside." peter laughed. "do you feel that way when you sing?" "no. it all comes out of me then." "would you mind singing for me, beth?" he asked after a moment. "i--i don't think i dare." he got up and went to the piano. "what do you sing?" but she hadn't moved and she didn't reply. so he urged her. "in the woods when you're coming home----?" "oh, i don't know----it just comes out--things i've heard--things i make up----" "what have you heard? i don't know that i can accompany you, but i'll try." she was flushing painfully. he could see that she wanted to sing for him--to be a part of this wonderful dream-world in which he belonged, and yet she did not dare. "what have you heard?" he repeated softly, encouraging her by running his fingers slowly over the simple chords of a major key. suddenly she started up and joined him by the piano. "that's it--'the long, long trail a-windin'----" and in a moment was singing softly. he had heard the air and fell in with her almost at once. "there's a long, long trail a-winding into the land of my dreams, where the nightingale is singing and a bright moon beams----" like the good musician that he was, peter submerged himself, playing gently, his gaze on his fingers, while he listened. he had made no mistake. the distances across which he had heard her had not flattered. her voice was untrained, of course, but it seemed to peter that it had lost nothing by the neglect, for as she gained confidence, she forgot peter, as he intended that she should, and sang with the complete abstraction of a thrush in the deep wood. like the thrush's note, too, beth's was limpid, clear, and sweet, full of forest sounds--the falling brook, the sigh of night winds.... when the song ended he told her so. "you do say nice things, don't you?" she said joyously. "wouldn't you--if it cost you nothing and was the truth? you must have your voice trained." "must! i might jump over the moon if i had a broomstick." "it's got to be managed somehow." "then you're not disappointed in the way it sounds, close up?" she stood beside him, leaning against the piano, her face flushed, her breath rapid, searching his face eagerly. peter knew that it was only the dormant artist in her seeking the light, but he thrilled warmly at her nearness, for she was very lovely. peter's acquaintance with women had been varied, but, curiously enough, each meeting with this girl instead of detracting had only added to her charm. "no. i'm not disappointed in it," he said quite calmly, every impulse in him urging a stronger expression. but he owed a duty to himself. _noblesse oblige!_ it was one of the mottoes of his house--(not always followed--alas!). with a more experienced woman he would have said what was in his mind. he would probably have taken her in his arms and kissed her at once, for that was really what he would have liked to do. but beth.... perhaps something in the coolness of his tone disconcerted her, for she turned away from the piano. "you're very kind," she said quietly. he had a feeling that she was about to slip away from him, so he got up. "won't you sing again, beth?" but she shook her head. for some reason the current that had run between them was broken. as she moved toward the door, he caught her by the hand. "don't go yet. i want to talk to you." "i don't think i ought." and then, with a whimsical smile, "and you ought to be out makin' the trees grow." he laughed. "there's a lot of time for that." she let him lead her to the divan again and sat, her fingers dovetailed around a slender knee. "i--i'm sorry i made fun of you the other day," she confessed immediately. "i didn't mind in the least." "but you _did_ seem to know it all," she said. and then smiled in the direction of the piano. "now--i'm comin' to think you do. even shad says you're a wonder. i--i don't think he likes you, though----" she admitted. "i'm sorry to hear that." "don't you care. shad don't like anybody but himself and goda'mighty--with god trailin' a little." peter smiled. her singing voice may have been impersonal but one could hardly think that of her conversation. "and you, beth--where do _you_ come in?" she glanced at him quickly. "oh, i----," she said with a laugh, "i just trail along after god." her irony meant no irreverence but a vast derogation of shad wells. somehow her point of view was very illuminating. "i'm afraid you make him very unhappy," he ventured. "that's _his_ lookout," she finished. peter was taking a great delight in watching her profile, the blue eyes shadowed under the mass of her hair, eyes rather deeply set and thoughtful in repose, the straight nose, the rather full underlip ending in a precipitous dent above her chin. he liked that chin. there was courage there and strength, softened at once by the curve of the throat, flowing to where it joined the fine deep breast. yesterday she had seemed like a boy. to-day she was a woman grown, feminine in every graceful conformation, on tiptoe at the very verge of life. but there was no "flapper" here. what she lacked in culture was made up in refinement. he had felt that yesterday--the day before. she belonged elsewhere. and yet to peter it would have seemed a pity to have changed her in any particular. her lips were now drawn in a firm line and her brows bore a curious frown. "you don't mind my calling you beth, do you?" she flashed a glance at him. "that's what everybody calls me." "my name is peter." "yes, i know." and then, "that's funny." "funny!" "you look as if your name ought to be algernon." "why?" he asked, laughing. "oh, i don't know. it's the name of a man in a book i read--an englishman. you're english, you said." "half english," said peter. "what's the other half?" "russian." he knew that he ought to be lying to her, but somehow he couldn't. "russian! i thought russians all had long hair and carried bombs." "some of 'em do. i'm not that kind. the half of me that's english is the biggest half, and the safest." "i'm glad of that. i'd hate to think of you as bein' a bolshevik." "h-m. so would i." "but russia's where you get your music from, isn't it? the band leader at glassboro is a russian. he can play every instrument. did you learn music in russia?" beth was now treading dangerous ground and so it was time to turn the tables. "yes, a little," he said, "but music has no nationality. or why would i find a voice like yours out here?" "twenty miles from nowhere," she added scornfully. "how did you come here, beth? would you mind telling me? you weren't born here, were you? how did you happen to come to black rock?" "just bad luck, i guess. nobody'd ever come to black rock just because they want to. we just came. that's all." "just you and aunt tillie? is your father dead?" he asked. she closed her eyes a moment and then clasped her knees again. "i don't like to talk about family matters." "oh, i----" and then, gently, she added, "i never talk about them to any one." "oh, i'm sorry," said peter, aware of the undercurrent of sadness in her voice. "i didn't know that there was anything painful to you----" "i didn't know it myself, until you played it to me, just now, the piece with the sad, low voices, under the melody. it was like somebody dead speakin' to me. i can't talk about the things i feel like that." "don't then----forgive me for asking." he laid his fingers softly over hers. she withdrew her hand quickly, but the look that she turned him found his face sober, his dark eyes warm with sympathy. and then with a swift inconsequential impulse born of peter's recantation, "i don't s'pose there's any reason why i shouldn't tell you," she said more easily. "everybody around here knows about me--about us. aunt tillie and i haven't lived here always. she brought me here when i was a child." she paused again and peter remained silent, watching her intently. as she glanced up at him, something in the expression of his face gave her courage to go on. "father's dead. his name was ben cameron. he came of nice people," she faltered. "but he--he was no good. we lived up near new lisbon. he used to get drunk on 'jersey lightnin'' and tear loose. he was all right between whiles--farmin'--but whisky made him crazy, and then--then he would come home and beat us up." "horrible!" "it was. i was too little to know much, but aunt tillie's husband came at last and there was a terrible fight. uncle will was hurt--hurt so bad--cut with a knife--that he never was the same again. and my--my father went away cursing us all. then my mother died--uncle will too--and aunt tillie and i came down here to live. that's all. not much to be proud of," she finished ruefully. peter was silent. it was a harrowing, sordid story of primitive passion. he was very sorry for her. beth made an abrupt graceful movement of an arm across her brows, as though to wipe out the memory. "i don't know why i've told you," she said. "i never speak of this to any one." "i'm so sorry." he meant it. and beth knew that he did. chapter viii the placard the look that she had given him showed her sense of his sympathy. so he ventured, "did you hear from your father before he died?" "aunt tillie did,--once. then we got word he'd been killed in a railway accident out west. i was glad. a man like that has no right to live." "you and aunt tillie have had a pretty hard time----" he mused. "yes. she's an angel--and i love her. why is it that good people have nothin' but trouble? she had an uncle who went bad too--he was younger than she was--my great-uncle--jack bray--he forged a check--or somethin' up in newark--and went to the penitentiary." "and is he dead too?" "no--not at last accounts. he's out--somewhere. when i was little he used to come to aunt tillie for money--a tall, lantern-jawed man. i saw him once three years ago. he was here. aunt tillie tried to keep me out of the kitchen. but i thought he was up to some funny business and stayed. he took a fancy to me. he said he was camera man in the movies. he wanted me to go with him--thought i could be as good as mary pickford. i'm glad i didn't go--from what i know now. he was a bad man. aunt tillie was scared of him. poor soul! she gave him all she had--most of what was left from the old farm, i guess." "do you think----" began peter, then paused. and as she glanced at him inquiringly, "did you notice that your aunt tillie seemed--er--frightened last night?" he asked at last. "i thought so for a while, but she said she was only sick. she never lies to me." "she seemed very much disturbed." "her nerve's not what it used to be--especially since mr. mcguire's taken to seein' things----" "you don't believe then that she could have seen john bray--that he had come back again last night?" "why, no," said beth, turning in surprise. "i never thought of it--and yet," she paused, "yes,--it might have been----" she became more thoughtful but didn't go on. peter was on the trail of a clew to the mystery, but she had already told him so much that further questions seemed like personal intrusion. and so, "i'd like to tell you, beth," he said, "that i'm your friend and mrs. bergen's. if anything should turn up to make you unhappy or to make your aunt unhappy and i can help you, won't you let me know?" "why--do you think anything is goin' to happen?" she asked. his reply was noncommittal. "i just wanted you to know you could count on me----" he said soberly. "i think you've had trouble enough." "but i'm not afraid of jack bray," she said with a shrug, "even if aunt tillie is. he can't do anything to me. he can't _make_ me go to new york if i don't want to." she had clenched her brown fists in her excitement and peter laughed. "i think i'd be a little sorry for anybody who tried to make you do anything you didn't want to do," he said. she frowned. "why, if i thought that bandy-legged, lantern-jawed, old buzzard was comin' around here frightenin' aunt tillie, i'd--i'd----" "what would you do?" "never you mind what i'd do. but i'm not afraid of jack bray," she finished confidently. the terrors that had been built up around the house of mcguire, the mystery surrounding the awe-inspiring prowler, the night vigils, the secrecy--all seemed to fade into a piece of hobbledehoy buffoonery at beth's contemptuous description of her recreant relative. and he smiled at her amusedly. "but what would you say," he asked seriously, "if i told you that last night mr. mcguire saw the same person your aunt tillie did, and that he was terrified--almost to the verge of collapse?" beth had risen, her eyes wide with incredulity. "merciful father! mcguire! did he have another spell last night? you don't mean----?" "i went up to his room. he was done for. he had seen outside the drawing-room window the face of the very man he's been guarding himself against." "i can't believe----," she gasped. "and you think aunt tillie----?" "your aunt tillie talked to a man outside the door of the kitchen. you didn't hear her. i did. the same man who had been frightening mr. mcguire." "aunt tillie!" she said in astonishment. "there's not a doubt of it. mcguire saw him. andy saw him too,--thought he was the chauffeur." beth's excitement was growing with the moments. "why, aunt tillie didn't know anything about what was frightening mr. mcguire--no more'n i did," she gasped. "she knows now. she wasn't sick last night, beth. she was just bewildered--frightened half out of her wits. i spoke to her after you went home. she wouldn't say a word. she was trying to conceal something. but there was a man outside and she knows who he is." "but what could jack bray have to do with mr. mcguire?" she asked in bewilderment. peter shrugged. "you know as much as i do. i wouldn't have told you this if you'd been afraid. but mrs. bergen is." "well, did you _ever?_" "no, i never did," replied peter, smiling. "it does beat _anything_." "it does. it's most interesting, but as far as i can see, hardly alarming for you, whatever it may be to mr. mcguire or mrs. bergen. if the man is only your great-uncle, there ought to be a way to deal with him----" "i've just got to talk to aunt tillie," beth broke in, moving toward the door. peter followed her, taking up his hat. "i'll go with you," he said. for a few moments beth said nothing. she had passed through the stages of surprise, anger and bewilderment, and was now still indignant but quite self-contained. when he thought of beth's description of the ghost of black rock house, peter was almost tempted to forget the terrors of the redoubtable mcguire. a man of his type hardly lapses into hysteria at the mere thought of a "bandy-legged buzzard." and yet mcguire's terrors had been so real and were still so real that it was hardly conceivable that bray could have been the cause of them. indeed it was hardly conceivable that the person beth described could be a source of terror to any one. what was the answer? "aunt tillie doesn't know anything about mcguire," beth said suddenly. "she just couldn't know. she tells me everything." "but of course it's possible that mcguire and this john bray could have met in new york----" "what would mr. mcguire be doin' with him?" she said scornfully. peter laughed. "it's what he's doing with mcguire that matters." "i don't believe it's bray," said beth confidently. "i don't believe it." they had reached a spot where the underbrush was thin, and beth, who had been looking past the tree trunks toward the beginnings of the lawns, stopped suddenly, her eyes focusing upon some object closer at hand. "what's that?" she asked, pointing. peter followed the direction of her gaze. on a tree in the woods not far from the path was a square of cardboard, but beth's eyes were keener than peter's, and she called his attention to some writing upon it. they approached curiously. with ironic impudence the message was scrawled in red crayon upon the reverse of one of jonathan mcguire's neat trespass signs, and nailed to the tree by an old hasp-knife. side by side, and intensely interested, they read: to mike mcguire i've come back. you know what i've got and i know what you've got. act pronto. i'll come for my answer at eleven friday night--at this tree. no tricks. if there's no answer--you know what i'll do. hawk. "hawk!" muttered beth, "who on earth----?" "another----," said peter cryptically. "you see!" cried beth triumphantly, "i knew it couldn't be jack bray!" "this chap seems to be rather in earnest, doesn't he? _pronto!_ that means haste." "but it's only a joke. it must be," cried beth. peter loosened the knife, took the placard down and turned it over, examining it critically. "i wonder." and then, thoughtfully, "no, i don't believe it is. it's addressed to mcguire. i'm going to take it to him." "mike mcguire," corrected beth. and then, "but it really does look queer." "it does," assented peter; "it appears to me as if this message must have come from the person mcguire saw last night." beth looked bewildered. "but what has aunt tillie got to do with--with hawk? she never knew anybody of that name." "probably not. it isn't a real name, of course." "then why should it frighten mr. mcguire?" she asked logically. peter shook his head. all the props had fallen from under his theories. "whether it's real to mcguire or not is what i want to know. and i'm going to find out," he finished. when they reached a path which cut through the trees toward the creek, beth stopped, and held out her hand. "i'm not goin' up to the house with you and i don't think i'll see aunt tillie just now," she said. "good-by, mr.----" "peter----," he put in. "good-by, mr. peter." "just peter----" he insisted. "good-by, mr. just peter. thanks for the playin'. will you let me come again?" "yes. and i'm going to get you some music----" "singin' music?" she gasped. he nodded. "and you'll let me know if i can help--aunt tillie or you?" she bobbed her head and was gone. peter stood for a while watching the path down which she had disappeared, wondering at her abrupt departure, which for the moment drove from his mind all thought of mcguire's troubles. it was difficult to associate beth with the idea of prudery or affectation. her visit proved that. she had come to the cabin because she had wanted to hear him play, because she had wanted to sing for him, because too his promises had excited her curiosity about him, and inspired a hope of his assistance. but the visit had flattered peter. he wasn't inured to this sort of frankness. it was perhaps the greatest single gift of tribute and confidence that had ever been paid him--at least by a woman. a visit of this sort from a person like anastasie galitzin or indeed from almost any woman in the world of forms and precedents in which he had lived would have been equivalent to unconditional surrender. the girl had not stopped to question the propriety of her actions. that the cabin was peter's bedroom, that she had only seen him twice, that he might not have understood the headlong impulse that brought her, had never occurred to beth. the self-consciousness of the first few moments had been wafted away on the melody of the music he had played, and after that he knew they were to be friends. there seemed to be no doubt in peter's mind that she could have thought they would be anything else. and peter was sure that he had hardly been able, even if he had wished, to conceal his warm admiration for her physical beauty. she had been very near him. all he would have had to do was to reach out and take her. that he hadn't done so seemed rather curious now. and yet he experienced a sort of mild satisfaction that he had resisted so trying a temptation. if she hadn't been so sure of him.... idealism? perhaps. the same sort of idealism that had made peter believe the people at zukovo were fine enough to make it worth while risking his life for them--that had made him think that the people of russia could emerge above russia herself. he had no illusions as to zukovo now, but beth was a child--and one is always gentle with children. he puzzled for another moment over her decision not to be seen coming with him from the cabin. had this sophistication come as an afterthought, born of something that had passed between them? or was it merely a feminine instinct seeking expression? peter didn't care who knew or saw, because he really liked beth amazingly. she had a gorgeous voice. he would have to develop it. he really would. all the while peter was turning over in his fingers the placard bearing the strange message to "mike" mcguire from the mysterious "hawk." he read and reread it, each time finding a new meaning in its wording. blackmail? probably. the "_pronto_" was significant. this message could hardly have come from beth's "bandy-legged buzzard." he knew little of movie camera men, but imagined them rather given to the depiction of villainies than the accomplishment of them. and a coward who would prey upon an old woman and a child could hardly be of the metal to attempt such big game as mcguire. the mystery deepened. the buzzard was now a hawk. "hawk," whatever his real name, was the man mcguire had seen last night through the window. was he also the man who had frightened mrs. bergen? and if so, how and where had she known him without beth's being aware of it? and why should beth be involved in the danger? peter was slowly coming to the belief that there had been two men outside the house last night, "hawk" and john bray. and yet it seemed scarcely possible that the men on guard should not have seen the second man and that both men could have gotten away without leaving a trace. and where was the man with the black mustache? was he john bray? impossible. it was all very perplexing. but here in his hand he held the tangible evidence of mcguire's fears. "you know what i've got and i know what you've got." the sentence seemed to have a cabalistic significance--a pact--a threat which each man held over the other. perhaps it wasn't money only that "hawk" wanted. whatever it was, he meant to have it, and soon. the answer the man expected was apparently something well understood between himself and mcguire, better understood perhaps since the day mcguire had seen him in new york and had fled in terror to sheldon, senior's, office. and if mcguire didn't send the desired answer to the tree by friday night, there would be the very devil to pay--if not "hawk." peter was to be the bearer of ill tidings and with them, he knew, all prospect of a business discussion would vanish. the situation interested him, as all things mysterious must, and he could not forget that he was, for the present, part policeman, part detective; but forestry was his real job here and every day that passed meant so many fewer days in which to build the fire towers. and these he considered to be a prime necessity to the security of the estate. he rolled the placard up and went toward the house. on the lawn he passed the young people, intent upon their own pursuits. he was glad that none of them noticed him and meeting stryker, who was hovering around the lower hall, he sent his name up to his employer. "i don't think mr. mcguire expects you just yet, sir," said the man. "nevertheless, tell him i must see him," said peter. "it's important." though it was nearly two o'clock, mcguire was not yet dressed and his looks when peter was admitted to him bespoke a long night of anxiety and vigil. wearing an incongruous flowered dressing gown tied at the waist with a silken cord, he turned to the visitor. "well," he said rather peevishly. "i'm sorry to disturb you, mr. mcguire, but something has happened that i thought----" "what's happened?" the other man snapped out, eying the roll of cardboard in peter's hand. "what----?" he gasped. peter smiled and shrugged coolly. "it may be only a joke, sir--and i hardly know whether i'm even justified in calling it to your attention, but i found this placard nailed to a tree near the path to the cabin." "placard!" said mcguire, his sharp glance noting the printing of the trespass sign. "of course--that's the usual warning----" "it's the other side," said peter, "that is unusual." and unrolling it carefully, he laid it flat on the table beside his employer's breakfast tray and then stood back to note the effect of the disclosure. mcguire stared at the headline, starting violently, and then, as though fascinated, read the scrawl through to the end. peter could not see his face, but the back of his neck, the ragged fringe of moist hair around his bald spot were eloquent enough. and the hands which held the extraordinary document were far from steady. the gay flowers of the dressing gown mocked the pitiable figure it concealed, which seemed suddenly to sag into its chair. peter waited. for a long while the dressing gown was dumb and then as though its occupant were slowly awakening to the thought that something was required of him it stirred and turned slowly in the chair. "you--you've read this?" asked mcguire weakly. "yes, sir. it was there to read. it was merely stuck on a tree with this hasp-knife," and peter produced the implement and handed it to mcguire. mcguire took the knife--twisting it slowly over in his fingers. "a hasp-knife," he repeated dully. "i thought it best to bring them to you," said peter, "especially on account of----" "yes, yes. of course." he was staring at the red crayon scrawl and as he said nothing more peter turned toward the door, where stryker stood on guard. "if there's nothing else just now, i'll----" "wait!" uttered the old man, and peter paused. and then, "did any one else see this--this paper?" "yes--mrs. bergen's niece--she saw it first." "my housekeeper's niece. any one else?" "i don't know. i hardly think so. it seemed quite freshly written." "ah----" muttered mcguire. he was now regarding peter intently. "where--where is the tree on which you found it?" "a maple--just in the wood--at the foot of the lawn." "ah!" he stumbled to the window, the placard still clutched in his hands, and peered at the woods as though seeking to pick out the single tree marked for his exacerbation. then jerked himself around and faced the bearer of these tidings, glaring at him as though he were the author of them. "g---- d---- you all!" he swore in a stifled tone. "i beg pardon," said peter with sharp politeness. mcguire glanced at peter and fell heavily into the nearest armchair. "it can't--be done," he muttered, half to himself, and then another oath. he was showing his early breeding now. "i might 'a' known----," he said aloud, staring at the paper. "then it isn't a joke?" asked peter, risking the question. "joke!" roared mcguire. and then more quietly, "a joke? i don't want it talked about," he muttered with a senile smile. and then, "you say a woman read it?" "yes." "she must be kept quiet. i can't have all the neighborhood into my affairs." "i think that can be managed. i'll speak to her. in the meanwhile if there's anything i can do----" mcguire looked up at peter and their glances met. mcguire's glance wavered and then came back to peter's face. what he found there seemed to satisfy him for he turned to stryker, who had been listening intently. "you may go, stryker," he commanded. "shut the door, but stay within call." the valet's face showed surprise and some disappointment, but he merely bowed his head and obeyed. "i suppose you're--you're curious about this message, nichols--coming in such a way," said mcguire, after a pause. "to tell the truth, i am, sir," replied peter. "we've done all we could to protect you. this 'hawk' must be the devil himself." "he is," repeated mcguire. "hell's breed. the thing can't go on. i've got to put a stop to it--and to him." "he speaks of coming again friday night----" "yes--yes--friday." and then, his fingers trembling along the placard, "i've got to do what he wants--this time--just this time----" mcguire was gasping out the phrases as though each of them was wrenched from his throat. and then, with an effort at self-control, "sit down, nichols," he muttered. "since you've seen this, i--i'll have to tell you more. i--i think--i'll need you--to help me." peter obeyed, flattered by his employer's manner and curious as to the imminent revelations. "i may say that--this--this 'hawk' is a--an enemy of mine, nichols--a bitter enemy--unscrupulous--a man better dead than alive. i--i wish to god you'd shot him last night." "sorry, sir," said peter cheerfully. "i--i've got to do what he wants--this time. i can't have this sort of thing goin' on--with everybody in black rock reading these damn things. you're sure my daughter peggy knows nothing?" "i'd be pretty sure of that----" "but she might--any time--if he puts up more placards. i've got to stop that, nichols. this thing mustn't go any further." "i think you may trust me." "yes. i think i can. i've _got_ to trust you now, whether i want to or no. the man who wrote this scrawl is the man i came down here to get away from." peter waited while mcguire paused. "you may think it's very strange. it is strange. i knew this man--called 'hawk,' many years ago. i--i thought he was dead, but he's come back." mcguire paused again, the placard in his hands, reading the line which so clearly announced that fact. "he speaks of something i've got--something he's got, nichols. it's a paper--a--er--a partnership paper we drew up years ago--out west and signed. that paper is of great value to me. as long as he holds it i----," mcguire halted to wipe the sweat from his pallid brow. "he holds it as a--well--not exactly as a threat--but as a kind of menace to my happiness and peggy's." "i understand, sir," put in peter quietly. "blackmail, in short." "exactly--er--blackmail. he wanted five thousand dollars--in new york. i refused him--there's no end to blackmail once you yield--and i came down here--but he followed me. but i've got to get that paper away from him." "if you were sure he had it with him----" "that's just it. he's too smart for that. he's got it hidden somewhere. i've got to get this money for him--from new york--i haven't got it in the house--before friday night----" "but blackmail----!" "i've got to, nichols--this time. i've got to." "i wouldn't, sir," said peter stoutly. "but you don't know everything. i've only told you part," said mcguire, almost whining. "this is no ordinary case--no ordinary blackmail. i've got to be quick. i'm going to get the money--i'm going to get you to go to new york and get it." "me!" "yes. yes. this is wednesday. i can't take any chances of not having it here friday. peggy is going back this afternoon. i'll get her to drive you up. i'll 'phone sheldon to expect you--he'll give you the money and you can come back to-morrow." "but to-night----" "he knows the danger of trying to reach me. that's why he wrote this. i won't be bothered to-night. i'll shut the house tight and put some of the men inside. if he comes, we'll shoot." "but friday----do you mean, sir, that you'll go out to him with five thousand dollars and risk----" "no, i won't. _you_ will," said mcguire, watching peter's face craftily. "oh, i see," replied peter, aware that he was being drawn more deeply into the plot than he had wished. "you want me to meet him." mcguire noted peter's dubious tone and at once got up and laid his hands upon his shoulders. "you'll do this for me, won't you, nichols? i don't want to see this man. i can't explain. there wouldn't be any danger. he hasn't anything against you. why should he have? i haven't any one else that i can trust--but stryker. and stryker--well--i'd have to tell stryker. _you_ know already. don't say you refuse. it's--it's a proof of my confidence. you're just the man i want here. i'll make it worth your while to stay with me--well worth your while." peter was conscious of a feeling partly of pity, partly of contempt, for the cringing creature pawing at his shoulders. peter had never liked to be pawed. it had always rubbed him the wrong way. but mcguire's need was great and pity won. "oh, i'll do it if you like," he said, turning aside and releasing himself from the clinging fingers, "provided i assume no responsibility----" "that's it. no responsibility," said mcguire, in a tone of relief. "you'll just take that money out--then come away----" "and get nothing in return?" asked peter in surprise. "no paper--no receipt----?" "no--just this once, nichols. it will keep him quiet for a month or so. in the meanwhile----" the old man paused, a crafty look in his eyes, "in the meanwhile we'll have time to devise a way to meet this situation." "meaning--precisely what?" asked peter keenly. mcguire scowled at him and then turned away toward the window. "that needn't be your affair." "it won't be," said peter quickly. "i'd like you to remember that i came here as a forester and superintendent. i agreed also to guard your house and yourself from intrusion, but if it comes to the point of----" "there, there, nichols," croaked mcguire, "don't fly off the handle. we'll just cross this bridge first. i--i won't ask you to do anything a--a gentleman shouldn't." "oh, well, sir," said peter finally, "that's fair enough." mcguire came over and faced peter, his watery eyes seeking peter's. "you'll swear, nichols, to say nothing of this to any one?" "yes. i'll keep silent." "nothing to sheldon?" "no." "and you'll see this--this niece of the housekeeper's?" "yes." the man gave a gasp of relief and sank into his chair. "now go, nichols--and shift your clothes. peggy's going about four. come back here and i'll give you a letter and a check." peter nodded and reached the door. as he opened it, stryker straightened and bowed uncomfortably. but peter knew that he had been listening at the keyhole. chapter ix shad is unpleasant peter returned from new york on thursday night, having accomplished his curious mission. he had first intercepted beth on her way to the kitchen and sworn her to secrecy, advising her to say nothing to mrs. bergen about the events of the previous night. and she had agreed to respect his wishes. on the way to new york he had sat in the rumble of the low red runabout, miss peggy mcguire at the wheel, driving the fashionable freddy. miss mcguire after having yielded, the night before, to the musical predilections of miss delaplane, had apparently reconsidered peter's social status and had waved him to the seat in the rear with a mere gesture and without apologies. and peter, biting back a grin and touching his hat, had obeyed. the familiarities tolerable in such a wilderness as black rock could not of course be considered in the halls of the fashionable hotel where miss peggy lived in new york, and where by dint of great care and exclusiveness she had caught a hold of the fringe of society. but peter sat up very straight, trying not to hear what was said in front. if he could only have worn his colonel's uniform and decorations, or his grand ducal coronet, and have folded his arms, the irony would have been perfection. he had gone to sheldon, senior, in the morning and in return for mcguire's check had been given cash in the shape of ten virginal five hundred dollar bills. this money had been put into an envelope and was now folded carefully in peter's inside pocket. sheldon, senior, to be sure, had asked questions, but with a good grace peter had evaded him. dick sheldon was out of town, so peter put in the remaining period before his train-time in a music store where he spent all the money that remained of his salary, on books, a few for the piano but most of them for beth. peter had wasted, as he had thought, two perfectly good years in trying to learn to sing. but those two years were not going to be wasted now--for beth was to be his mouthpiece. he knew the beginnings of a training--how to give her the advantage of the instruction he had received from one of the best teachers in milan. he was lucky enough to find books on the italian method of voice production and on the way back to mcguire's, armed with these, he stopped off at the bergen house in black rock village and returned beth's call. there he found shad wells, in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a pipe in the portico, and looking like a thundercloud. in response to peter's query, he moved his right shoulder half an inch in the direction of the door, and then spat in the geranium bed. so peter knocked at the door, softly at first, then loudly, when beth emerged, her sleeves rolled to her shoulders and her arms covered with soapsuds. "why, shad," she said witheringly, after she had greeted peter, "you might have let me know! come in, mr. nichols. excuse my appearance. wash-day," she explained, as he followed her into the dark interior. "i can't stop," said the visitor, "i just came to bring these books----" "for _me_!" she exclaimed, hurriedly wiping her arms on her apron. "i got them in new york----" she pulled up the shade at the side, letting in the sunlight, an act permissible in the parlors of black rock only on state occasions, for the sunlight (as every one knew) was not kind to plush-covered furniture. "for _me_!" beth repeated softly. "i didn't think you meant it." "_tone production--exercises_," explained peter, "and here's one on _the lives of the great composers_. i thought you might be interested in reading it." "oh, yes. i am--i will be. thank you ever so much----" "of course you can't do much by yourself just yet--not without a piano--to get the pitch--the key--but i've brought a tuning fork and----" "but i've got the harmonium----," beth broke in excitedly. "it's a little out of tune, but----" "the harmonium!" asked the bewildered peter. "what's that?" beth proudly indicated a piece of furniture made of curly walnut which stood in the corner of the room. there were several books on the top of it--_gospel tunes_--_moody and sankey_, a methodist episcopal hymn book, and a glass case containing wax flowers. "we play it sundays----," said beth, "but it ought to help----" "you play----!" he said in surprise. "aunt tillie and i--oh, just hymns----." she sat, while peter watched, began pumping vigorously with her feet and presently the instrument emitted a doleful sound. "it has notes anyhow," said beth with a laugh. "splendid!" said peter. "and when i've told you what to do you can practice here. you'll come soon?" she nodded. "when?" "to-morrow--sometime?" and then, "what's the matter with wells?" he asked. she frowned. "he just asked me to marry him. it's the twenty-seventh time." "oh----" "i can't be botherin' with shad--not on wash-day--or any other day," she added as though in an afterthought. peter laughed. he was quite sure that nobody would ever make her do anything she didn't want to do. "he knows i was at the cabin yesterday," she said in a low voice. "he was watchin'." peter was silent a moment, glancing at the books he had just brought her. "of course if he has any claim on you, perhaps----," he began, when she broke in. "claim! he hasn't," she gasped. "i'll do as i please. and he'd better quit pesterin' me or i'll----" "what?" she laughed. "i'll put him through the clothes-wringer." peter grinned. "he almost looks as though you'd done that already." and as she followed him to the door, "i thought i ought to tell you about shad. when he gets ugly--he's ugly an' no mistake." "do you still think he'll--er--swallow me at one gobble?" he asked. she stared at him a moment and then laughed with a full throat. "i hope he don't--at least not 'til i've had my singin' lessons." "i think i can promise you that," said peter. she followed him out to the porch, where they looked about for shad. he had disappeared. and in the "lizzie," which had been panting by the side of the road, peter was conducted by the soiled young man at the wheel to black rock house. nothing unusual had happened in his absence, nor had any other message or warning been posted, for stryker, released for this duty, had searched all the morning and found nothing. "hawk" was waiting, biding his hour. curiously enough, an astonishing calm seemed to have fallen over the person of jonathan k. mcguire. when peter arrived he found his employer seated on the portico in a wicker chair, smoking his after-supper cigar. true, the day guards were posted near by and stryker hovered as was his wont, but the change in his employer's demeanor was so apparent that peter wondered how such a stolid-looking creature could ever have lost his self-control. it was difficult to understand this metamorphosis unless it could be that, having come to a decision and aware of the prospect of immunity, if only a temporary one, mcguire had settled down to make the best of a bad job and await with stoicism whatever the future was to bring. this was peter's first impression, nothing else suggesting itself, but when he followed the old man up to his room and gave him the money he had brought he noted the deeply etched lines at nostril and jaw and felt rather than saw the meaning of them--that jonathan mcguire was in the grip of some deep and sinister resolution. there was a quality of desperation in his calmness, a studied indifference to the dangers which the night before last had seemed so appalling. he put the money in the safe, carefully locked the combination and then turned into the room again. "thanks, nichols," he said. "you'd better have some supper and get to bed to-night. i don't think you'll be needed." and then, as peter's look showed his surprise, "i know my man better than you do. to-morrow night we shall see." he closed his lips into a thin line, shot out his jaw and lowered his brows unpleasantly. courage of a sort had come back to him, the courage of the animal at bay, which fights against the inevitable. to peter the time seemed propitious to state the need for the observation towers and he explained in detail his projects. but mcguire listened and when peter had finished speaking merely shook his head. "what you say is quite true. the towers must be built. i've thought so for a long time. in a few days we will speak of that again--_after to-morrow night_," he finished significantly. "as you please," said peter, "but every day lost now may----" "we'll gain these days later," he broke in abruptly. "i want you to stay around here now." on friday morning he insisted on having peter show him the tree where the placard had been discovered, and peter, having taken lunch with him, led him down to the big sugar maple, off the path to the cabin. peter saw that he scanned the woods narrowly and walked with a hand in his waist-band, which peter knew held an army colt revolver, but the whine was gone from his voice, the trembling from his hands. he walked around the maple with peter, regarding it with a sort of morbid abstraction and then himself led the way to the path and to the house. why he wanted to look at the tree was more than peter could understand, for it was peter, and not he, who was to keep this costly assignation. "you understand, nichols," he said when they reached the portico, "you've agreed to go--to-night--at eleven." "i wish you'd let me meet him--without the money." "no--no. i've made up my mind----," gasped mcguire with a touch of his old alarm, "there can't be any change in the plan--no change at all." "oh, very well," said peter, "it's not my money i'm giving away." "it won't matter, nichols. i--i've got a lot more----" "but the principle----" protested peter. "to h---- with the principle," growled the old man. peter turned and went back to the cabin, somewhat disgusted with his whole undertaking. already he had been here for five days and, except for two walks through the woods for purposes of investigation, nothing that he had come to do had been accomplished. he had not yet even visited the sawmills which were down on the corduroy road five miles away. so far as he could see, for the present he was merely mcguire's handy man, a kind of upper servant and messenger, whose duties could have been performed as capably by stryker or shad wells, or even jesse brown. the forest called him. it needed him. from what he had heard he knew that down by the sawmills they were daily cutting the wrong trees. he had already sent some instructions to the foreman there, but he could not be sure that his orders had been obeyed. he knew that he ought to spend the day there, making friends with the men and explaining the reasons for the change in orders, but as long as mcguire wanted him within telephone range, there was nothing to do but to obey. he reached the cabin, threw off his coat, and had hardly settled down at the table to finish his drawing, a plan of the observation towers, when beth appeared. he rose and greeted her. her face was flushed, for she had been running. "has shad been here?" she asked breathlessly. "no." "oh!" she gasped. "i was afraid he'd get here before me. i took the short cut through the woods." "what's the matter?" "he said he--he was going to break you to bits----" "to bits! me? why?" "because he--he says i oughtn't to come here----" "oh, i see," he muttered, and then, with a grin, "and what do _you_ think about it, beth?" "i'll do what i please," she said. "so long as i think it's all right. what business has he got to stop me!" peter laughed. "don't let's bother then. did you bring your books?" she hadn't brought them. she had come in such a hurry. "but aren't you afraid--when he comes?" she asked. "i don't know," said peter. "do you think i ought to be?" "well, shad's--he's what they call a hellion around here." "what's a--er--hellion?" "a--a scrapper." "oh, a fighting man?" "yes." peter sat down at the piano and struck loudly some strident discords in the bass. "like this!" he laughed. "isn't it ugly, beth--that's what fighting is--i had it day and night for years. if shad had been in the war he wouldn't ever want to fight again." "were you in the war?" asked beth in amazement. "of course. where would i have been?" and before she could reply he had swept into the rumbling bass of the "revolutionary Étude." she sank into a chair and sat silent, listening, at first watching the door, and then as the soul of the artist within her awoke she forgot everything but the music. there was a long silence at the end when peter paused, and then he heard her voice, tense, suppressed. "i could see it--you made me see it!" she gasped, almost in a whisper. "war--revolution--the people--angry--mumbling--crowding, pushing ... a crowd with guns and sticks howling at a gate ... and then a man trying to speak to them--appealing----" peter turned quickly at the words and faced her. her eyes were like stars, her soul rapt in the vision his music had painted. peter had lived that scene again and again, but how could beth know unless he had made her see it? there was something strange--uncanny--in beth's vision of the great drama of peter's life. and yet she had seen. even now her spirit was afar. "and what happened to the man who was appealing to them?" he asked soberly. she closed her eyes, then opened them toward him, shaking her head. "i--i don't know--it's all gone now." "but you saw what i played. that is what happened." "what do you mean?" she questioned, startled in her turn. peter shrugged himself into the present moment. "nothing. it's just--revolution. war. war is like that, beth," he went on quietly after a moment. "like the motif in the bass--there is no end--the threat of it never stops--day or night. only hell could be like it." beth slowly came out of her dream. "you fought?" she asked. "oh, yes." another silence. "i--i think i understand now why you're not afraid." "but i _am_ afraid, beth," he said with a smile. "i was always afraid in the war. because death is always waiting just around the corner. nobody who has been in the war wants ever to fight again." he turned to the piano. "they all want happiness, beth. peace. this!" he finished, and his roving fingers played softly the tschaikowsky "reverie." when he had finished he turned to her, smiling. "what vision do you see in that, beth?" she started as though from a dream. "oh, happiness--and sadness, too." "yes," said peter soberly. "no one knows what it is to be happy unless one has been sad." "that's true, isn't it?" she muttered, looking at him in wonder. "i never knew what unhappiness was for--but i guess that's it." he caught the minor note in her voice and smiled. "come now," he said, "we'll have our first lesson." "without the books?" "yes. we'll try breathing." "breathing?" "yes--from the diaphragm." and as she looked bewildered, "from the stomach--not from the chest--breathe deeply and say 'ah.'" she obeyed him and did it naturally, as though she had never breathed in any other way. "fine," he cried and touched a note on the piano. "now sing it. throw it forward. softly first, then louder----" it was while she was carrying out this instruction that a shadow appeared on the doorsill, followed in a moment by the figure of shad wells. beth's "ah" ceased suddenly. the visitor stood outside, his hands on his hips, in silent rage. peter merely glanced at him over his shoulder. "how are you, wells?" he said politely. "won't you come in? we've having a singing lesson." shad did not move or speak as peter went on, "take the chair by the door, old man. the cigarettes are on the table. now, beth----" but beth remained as she was, uneasily regarding the intruder, for she knew that shad was there for no good purpose. peter caught her look and turned toward the door, deliberately ignoring the man's threatening demeanor. "we won't be long," he began coolly, "not over half an hour----" "no, i know ye won't," growled shad. and then to the girl, "beth, come out o' there!" if shad's appearance had caused beth any uncertainty, she found her spirit now, for her eyes flashed and her mouth closed in a hard line. "who are you to say where i come or go?" she said evenly. but shad stood his ground. "if you don't know enough to know what's what i'm here to show you." "oh, i say----," said peter coolly. "you can say what you like, mister. and i've got somethin' to say to you when this lady goes." "oh,----" and then quietly to beth, "perhaps you'd better go. bring the books to-morrow--at the same time." but beth hadn't moved, and only looked at peter appealingly. so peter spoke. "this man is impolite, not to say disagreeable to you. has he any right to speak to you like this?" "no," said beth uneasily, "but i don't want any trouble." peter walked to the door and faced shad outside. "there won't be any trouble unless wells makes it." and then, as if a new thought had come to him, he said more cheerfully, "perhaps he doesn't quite understand----" "oh, i understand, all right. are you goin', beth?" she glanced at peter, who nodded toward the path, and she came between them. "go on back, shad," she said. "no." "do you mean it? if you do i'm through with you. you understand?" peter took the girl by the arm and led her gently away. "just wait a minute, wells," he flung over his shoulder at the man, "i'll be back in a second." the careless tone rather bewildered the woodsman, who had expected to find either fear or anger. the forester-piano-player showed neither--only careless ease and a coolness which could only be because he didn't know what was coming to him. "d--n him! i'll fix him!" muttered shad, quivering with rage. but peter having fortified himself with a cigarette was now returning. wells advanced into an open space where there was plenty of room to swing his elbows and waited. "now, wells," said peter alertly, "you wanted to see me?" "yes, i did, ye stuck-up piano-playin', psalm-singin' ---- ---- ---- ----." and suiting the action to the word leaped for peter, both fists flying. the rugged and uncultured often mistake politeness for effeminacy, sensibility for weakness. shad was a rough and tumble artist of a high proficiency, and he had a reputation for strength and combativeness. he was going to make short work of this job. but peter had learned his boxing with his cricket. also he had practiced the _savate_ and was familiar with _jiu jitsu_--but he didn't need either of them. wells rushed twice but peter was not where he rushed. the only damage he had done was to tear out the sleeve of peter's shirt. "stand up an' fight like a man," growled shad. "there's no hurry," said peter, calmly studying shad's methods. "oh, _ain't_ there!" this bull-like rush peter stopped with a neat uppercut, straightening shad's head which came up with a disfigured nose and before he could throw down his guard, peter landed hard on his midriff. shad winced but shot out a blow which grazed peter's cheek. then peter countered on shad's injured nose. shad's eyes were now regarding peter in astonishment. but in a moment only one of them was, for peter closed the other. "we'd better stop now," gasped peter, "and talk this over." "no, you ---- ---- ----," roared shad, for he suspected that somewhere in the bushes beth was watching. peter lost what remained of his shirt in the next rush and sprained a thumb. it didn't do to fight shad "rough and tumble." but he got away at last and stood his man off, avoiding the blind rushes and landing almost at will. "had enough?" he asked again, as politely as ever. "no," gulped the other. so peter sprang in and struck with all the force of his uninjured hand on the woodsman's jaw, and then shad went down and lay quiet. it had been ridiculously easy from the first and peter felt some pity for shad and not a little contempt for himself. but he took the precaution of bending over the man and extracting the revolver that he found in shad's hip pocket. as he straightened and turned he saw beth standing in the path regarding him. "beth!" he exclaimed with a glance at shad. "you saw?" "yes." she covered her face with her hands. "it was horrible." "i tried to avoid it," he protested. "yes, i know. it was his own fault. is he badly hurt?" "no, i think not. but you'd better go." "why?" "it will only make matters worse if he sees you." she understood, turned and vanished obediently. then peter went to the house, got a basin and, fetching some water from the creek, played the samaritan. in a while shad gasped painfully and sat up, looking at the victor. "sorry," said peter, "but you _would_ have it." shad blinked his uninjured eye and rose, feeling at his hip. "i took your revolver," said peter calmly. "give it here." "a chap with a bad temper has no business carrying one," said peter sternly. "oh----." the man managed to get to his feet. "i'm sorry, shad," said peter again, and held out his hand. "let's be friends." shad looked at the hand sullenly for a moment. "i'll fix _you_, mister. i'll fix you yet," he muttered, then turned and walked away. if peter had made one friend he had also made an enemy. the incident with shad wells was unfortunate, but peter didn't see how it could have been avoided. he was thankful nevertheless for his english schooling, which had saved him from a defeat at the hands of a "roughneck" which could have been, under the circumstances, nothing less than ignominious. for if shad wells had succeeded in vanquishing him, all peter's authority, all his influence with the rest of the men in mcguire's employ would have gone forever, for shad wells was not the kind of man upon whom such a victory would have lightly sat. if he had thrashed peter, shad and not peter would have been the boss of black rock and peter's position would have been intolerable. as peter laved his broken knuckles and bruised cheek, he wondered if, after all, the affair hadn't been for the best. true, he had made an enemy of shad, but then according to the girl, shad had already been his enemy. peter abhorred fighting, as he had told beth, but, whatever the consequences, he was sure that the air had cleared amazingly. he was aware too that the fact that he had been the champion of beth's independence definitely stood forth. whatever the wisdom or the propriety, according to the standards of black rock society, of beth's visits to the cabin, for the purpose of a musical education or for any other purposes, peter was aware that he had set the seal of his approval upon them, marked, that any who read might run, upon the visage of mr. wells. peter was still sorry for shad, but still more sorry for beth, whose name might be lightly used for her share in the adventure. he made up his mind to say nothing of what had happened, and he felt reasonably certain that shad wells would reach a similar decision. he was not at all certain that beth wouldn't tell everybody what had happened for he was aware by this time that beth was the custodian of her own destinies and that she would not need the oracles of black rock village as censors of her behavior. but when he went up to the house for supper he made his way over the log-jam below the pool and so to the village, stopping for a moment at the bergen house, where beth was sitting on the porch reading _the lives of the great composers_. she was so absorbed that she did not see him until he stood at the little swing gate, hat in hand. she greeted him quietly, glancing up at his bruised cheek. "i'm so sorry," she said, "that it was on my account." "i'm not--now that i've done the 'gobbling,'" he said with a grin. and then, "where's shad?" "i haven't seen him. i guess he's gone in his hole and pulled it in after him." peter smiled. "i just stopped by to say that perhaps you'd better say nothing. it would only humiliate him." "i wasn't goin' to--but it served him right----" "and if you think people will talk about your coming to the cabin, i thought perhaps i ought to give you your lessons here." "here!" she said, and he didn't miss the note of disappointment in her tone. "if your cousin shad disapproves, perhaps there are others." she was silent for a moment and then she looked up at him shyly. "if it's just the same to you--i--i'd rather come to the cabin," she said quietly. "it's like--like a different world--with your playin' an' all----" and then scornfully, "what do i care what they think!" "of course--i'm delighted. i thought i ought to consult you, that's all. and you'll come to-morrow?" "yes--of course." he said nothing about the meeting that was to take place that night with the mysterious "hawk" at the maple tree. he meant to find out, if possible, how beth could be concerned (if she was concerned) in the fortunes of the mysterious gentleman of the placard, but until he learned something definite he thought it wiser not to take beth further into his confidence. chapter x "hawk" three months ago it would have been difficult for his highness, grand duke peter nicholaevitch, to imagine himself in his present situation as sponsor for beth cameron. he had been no saint. saintly attributes were not usually to be found in young men of his class, and peter's training had been in the larger school of the world as represented in the continental capitals. he had tasted life under the tutelage of a father who believed that women, bad as well as good, were a necessary part of a gentleman's education, and peter had learned many things.... had it not been for his music and his english love of fair play, he would have stood an excellent chance of going to the devil along the precipitous road that had led the grand duke nicholas petrovitch there. but peter had discovered that he had a mind, the needs of which were more urgent than those of his love of pleasure. many women he had known, parisian, viennese, russian--and one, vera davydov, a musician, had enchained him until he had discovered that it was her violin and not her soul that had sung to him ... anastasie galitzin ... a dancer in moscow ... and then--the war. in that terrible alembic the spiritual ingredients which made peter's soul had been stirred until only the essential remained. but that essence was the real peter--a wholesome young man steeped in idealism slightly tinged with humor. it was idealism that had made him attempt the impossible, humor that had permitted him to survive his failure, for no tragedy except death itself can defy a sense of humor if it's whimsical enough. there was something about the irony of his position in black rock which interested him even more than the drama that lay hidden with mcguire's nemesis in the pine woods. and he couldn't deny the fact that this rustic, this primitive beth cameron was as fine a little lady as one might meet anywhere in the wide world. she had amused him at first with originality, charmed him with simplicity, amazed him later with talent and now had disarmed him with trust in his integrity. if at any moment the idea had entered peter's head that here was a wild-flower waiting to be gathered and worn in his hat, she had quickly disabused his mind of that chimera. curious. he found it as difficult to conceive of making free with beth as with the person of the metropolitan of moscow, or with that of the president of the pennsylvania railroad. she had her dignity. it was undeniable. he imagined the surprise in her large blue eyes and the torrent of ridicule of which her tongue could be capable. he had felt the sting of its humor at their first meeting. he had no wish to test it again. and now, after a few days of acquaintanceship, he found himself beth's champion, the victor over the "hellion" triplet, and the guardian of her good repute. he found, strangely enough, the responsibility strengthening his good resolves toward beth and adding another tie to those of sympathy and admiration. the situation, while not altogether of his making, was not without its attractions. he had given beth her chance to withdraw from the arrangement and she had persisted in the plan to come to the cabin. very well. it was his cabin. she should come and he would teach her to sing. but he knew that peter nichols was throwing temptation in the way of peter nicholaevitch. * * * * * mcguire was quiet that night and while they smoked peter talked at length on the needs of the estate as he saw them. peter went down to the cabin and brought up his maps and his plans for the fire towers. mcguire nodded or assented in monosyllables, but peter was sure that he heard little and saw less, for at intervals he glanced at the clock, or at his watch, and peter knew that his obsession had returned. outside, somewhere in the woods, "hawk" was approaching to keep his tryst and mcguire could think of nothing else. this preoccupation was marked by a frowning thatch of brow and a sullen glare at vacancy which gave no evidence of the fears that had inspired him, but indicated a mind made up in desperation to carry out his plans, through peter, whatever happened later. only the present concerned him. but underneath his outward appearance of calm, peter was aware of an intense alertness, for from time to time his eyes glowed suddenly and the muscles worked in his cheeks as he clamped his jaws shut and held them so. as the clock struck ten mcguire got to his feet and walked to the safe, which he opened carefully and took out the money that peter had brought. then he went to a closet and took out an electric torch which he tested and then put upon the table. "you're armed, nichols?" he asked. peter nodded. "but of course there's no reason why your mysterious visitor should take a pot at me," he said. and then, curiously, "do you think so, mr. mcguire?" "oh, no," said the other quickly. "you have no interest in this affair. you're my messenger, that's all. but i want you to follow my instructions carefully. i've trusted you this far and i've got to go the whole way. this man will say something. you will try to remember word for word what he says to you, and you're to repeat that message to me." "that shouldn't be difficult." mcguire was holding the money in his hand and went on in an abstraction as though weighing words. "i want you to go at once to the maple tree. i want you to go now so that you will be there when this man arrives. you will stand waiting for him and when he comes you will throw the light into his face, so that you can see him when you talk to him, and so that he can count this money and see that the amount is correct. i do not want you to go too close to him nor to permit him to go too close to you--you are merely to hand him this package and throw the light while he counts the money. then you are to say to him these words, 'don't forget the blood on the knife, hawk kennedy.'" "'don't forget the blood on the knife, hawk kennedy,'" murmured peter in amazement. and then, "but suppose he wants to tell me a lot of things you don't want me to know----" "i'll have to risk that," put in mcguire grimly. "i want you to watch him carefully, nichols. are you pretty quick on the draw?" "what do you mean?" "i mean, can you draw your gun and shoot quickly--surely? if you can't, you'd better have your gun in your pocket, keep him covered and at the first sign, shoot through your coat." peter took out his revolver and examined it quizzically. "i thought you said, mr. mcguire," he put in coolly, "that i was not to be required to do anything a gentleman couldn't do." "exactly," said the old man jerkily. "i shouldn't say that shooting a defenseless man answers that requirement." mcguire threw up his hands wildly. "there you go--up in the air again. i didn't say you were to shoot him, did i?" he whined. "i'm just warning you to be on the lookout in case he attacks you. that--that's all." "why should he attack me?" "he shouldn't, but he might be angry because i didn't come myself." "i see. perhaps you'd better go, sir. then you can do your killing yourself." mcguire fell back against the table, to which he clung, his face gray with apprehension, for he saw that peter had guessed what he hoped. "you want this man killed," peter went on. "it's been obvious to me from the first night i came here. well, i'm not going to be the one to do it." mcguire's glance fell to the rug as he stammered hoarsely, "i--i never asked you to do it. y-you must be dreaming. i--i'm merely making plans to assure your safety. i don't want you hurt, nichols. that's all. you're not going to back out now?" he pleaded. "murder is a little out of my line----" "you're not going to fail me----?" mcguire's face was ghastly. "you _can't_," he whispered hoarsely. "you can't let me down now. _i_ can't see this man. i can't tell stryker all you know. you're the only one. you promised, nichols. you promised to go." "yes. and i'll keep my word--but i'll do it in my own way. i'm not afraid of any enemy of yours. why should i be? but i'm not going to shoot him. if that's understood give me the money and i'll be off." "yes--yes. that's all right, nichols. you're a good fellow--and honest. i'll make it worth your while to stay with me here." he took up the money and handed it to peter, who counted it carefully and then put it in an inside pocket. "i don't see why you think i wanted you to kill hawk kennedy," mcguire went on, whining. "a man's got a right to protect himself, hasn't he? and you've got a right to protect _yourself_, if he tries to start anything." "have you any reason to believe that he might?" "no. i can't say i have." "all right. i'll take a chance. but i want it understood that i'm not responsible if anything goes wrong." "that's understood." peter made his way downstairs, and out of the front door to the portico. stryker, curiously enough, was nowhere to be seen. peter went out across the dim lawn into the starlight. jesse brown challenged him by the big tree and peter stopped for a moment to talk with him, explaining that he would be returning to the house later. "the old man seems to be comin' to life, mister," said jesse. "what do you mean?" "not so skeered-like. he was out here when you went to the cabin for them plans----" "out here?" said peter in amazement. andy nodded. "he seemed more natural-like,--asked what the countersign was and said mebbe we'd all be goin' back to the mills after a night or so." "oh, did he? that's good. you're pretty tired of this night work?" "not so long as it pays good. but what did he mean by changin' the guards?" "he didn't say anything to me about it," said peter, concealing his surprise. "oh, didn't he? well, he took andy off the privet hedge and sent him down to the clump of pines near the road." "i see," said peter. "why?" "you've got me, mister. if there's trouble to-night, there ain't no one at the back of the house at all. we're one man short." "who?" "shad wells. he ain't showed up." "ah, i see," muttered peter. and then, as he lighted a cigarette, "oh, well, we'll get along somehow. but look sharp, just the same." peter went down the lawn thoughtfully. from the first he hadn't been any too pleased with this mission. though peter was aware that in the realm of big business it masqueraded under other names, blackmail, at the best, was a dirty thing. at the worst--and mcguire's affair with the insistent hawk seemed to fall into this classification,--it was both sinister and contemptible. to be concerned in these dark doings even as an emissary was hardly in accordance with peter's notion of his job, and he had acceded to mcguire's request without thinking of possible consequences, more out of pity for his employer in his plight than for any other reason. but he remembered that it usually required a guilty conscience to make blackmail possible and that the man who paid always paid because of something discreditable which he wished to conceal. mcguire's explanations had been thin and peter knew that the real reason for the old man's trepidations was something other than the ones he had given. he had come to black rock from new york to avoid any possible publicity that might result from the visits of his persecutor and was now paying this sum of money for a respite, an immunity which at the best could only be temporary. it was all wrong and peter was sorry to have a hand in it, but he couldn't deny that the interest with which he had first approached black rock house had now culminated in a curiosity which was almost an obsession. here, close at hand, was the solution of the mystery, and whether or not he learned anything as to the facts which had brought mcguire's discomfiture, he would at least see and talk with the awe-inspiring hawk who had been the cause of them. besides, there was mrs. bergen's share in the adventure which indicated that beth's happiness, too, was in some way involved. for peter, having had time to weigh beth's remarks with the housekeeper's, had come to the conclusion that there had been but one man near the house that night. the man who had talked with mrs. bergen at the kitchen door was not john bray the camera-man, or the man with the dark mustache, but hawk kennedy himself. peter entered the path to the cabin, and explored it carefully, searching the woods on either side and then, cutting into the scrub oak at the point where he and beth had first seen the placard, made his way to the maple tree. there was no one there. a glance at his watch under the glare of the pocket torch showed that he was early for the tryst, so he walked around the maple, flashing his light into the undergrowth and at last sat down, leaning against the trunk of the tree, lighted another cigarette and waited. under the depending branches of the heavy foliage it was very dark, and he could get only the smallest glimpses of the starlit sky. at one point toward black rock house beyond the boles of the trees he could see short stretches of the distant lawn and, in the distance, a light which he thought must be that of mcguire's bedroom, for to-night, peter had noticed, the shutters had been left open. it was very quiet too. peter listened for the sounds of approaching footsteps among the dry leaves, but heard only the creak of branches overhead, the slight stir of the breeze in the leaves and the whistle of a locomotive many miles away, on the railroad between philadelphia and atlantic city. the sound carried his mind beyond the pine-belt out into the great world from which he had come, and he thought of many things that might have been instead of this that was--the seething yeast that was russia, the tearing down of the idols of centuries and the worship of new gods that were no gods at all--not even those of brass or gold--only visions--will-o'-the-wisps.... the madness had shown itself here too. would the fabric of which the american ideal was made be strong enough to hold together against the world's new madness? he believed in american institutions. imperfect though they were, fallible as the human wills which controlled them, they were as near liberty, equality, fraternity as one might yet hope to attain in a form of government this side of the millennium. peter started up suddenly, for he was sure that he had heard something moving in the underbrush. but after listening intently and hearing nothing more he thought that his ears had deceived him. he flashed his lantern here and there as a guide to hawk kennedy but there was no sound. complete silence had fallen again over the woods. if mcguire's mysterious enemy was approaching he was doing it with the skill of an indian scout. and it occurred to peter at this moment that hawk kennedy too might have his reasons for wishing to be sure that he was to be fairly dealt with. the placard had indicated the possibility of chicanery on the part of mcguire. "no tricks," hawk had written. he would make sure that peter was alone before he showed himself. so peter flashed his lamp around again, glanced at his watch, which showed that the hour of the appointment had passed, then lighted a third cigarette and sank down on the roots of the tree to wait. there was no other sound. the breeze which had been fitful at best had died and complete silence had fallen. peter wasn't in the least alarmed. why should he be? he had come to do this stranger a favor and no one else except mcguire could know of the large sum of money in his possession. the trees were his friends. peter's thoughts turned back again, as they always did when his mind was at the mercy of his imagination. what was the use of it all? honor, righteousness, pride, straight living, the ambition to do, to achieve something real by his own efforts--to what end? he knew that he could have been living snugly in london now, married to the princess galitzin, drifting with the current in luxury and ease down the years, enjoying those things---- heigho! peter sat up and shrugged the vision off. he must not be thinking back. it wouldn't do. the new life was here. _novaya jezn._ like the seedling from the twisted oak, he was going to grow straight and true--to be himself, the son of his mother, who had died with a prayer on her lips that peter might not be what his father had been. thus far, he had obeyed her. he had grown straight, true to the memory of that prayer. yes, life was good. he tossed away his cigarette, ground it into the ground with his heel, then lay back against the tree, drinking in great drafts of the clean night air. the forest was so quiet that he could hear the distant tinkle of cedar creek down beyond the cabin. the time was now well after eleven. what if hawk kennedy failed to appear? and how long must----? a tiny sound close at hand, clear, distinct. peter took a chance and called out, "is that you, hawk kennedy?" silence and then a repetition of the sound a little louder now and from directly overhead. peter rose, peering upward in amazement. "yes, i'm here," said a low voice among the leaves above him. and presently a foot appeared, followed by legs and a body, emerging from the gloom above. peter threw the light of his torch up into the tree. "hey! cut that," commanded a voice sharply. and peter obeyed. in a moment a shape swung down and stood beside him. after the glare of the torch peter couldn't make out the face under the brim of the cap, but he could see that it wore a mustache and short growth of beard. in size, the stranger was quite as tall as peter. hawk kennedy stood for a moment listening intently and peter was so astonished at the extraordinary mode of his entrance on the scene that he did not speak. "you're from mcguire?" asked the man shortly. "yes." "why didn't he come himself?" the voice was gruff, purposely so, peter thought, but there was something about it vaguely reminiscent. "answer me. why didn't he come?" peter laughed. "he didn't tell me why. any more than you'd tell me why you've been up this tree." "i'm takin' no chances this trip. i've been watchin'--listenin'," said the other grimly. "well, what's the answer? and who--who the devil are you?" the bearded visage was thrust closer to peter's as though in uncertainty, but accustomed as both men now were to the darkness, neither could make out the face of the other. "i'm mcguire's superintendent. he sent me here to meet you--to bring you something----" "ah--he comes across. good. where is it?" "in my pocket," said peter coolly, "but he told me to tell you first not to forget the blood on the knife, hawk kennedy." the man recoiled a step. "the blood on the knife," he muttered. and then, "mcguire asked you to say that?" "yes." "anything else?" "no. that's all." another silence and then he demand in a rough tone, "well, give me the money!" impolite beggar! what was there about this shadow that suggested to peter the thought that this whole incident had happened before? that this man belonged to another life that peter had lived? peter shrugged off the illusion, fumbled in his pocket and produced the envelope containing the bills. "you'd better count it," said peter, as the envelope changed hands. "it's not 'phoney'----?" asked hawk's voice suspiciously. "phoney?" "fake money----?" "no. i got it in new york myself yesterday." "oh----." there was a silence in which the shade stood uncertainly fingering the package, peering into the bushes around him and listening intently. and then, abruptly, "i want to see the color of it. switch on your light." peter obeyed. "you'd better," he said. in the glow of lamp hawk kennedy bent forward, his face hidden by his cap brim, fingering the bills, and peter saw for the first time that his left hand held an automatic which covered peter now, as it had covered him from the first moment of the interview. "five hundreds--eh," growled kennedy. "they're real enough, all right. one--two--three--four----" a roar from the darkness and a bullet crashed into the tree behind them.... another shot! peter's startled finger relaxed on the button of the torch and they were in darkness. a flash from the trees to the right, the bullet missing peter by inches. "a trick! by ----!" said hawk's voice in a fury, "but i'll get _you_ for this." peter was too quick for him. in the darkness he jumped aside, striking kennedy with his torch, and then closed with the man, whose shot went wild. they struggled for a moment, each fighting for the possession of the weapon, mcguire's money ground under their feet, but peter was the younger and the stronger and when he twisted hawk's wrist the man suddenly relaxed and fell, peter on his chest. the reason for this collapse was apparent when peter's hand touched the moisture on kennedy's shoulder. "damn you!" hawk was muttering, as he struggled vainly. events had followed so rapidly that peter hadn't had time to think of anything but his own danger. he had acted with the instinct of self-preservation, which was almost quicker than his thought, but as he knew now what had happened he realized that he, too, had been tricked by mcguire and that the murderous volley directed at hawk kennedy had come perilously near doing for himself. with the calm which followed the issue of his struggle with kennedy, came a dull rage at mcguire for placing him in such danger, which only showed his employer's desperate resolve and his indifference to peter's fate. for hawk kennedy had been within his rights in supposing peter to be concerned in the trick and only the miracle of the expiring torch which had blinded the intruder had saved peter from the fate intended for hawk. peter understood now the meaning of mcguire's explicit instructions and the meaning of the changing of the guards. the old man had hoped to kill his enemy with one shot and save himself the recurrence of his terror. what had become of him now? there was no sound among the bushes or any sign of him. he had slipped away like the poltroon that he was, leaving peter to his fate. "damn you!" hawk muttered again. "what did _you_ want to come meddling for!" the man couldn't be dangerously hurt if he possessed the power of invective and so, having possessed himself of hawk's automatic, peter got off his chest and fumbled around for the electric torch. "it won't do you any good to lie there cursing me. get up, if you're able to." "got me in the shoulder," muttered the man. "and he might have gotten _me_," said peter, "which would have been worse." "you mean--you didn't--_know_," groaned hawk, getting up into a sitting posture. "no. i didn't," replied peter. he had found the torch now and was flashing it around on the ground while he picked up the scattered money. "i'll fix him for this," groaned the stranger. peter glanced at him. "his men will be down here in a moment. you'd better be getting up." "i'm not afraid. they can't do anything to _me_. they'd better leave me alone. mcguire don't want me to talk. but i'll squeal if they bother me." peter was aware that the man was watching him as he picked up the bills and heard him ask haltingly, "what are you--going to do--with that money?" "my orders were to give it to you. don't you want it?" peter turned and for the first time flashed the lamp full in the injured man's face. even then peter didn't recognize him, but he saw hawk kennedy's eyes open wide as he stared at peter. "who----?" gasped the man. and then, "_you_ here! '_cré nom!_ it's pete, the waiter!" peter started back in astonishment. "jim coast!" he said. hawk kennedy chuckled and scrambled to his feet, halfway between a laugh and a groan. "well, i'm damned!" peter was still staring at him, the recovered bills loose in his hand. jim coast thrust out an arm for them. "the money," he demanded. "the money, pete." without a word peter handed it to him. it was none of his. coast counted the bills, the blood dripping from his fingers and soiling them, but he wiped them off with a dirty handkerchief and put them away into his pocket. blood money, peter thought, and rightly named. "and now, _mon gars_, if it's all the same to you, i'd like you to take me to some place where we can tie up this hole in my shoulder." this was like coast's impudence. he had regained his composure again and, in spite of the pain he was suffering, had become his proper self, the same jim coast who had bunked with peter on the _bermudian_, full of smirking assertiveness and sinister suggestion. peter was too full of astonishment to make any comment, for it was difficult to reconcile the thought of jim coast with hawk kennedy, and yet there he was, the terror of black rock house revealed. "well, pete," he growled, "goin' to be starin' at me all night?" "you'd better be off," said peter briefly. "why?" "they'll be here in a minute. you've got your money." "let 'em come. they'll have to take me to mcguire----" "or the lock-up at egg harbor----" "all right. i'll go. but when i open my mouth to speak, mcguire will wish that hell would open for him." and then, "see here, pete, do you know anything of what's between me and mcguire?" "no--except that he fears you." "very well. if you're workin' for him you'll steer these guys away from me. i mean it. now think quick." peter did. angry as he was at mcguire, he knew that jim coast meant what he said and that he would make trouble. also peter's curiosity knew no subsidence. "you go to my cabin. it's hidden in the woods down this path at the right----" "that's where you live, is it?" "yes. you'll find water there and a towel on the washstand. i'll be there to help you when i sheer these men off." coast walked a few steps and then turned quickly. "no funny business, pete." "no. you can clear out if you like. i don't care. i only thought if you were badly hurt----" "oh, all right. thanks." peter watched the dim silhouette merge into the shadows and disappear. then flashed his light here and there that the men who must be approaching now might be guided to him. in a moment they were crashing through the undergrowth, jesse and andy in the lead. "what's the shootin'?" queried jesse brown breathlessly. "a man in the woods. i'm looking for him," said peter. "he got away." "well, don't it beat hell----" "but it may be a plan to get you men away from the house," said peter as the thought came to him. "did you see mcguire?" "mcguire! no. what----?" "all right. you'd better hurry back. see if he's all right. i'll get along----" "not if you go flashin' _that_ thing. i could a got ye with my rifle as easy as----" "well, never mind. get back to the house. i'll poke around here for a while. hurry!" in some bewilderment they obeyed him and peter turned his footstep toward the cabin. chapter xi ancient history peter wasn't at all certain that he had done the right thing. one event had followed another with such startling rapidity that there hadn't been time to deliberate. jim coast was wounded, how badly peter didn't know, but the obvious duty was to give him first aid and sanctuary until peter could get a little clearer light on coast's possibilities for evil. none of this was peter's business. he had done what mcguire had asked him to do and had nearly gotten killed for his pains. two fights already and he had come to black rock to find peace! in his anger at mcguire's trick he was now indifferent as to what would happen to the old man. there was no doubt that jim coast held all the cards and, unless he died, would continue to hold them. it was evident that mcguire, having failed in accomplishing the murder, had placed himself in a worse position than before, for coast was not one to relax or to forgive, and if he had gotten his five thousand dollars so easily as this, he would be disposed to make mcguire pay more heavily now. peter knew nothing of the merits of the controversy, but it seemed obvious that the two principals in the affair were both tarred with the same stick. _arcades ambo_. he was beginning to believe that coast was the more agreeable villain of the two. at least he had made no bones about the fact of his villainy. peter found coast stripped to the waist, sitting in a chair by the table, bathing his wounded shoulder. but the hemorrhage had stopped and peter saw that the bullet had merely grazed the deltoid, leaving a clean wound, which could be successfully treated by first aid devices. so he found his guest a drink of whisky, which put a new heart into him, then tore up a clean linen shirt, strips from which he soaked in iodine and bandaged over the arm and shoulder. meanwhile coast was talking. "well, _mon vieux_, it's a little world, ain't it? to think i'd find _you_, my old bunkie, pete, the waiter, out here in the wilds, passin' the buck for mike mcguire! looks like the hand o' fate, doesn't it? superintendent, eh? some job! twenty thousand acres--if he's got an inch. an' me thinkin' all the while you'd be slingin' dishes in a new york chop house!" "i studied forestry in germany once," said peter with a smile, as he wound the bandage. "right y'are! mebbe you told me. i don't know. mebbe there's a lot o' things you _didn't_ tell me. mebbe there's a lot of things i didn't tell _you_. but i ought to 'a' known a globe trotter like you never would 'a' stayed a waiter. a waiter! _nom de dieu!_ remember that (sanguine) steward on the _bermudian_? oily, fat little beef-eater with the gold teeth? tried to make us 'divy' on the tips? but we beat him to it, pete, when we took french leave. h-m! i'm done with waitin' now, pete. so are you, i reckon. gentleman of leisure, _i_ am!" "there you are," said peter as he finished the bandage, "but you'll have to get this wound dressed somewhere to-morrow." "right you are. a hospital in philly will do the trick. and mcguire pays the bill." jim coast got up and moved his arm cautiously. "mighty nice of you, pete. that's fine. i'll make him pay through the nose for this." and then turning his head and eyeing peter narrowly, "you say mcguire told you nothin'!" "nothing. it's none of my affair." the ex-waiter laughed. "he knows his business. quiet as death, ain't he? he's got a right to be. and scared. he's got a right to be scared too. i'll scare him worse before i'm through with him." he broke off with a laugh and then, "funny to find you guardin' _him_ against _me_. house all locked--men with guns all over the place. he wanted one of those guys to kill me, didn't he? but i'm too slick for him. no locked doors can keep out what's scarin' mike mcguire----" he broke off suddenly and held up his empty glass. "another drink of the whisky, _mon gars_, and i'm yer friend for life." peter was still curious, so he obeyed and after cleaning up the mess they had made he sank into a chair, studying the worn features of his old companion. he had taken the precaution to pull in the heavy shutter of the window which had been opened and to lock the door. peter did not relish the idea of a murder committed in this cabin. "not apt to come now, are they, pete? well, let 'em," he answered himself with a shrug. "but they won't if mcguire has his way. murder is the only thing that will suit mcguire's book. he can't do that--not with witnesses around. ain't he the slick one, though? i was watchin' for just what happened. that's why i stayed in the tree so long--listenin'. he must of slipped in like a snake. how he did it i don't know. i'm a worse snake than he is but i always rattle before i strike." he laughed again dryly. "i've got _him_ rattled all o. k. mebbe he'd of shot straighter if he hadn't been. he used to could--dead shot. but i reckon his talents are runnin' different _now_. millions he has they say, _mon vieux_, millions. and i'll get my share of 'em." jim coast smoked for a moment in contented silence. "see here, pete. i like you. always did. straight as a string--you are. you've done me a good turn to-night. you might of put me out--killed me when you had me down----" "i'm no murderer, jim." "right. nor i ain't either. i don't want to hurt a hair of mcguire's head. every one of 'em is precious as refined gold. i want him to live--to keep on livin' and makin' more money because the more money he's got the more i'll get--see." "blackmail," said peter shortly. coast glanced at him, shrugged and laughed. "call it that if you like. it's a dirty word, but i'll stand for it, seein' it's you. blackmail! what's a waiter's tip but blackmail for good service? what's a lawyer's fee from a corporation but money paid by men to keep them out of the jail? what's a breach of promise case? blackmail--legal blackmail. i'm doin' nothin' less an' nothin' more than a million other men--but i'm not workin' with a lawyer. i'll turn the trick alone. what would you say if i told you that half of every dollar mcguire has got is mine--a full half--to say nothin' of payment for the years i was wanderin' an' grubbin' over the face of the earth, while he was livin' easy. oh! you're surprised. you'd better be. for that's the god's truth, _mon ami_." "you mean--he--he----" peter's credulity was strained and he failed to finish his query. "oh, you don't believe? well, you needn't. but there's no blackmail when you only take what belongs to you. the money--the money that made his millions was as much mine as his. i'm going to have my share with compound interest for fifteen years--and perhaps a bit more." "you surprise me. but it seems that if there's any justice in your claim, you could establish it legally." jim coast laughed again. "there's a quicker--a safer way than that. i'm takin' it." he filled his glass again and went on, leaning far over the table toward peter. "_voyons_, pete. when we came ashore, i made you an offer to play my game. you turned me down. it's not too late to change your mind. the old man trusts you or he wouldn't of sent you out with that money. i may need some help with this business and you're fixed just right to lend me a hand. throw in with me, do what i want, and i'll see that you're fixed for life." peter shook his head slowly from side to side. "no, jim. he pays me well. i'm no traitor." "h-m. traitor!" he sneered. "_he_ wasn't overparticular about _you_. he might of killed you or _i_ might of, if you hadn't been too damn quick for me. what do you think mike mcguire cares about _you_?" he laughed bitterly. "nothing. but that makes no difference. i----" a loud jangle of a bell from the corner and jim coast sprang to his feet. "the telephone," explained peter, indicating the instrument. "that's mcguire now." he rose and moved toward it, but coast caught him by the arm. "worried, eh?" he said with a grin. "wants to know what's happened! all right. tell him--tell the----." and then, as peter released himself, "wait a minute. tell him you've got me here," laughed coast, "a prisoner. tell him i'm talking. ask for instructions. he'll tell you what to do with me, damn quick," he sneered. peter waited a moment, thinking, while the bell tinkled again, and then took down the receiver. he was in no mood to listen to mcguire. "hello--yes, this is nichols.... all right, yes. shot at from the dark--while paying the money. you hit hawk kennedy in the shoulder.... yes, _you_. i'm no fool, mcguire.... he's here--at the cabin. i've just fixed his shoulder----. all right----. what shall i do with him----? yes--yes, he's talking.... let him go----! hello! let him go, you say? yes----" "let me get to him----," growled coast, pushing close to the transmitter. "hello--mike mcguire--hello----" "he's gone," said peter. "'let him go,'" sneered coast. "you'd bet he'd let me go." then he looked at peter and laughed. "he's scared all right--beat it like a cottontail. seems a shame to take the money, pete--a real shame." he laughed uproariously, then sauntered easily over to the table, took another of peter's cigarettes and sank into the easy chair again. peter eyed him in silence. he was an unwelcome guest but he hadn't yet gratified peter's curiosity. "well, what are you going to do?" asked peter. "me?" coast inhaled peter's cigarette luxuriously, and smiled. "i'm goin' west, _pronto_--to get my facts straight--all at the expense of the party of the first part. i might stop off at the grand cañon first for the view. i need a rest, pete. i ain't as young as i was--or i mightn't of let you put me out so easy to-night. i'm glad of that, though. wouldn't like to of done you hurt----" "and then----?" asked peter steadily. "then? oh, i'll beat it down to bisbee and ask a few questions. i just want to hook up a few things i _don't_ know with the things i _do_ know. i'll travel light but comfortable. five thousand dollars makes a heap of difference in your point of view--and other people's. i'll be an eastern millionaire lookin' for investments. and what i won't know about jonathan k. mcguire, alias mike mcguire--won't be worth knowin'." he broke off and his glance caught the interested expression on the face of his host. "h-m. curious, ain't you, pete?" "yes," said peter frankly. "i am. of course it's none of my business, but----" "but you'd like to know, just the same. i get you." he flicked off the ash of his cigarette and picked up his whisky glass. "well----," he went on, "i don't see why i shouldn't tell you--some of it--that is. it won't do any harm for you to know the kind of skunk you're workin' for. there's some of it that nobody on god's earth will ever know but me and mike mcguire--unless he slips up on one of his payments, and then everybody's goin' to know. _everybody_--but his daughter first of all." coast was silent a long moment while he drained the whisky and slowly set the glass down upon the table. the shadows upon his face were unpleasant, darkened perceptibly as they marked the years his thoughts followed, and the lines at his lips and nostrils became more deeply etched in bitterness and ugly resolve. "it was down in the san luis valley i first met up with mike mcguire. he was born in ireland, of poor but honest parents, as the books tell us. he changed his name to 'jonathan k.' when he made his first 'stake.' that meant he was comin' up in the world--see? me and mike worked together up in colorado, punchin' cattle, harvestin', ranchin' generally. we were 'buddies,' _mon gars_, like you an' me, eatin', sleepin' together as thick as thieves. he had a family somewhere, same as me--the wife had a little money but her old man made him quit--some trouble. after awhile we got tired of workin' for wages, grub staked, and beat it for the mountains. that was back in nineteen one or two, i reckon. we found a vein up above wagon wheel gap. it looked good and we staked out claims and worked it, hardly stoppin' to eat or sleep." coast stopped with a gasp and a shrug. "well, the long an' short of that, _mon vieux_, was a year of hard work with only a thousand or so apiece to show for it. it was only a pocket. hell!" he broke off in disgust and spat into the fireplace. "don't talk to me about your gold mines. there ain't any such animal. well, mike saved his. i spent mine. faro. you know--an' women. then i got hurt. i was as good as dead--but i pulled through. i ain't easy to kill. when i came around, i 'chored' for a while, doin' odd jobs where i could get 'em and got a little money together and went to pueblo. when i struck town i got pretty drunk and busted a faro bank. i never _did_ have any luck when i was sober." "yes, you've told me about that," said peter. "so i did--on the _bermudian_. well, it was at pueblo i met up with mike mcguire, and we beat it down into arizona where the copper was. bisbee was only a row of wooden shacks, but we got some backin', bought an outfit and went out prospectin' along the mexican border. and what with 'greasers' and thievin' redskins it was some job in those days. but we made friends all right enough and found out some of the things we wanted to know. "now, pete, if i was to tell you all that went on in that long trail into the gila desert and what happened when we got what we went for, you'd know as much as i do. you'd know enough to hold up mike mcguire yourself if you'd a mind to. this is where the real story stops. what happened in between is my secret and mike mcguire's. we found the mine we were lookin' for.... that's sure----how we got it you'll never know. but we got it. and here's where the real story begins again. we were miles out in the gila desert and if ever there's a hell on earth, it's there. sand, rocks, rocks and sand and the sun. it was hell with the cover off and no mistake! no water within a hundred miles. "now, this is where the fine eyetalian hand of mike mcguire shows itself. we were rich. any fool with half an eye could see that. the place was lousy--fairly lousy! it was ours----," coast's brow darkened and his eyes glittered strangely as a darting demon of the past got behind them. "yes--_ours_. _sacré bleu!_ any man who went through what we did deserved it, by g----! we were rich. there was plenty enough for two, but mcguire didn't think so. and here's what he does to me. in the middle of the night while i'm asleep he sneaks away as neat as you please, with the horses and the pack-mules and the water, leavin' me alone with all the money in the world, and a devourin' thirst, more than a hundred miles from nowhere." "murder," muttered peter. coast nodded. "you bet you. murder. nothin' less. oh, he knew what _he_ was about all right. and i saw it quick. death! that's what it meant. slow but sure. hadn't i seen the bones bleaching all along the trail? he left me there to die. he thought i would die. _dios!_ that thirst!" coast reached for the pitcher and splashed rather than poured a glass of water which he gulped down avidly. "there was nothin' for it but to try afoot for tucson, which was due east. every hour i waited would of made me an hour nearer to bein' a mummy. so i set out through the hot sand, the sun burnin' through me, slowly parchin' my blood. my tongue swelled. i must of gone in circles. days passed--nights when i lay gaspin' on my back, like a fish out of water, tryin' to suck moisture out of dry air.... then the red sun again--up over the edge of that furnace, mockin' at me. i was as good as dead and i knew it. only the mummy of me, parched black, stumbled on, fallin', strugglin' up again, fallin' at last, bitin' at the sand like a mad dog...." "horrible," muttered peter. "it was. i reckon i died--the soul of me, or what was left of it. i came to life under the starlight, with a couple of 'greasers' droppin' water on my tongue. they brought me around, but i was out of my head for a week. i couldn't talk the lingo anyhow. i just went with 'em like a child. there wasn't anything else to do. lucky they didn't kill me. i guess i wasn't worth killin'. we went south. they were makin' for hermosillo. revolutionists. they took all my money--about three hundred dollars. but it was worth it. they'd saved my life. but i couldn't go back now, even if i wanted to. i had no money, nor any way of gettin' any." jim coast leaned forward, glowering at the rag carpet. "but i--i didn't want to go back just then. the fear of god was in me. i'd looked into hell." he laughed bitterly. "then i joined the 'greasers' against diaz. i've told you about that. and the 'rurales' cleaned us up all right. a girl saved my life. instead of shootin' me against a mud wall, they put me to work on a railroad. i was there three years. i escaped at last and reached the coast, where i shipped for south america. it was the only way out, but all the while i was thinkin' of mike mcguire and the copper mine. you know the rest, pete--the argentine deal that might of made me rich an' how it fell through. don't it beat hell how the world bites the under dog!" "but why didn't you go back to america and fight your claim with mcguire?" asked peter, aware of the sinister, missing passage in the story. coast shot a sharp glance at his questioner. "there were two reasons--one of which you won't know. the other was that i couldn't. i was on the beach an' not too popular. the only ships out of buenos aires were for london. that was the easiest way back to america anyhow. so i shipped as a cattle hand. and there you are. i lived easy in london. that's me. easy come easy go. there it was i wrote a man i knew out in bisbee--the feller that helped stake us--and he answered me that mcguire was dead, and that the mine was a flivver--too far away to work. you see he must of showed the letter to mcguire, and mcguire told him what to write. that threw me off the track. i forgot him and went to france...." coast paused while he filled his glass again. "it wasn't until i reached new york that i found out mcguire was alive. it was just a chance while i was plannin' another deal. i took it. i hunted around the brokers' offices where they sell copper stocks. it didn't take me long to find that my mine was the 'tarantula.' mcguire had developed it with capital from denver, built a narrow gauge in. then after a while had sold out his share for more than half a million clear." peter was studying coast keenly, thinking hard. but the story held with what he already knew of the man's history. "that's when mike mcguire tacked the 'jonathan k.' onto his name," coast went on. "and that money's mine, the good half of it. figure it out for yourself. say five hundred thou, eight per cent, fifteen years--i reckon i could worry along on that even if he wouldn't do better--which he will. "well, pete--to shorten up--i found mcguire was here--in new york--and i laid for him. i watched for a while and then one day i got my nerve up and tackled him on the street. you ought to of seen his face when i told him who i was and what i'd come for. we were in the crowd at broadway and wall, people all about us. he started the 'high and mighty' stuff for a minute until i crumpled him up with a few facts. i thought he was goin' to have a stroke for a minute, when i made my brace for the five thou--then he turned tail and ran into the crowd pale as death. i lost him then. but it didn't matter. i'd find him again. i knew where his office was--and his hotel. it was dead easy. but he beat it down here. it took me awhile to pick up the trail. but here i am, pete--here i am--safe in harbor at last." coast took the bills out of his pocket and slowly counted them again. "and when you come back from the west, what will you do?" asked peter. "oh, now you're talkin', pete. i'm goin' to settle down and live respectable. i like this country around here. i came from jersey, you know, in the first place. i might build a nice place--keep a few horses and automobiles and enjoy my old age--run over to gay paree once a year--down to monte carlo in the season. oh, i'd know how to _live_ now. you bet you. i've seen 'em do it--those swells. they won't have anything on me. i'll live like a prince----" "on blackmail----," said peter. "see here, pete----!" "i meant it." peter had risen and faced coast coolly. "blackmail! you can't tell me that if you had any legal claim on mcguire you couldn't prove it." "i mightn't be able to----," he shrugged. "what is mcguire frightened about? not about what he owes you. he could pay that ten times over. it's something else--something that happened out there at the mine that you dare not tell----" "that i _won't_ tell," laughed coast disagreeably. "that you _dare_ not tell--that mcguire dares not tell. something that has to do with his strange message about the blood on the knife, and your placard about what you've got holding over him----" "right you are," sneered the other. "it's dirty money, i tell you--bloody money. i know it. and i know who you are, jim coast." coast started up and thrust the roll deep into his trousers pocket. "you don't know anything," he growled. peter got up too. his mind had followed coast's extraordinary story, and so far as it had gone, believed it to be true. peter wanted to know what had happened out there at the mine in the desert, but more than that he wanted to know how the destinies of this man affected beth. and so the thought that had been growing in his mind now found quick utterance. "i know this--that you've come back to frighten mcguire, but you've also come back to bring misery and shame to others who've lived long in peace and happiness without you----" "what----?" said coast incredulously. "i know who you are. you're ben cameron," said peter distinctly. the effect of this statement upon jim coast was extraordinary. he started back abruptly, overturning a chair, and fell rather than leaned against the bedpost--his eyes staring from a ghastly face. "what--what did--you say?" he gasped chokingly. "you're ben cameron," said peter again. coast put the fingers of one hand to his throat and straightened slowly, still staring at peter. then uneasily, haltingly, he made a sound in his throat that grew into a dry laugh---- "me--b-ben cameron! that's damn good. me--ben cameron! say, pete, whatever put _that_ into your head?" "the way you frightened the old woman at the kitchen door." "oh!" coast straightened in relief. "i get you. you've been talkin' to _her_." "yes. what did you say to her?" "i--i just gave her a message for mcguire. i reckon she gave it to him." "a message?" "oh, you needn't say you don't know, pete. it didn't fetch him. so i put up the placard." peter was now more bewildered than coast. "do you deny that you're ben cameron?" he asked. coast pulled himself together and took up his coat. "deny it? sure! i'm not--not him--not ben cameron--not ben cameron. don't i know who i am?" he shouted. then he broke off with a violent gesture and took up his cap. "enough of your damn questions, i say. i've told you what i've told you. you can believe it or not, as you choose. i'm jim coast to you or hawk kennedy, if you like, but don't you go throwin' any more of your dirty jokes my way. understand?" peter couldn't understand but he had had enough of the man. so he pointed toward the door. "go," he ordered. "i've had enough of you--get out!" coast walked a few paces toward the door, then paused and turned and held out his hand. "oh, hell, pete. don't let's you and me quarrel. you gave me a start back there. i'm sorry. of course, you knew. you been good to me to-night. i'm obliged. i need you in my business. more'n ever." "no," said peter. "oh, very well. suit yourself," said coast with a shrug. "there's plenty of time. i'll be back in a month or six weeks. think it over. i've made you a nice offer--real money--to help me a bit. take it or leave it, as you please. i'll get along without you, but i'd rather have you with me than against me." "i'm neither," said peter. "i want nothing to do with it." coast shrugged. "i'm sorry. well, so long. i've got a horse back in the dunes. i'll take the milk train from hammonton to philadelphia. you won't tell, pete?" "no." "good-night." peter didn't even reply. and when the man had gone he opened the door and windows to let in the night air. the room had been defiled by the man's very presence. ben cameron? beth's father? the thing seemed impossible, but every fact in peter's knowledge pointed toward it. and yet what the meaning of jim coast's strange actions at the mention of his name? and what were the facts that jim coast _didn't_ tell? what had happened at the mine that was too terrible even to speak about? what was the bond between these two men, which held the successful one in terror, and the other in silence? something unspeakably vile. a hideous pact---- the telephone bell jangled again. peter rose and went to it. but he was in no humor to talk to mcguire. "hello," he growled. "yes--he's gone. i let him go. you told me to.... yes, he talked--a long while.... no. he won't be back for a month.... we'll talk that over later.... no. not to-night. i'm going to bed.... no. not until to-morrow. i've had about enough of this.... all right. good-night." and peter hung up the receiver, undressed and went to bed. it had been rather a full day for peter. chapter xii confession in spite of his perplexities, peter slept soundly and was only awakened by the jangling of the telephone bell. but peter wanted to do a little thinking before he saw mcguire, and he wanted to ask the housekeeper a few questions, so he told mcguire that he would see him before ten o'clock. the curious part of the telephone conversation was that mcguire made no mention of the shooting. "h-m," said peter to himself as he hung up, "going to ignore that trifling incident altogether, is he? well, we'll see about that. it doesn't pay to be too clever, old cock." his pity for mcguire was no more. at the present moment peter felt nothing for him except an abiding contempt which could hardly be modified by any subsequent revelations. peter ran down to the creek in his bath robe and took a quick plunge, then returned, shaved and dressed while his coffee boiled, thinking with a fresh mind over the events and problems of the night before. curiously enough, he found that he considered them more and more in their relation to beth. perhaps it was his fear for her happiness that laid stress on the probability that jim coast was ben cameron, beth's father. how otherwise could mrs. bergen's terror be accounted for? and yet why had coast been so perturbed at the mere mention of ben cameron's name? that was really strange. for a moment the man had stared at peter as though he were seeing a ghost. if he _were_ ben cameron, why shouldn't he have acknowledged the fact? here was the weak point in the armor of mystery. peter had to admit that even while coast was telling his story and the conviction was growing in peter's mind that this was beth's father, the very thought of beth herself seemed to make the relationship grotesque. this jim coast, this picturesque blackguard who had told tales on the _bermudian_ that had brought a flush of shame even to peter's cheeks--this degenerate, this scheming blackmailer--thief, perhaps murderer, too, the father of beth! incredible! the merest contact with such a man must defile, defame her. and yet if this were the fact, coast would have a father's right to claim her, to drag her down, a prey to his vile tongue and drunken humors as she had once been when a child. her aunt tillie feared this. and aunt tillie did not know as peter now did of the existence of the vile secret that sealed coast's lips and held mcguire's soul in bondage. instead of going directly up the lawn to the house peter went along the edge of the woods to the garage and then up the path, as coast must have done a few nights before. the housekeeper was in the pantry and there peter sought her out. he noted the startled look in her eyes at the moment he entered the room and then the line of resolution into which her mouth was immediately drawn. so peter chose a roundabout way of coming to his subject. "i wanted to talk to you about beth, mrs. bergen," he began cheerfully. she offered him a chair but peter leaned against the windowsill looking out into the gray morning. he told her what he had discovered about her niece's voice, that he himself had been educated in music and that he thought every opportunity should be given beth to have her voice trained. he saw that mrs. bergen was disarmed for the moment as to the real purpose of his visit and he went on to tell her just what had happened at the cabin with shad wells the day before, and asking her, as beth's only guardian, for permission to carry out his plan to teach her all that he knew, after which he hoped it would be possible for her to go to new york for more advanced training. mrs. bergen listened in wonder, gasping at the tale of shad wells's undoing, which peter asked her to keep in confidence. from mrs. bergen's comments he saw that she took little stock in shad, who had been bothering beth for two years or more, and that her own love for the girl amounted to a blind adoration which could see no fault in anything that she might do. it was clear that she was delighted with the opportunities peter offered, for she had always known that beth sang "prettier than anybody in the world." as to going to the cabin for the lessons, that was nobody's business but beth's. she was twenty-two--and able to look out for herself. "i'm an old woman, mr. nichols," she concluded timidly, "an' i've seen a lot of trouble, one kind or another, but i ain't often mistaken in my judgments. i know beth. she ain't nobody's fool. and if she likes you, you ought to be glad of it. if she's willin' to come to your cabin, i'm willin' that she should go there--no matter who don't like it or why. she can look after herself--aye, better than i can look after her." she sighed. and then with some access of spirit, "you're different from most of the folks around here, but i don't see nothin' wrong with you. if you say you want to help beth, i'm willin' to believe you. but if i thought you meant her any harm----" she broke off and stared at him with her mild eyes under brows meant to be severe. "i hope you don't want to think that, mrs. bergen," said peter gently. "no. i don't want to. beth don't take up with every tom, dick and harry. and if she likes you, i reckon she knows what's she's about." "i want to help her to make something of herself," said peter calmly. "and i know i can. beth is a very unusual girl." "don't you suppose i know that? she always was. she ain't the same as the rest of us down here. she always wanted to learn. even now when she's through school, she's always readin'--always." "that's it. she ought to complete her education. that's what i mean. i want to help her to be a great singer. i can do it if you'll let me." "where's the money comin' from?" sighed mrs. bergen. "no need to bother about that, yet. i can give her a beginning, if you approve. after that----" peter paused a moment and then, "we'll see," he finished. he was somewhat amazed at the length to which his subconscious thought was carrying him, for his spoken words could infer nothing less than his undertaking at his own expense the completion of the girl's education. the housekeeper's exclamation quickly brought him to a recognition of his meaning. "you mean--that _you_----!" she halted and looked at him over her glasses in wonder. "yes," he said blandly, aware of an irrevocable step. "i do, mrs. bergen." "my land!" she exclaimed. and then again as though in echo, "my land!" "that's one of the reasons why i've come here to you to-day," he went on quickly. "i want to help beth and i want to help _you_. i know that everything isn't going right for you at black rock house. i've been drawn more deeply into--into mcguire's affairs than i expected to be and i've learned a great many things that aren't any business of mine. and one of the things i've learned is that your peace of mind and beth's happiness are threatened by the things that are happening around you." the housekeeper had risen and stood leaning against the dresser, immediately on her guard. "mrs. bergen," he went on firmly, "there's no use of trying to evade this issue--because it's here! i know more than you think i do. i'm trying to get at the root of this mystery because of beth. you told me the other night that beth's happiness was involved when that stranger came to the kitchen porch----" "no, no," gasped the woman. "don't ask me. i'll tell you nothin'." "you saw this man--outside the kitchen door in the dark," he insisted. "you talked with him----" "no--no. don't ask me, mr. nichols." "won't you tell me what he said? i saw him last night--talked with him for an hour----" "_you_--talked--with him!" she gasped in alarm. and then, haltingly, "what did he say to you? what did he do? is he coming back?" she was becoming more disturbed and nervous, so peter brought a chair and made her sit in it. "no. he's not coming back--not for a month or more," he replied reassuringly. "but if i'm to help you, i've got to know something more about him, and for beth's sake you've got to help me." and then quietly, "mrs. bergen, was this man who came to the kitchen door, ben cameron, beth's father?" "my god!" said the housekeeper faintly, putting her face in her hands. "won't you tell me just what happened?" peter asked. "i--i'm scared, mr. nichols," she groaned. "the whole thing has been too much for me--knowin' how scared mr. mcguire is too. i can't understand, i can't even--think--no more." "let me do your thinking for you. tell me what happened the other night, mrs. bergen." the woman raised a pallid face, her colorless eyes blinking up at him beseechingly. "tell me," he whispered. "it can do no possible harm." she glanced pitifully at him once more and then haltingly told her story. "i--i was sittin' in the kitchen there, the night of the supper party--by the door--restin' and tryin' to get cool--when--when a knock come on the door-jamb outside. it sounded queer--the door bein' open--an' my nerves bein' shook sorter with the goin's on here. but i went to the door an' leaned out. there was a man standin' in the shadow----" mrs. bergen paused in a renewed difficulty of breathing. "and then----?" peter urged. "he--he leaned forward toward me an' spoke rough-like. 'you're the cook, ain't you?' he says. i was that scared i--i couldn't say nothin'. an' he went on. 'you tell mcguire to meet me at the end of the lawn to-morrow night.'" "and what did you say?" "nothin'. i couldn't." "what else did he tell you?" mrs. bergen bent her head but went on with an effort. "he says, 'tell mcguire ben--ben cameron's come back.'" "i see. and you were more frightened than ever?" "yes. more frightened--terrible. i didn't know what to do. i mumbled somethin'. then you an' beth come in----" "and _was_ it ben cameron that you saw?" the poor creature raised her gaze to peter's again. "b-ben cameron? who else could it 'a' been? an' i thought he was dead, mr. nichols--years ago." "you didn't recognize him, then?" "i--i don't know. it was all so sudden--like seein' a corpse--speakin' that name." "he wore a short beard?" "yes. but ben cameron was smooth shaved." "did ben cameron have any distinguishing mark--anything you could remember him by?" "yes. ben cameron's little finger of his left hand was missin'----. but of course, mr. nichols, i couldn't see nothin' in the dark." "no, of course," said peter with a gasp of relief. "but his voice----?" "it was gruff--hoarse--whisperin'-like." "was the ben cameron you knew, your brother-in-law--was he tall?" she hesitated, her brows puckering. "that's what bothered me some. beth's father wasn't over tall----" "i see," peter broke in eagerly, "and this man was tall--about my size--with a hook nose--black eyes and----" "oh, i--i couldn't see his face," she muttered helplessly. "the night was too dark." "but you wouldn't swear it was ben cameron?" she looked up at him in a new bewilderment. "but who else could it 'a' been--sayin' that name--givin' that message?" peter rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "queer, isn't it? i don't wonder that you were alarmed--especially for beth, knowing the kind of man he was." "it's terrible, mr. nichols. a man like ben cameron never gets made over. he's bad clear through. if you only knew----" mrs. bergen's pale eyes seemed to be looking back into the past. "he means no good to beth--that's what frightens me. he could take her away from me. she's his daughter----" "well--don't worry," said peter at last. "we'll find a way to protect you." and then, "of course you didn't take that message to mcguire?" he asked. "why, no--mr. nichols. i couldn't. i'd 'a' died first. but what does it all mean? _him_ bein' scared of ben cameron, too. i can't make it out--though i've thought and thought until i couldn't think no more." she was on the point of tears now, so peter soothed her gently. "leave this to me, mrs. bergen." and then, "you haven't said anything of this to any one?" "not a soul--i--i was hopin' it might 'a' been just a dream." peter was silent for a moment, gazing out of the window and thinking deeply. "no. it wasn't a dream," he said quietly at last. "you saw a man by the kitchen door, and he gave you the message about ben cameron, _but the man you saw wasn't ben cameron_, mrs. bergen, because, unless i'm very much mistaken, ben cameron is dead----" "how do you----?" "he didn't die when you thought he did, mrs. bergen--but later. i can't tell you how. it's only a guess. but i'm beginning to see a light in this affair--and i'm going to follow it until i find the truth. good-by. don't worry." and peter, with a last pat on the woman's shoulder and an encouraging smile, went out of the door and into the house. eagerly peter's imagination was trying to fill the gap in jim coast's story, and his mind, now intent upon the solution of the mystery, groped before him up the stair. and what it saw was the burning gila desert ... the mine among the rocks--"lousy" with outcroppings of ore ... "mike" mcguire and "hawk" kennedy, devious in their ways, partners in a vile conspiracy.... but peter's demeanor was careless when stryker admitted him to mcguire's room and his greeting in reply to mcguire's was casual enough to put his employer off his guard. after a moment's hesitation mcguire sent the valet out and went himself and closed and locked the door. peter refused his cigar, lighting one of his own cigarettes, and sank into the chair his host indicated. after the first words peter knew that his surmise had been correct and that his employer meant to deny all share in the shooting of the night before. "well," began the old man, with a glance at the door, "what did he say?" peter shook his head judicially. he had already decided on the direction which this conversation must take. "no. it won't do, mr. mcguire," he said calmly. "what do you mean?" "merely that before we talk of what hawk kennedy said to me, we'll discuss your reasons for unnecessarily putting my life in danger----" "this shooting you've spoken of----" "this attempted _murder_!" "you're dreaming." peter laughed at him. "you'll be telling me in a moment that you didn't hear the shots." and then, leaning forward so that he stared deep into his employer's eyes, "see here, mr. mcguire, i'm not to be trifled with. i know too much of your affairs--more than you think i do----" "he talked----?" mcguire's poise was slipping from him. "one moment, if you please. i want this thing perfectly understood. your arrangements were cleverly made--changing the guards--your instructions to me--the flashlight and all the rest. you didn't want to kill me if you could help it. i'm obliged for this consideration. you forgot that your hand isn't as steady now as it was when you were a dead shot out in arizona--ah! i see that you already understand what i mean." mcguire had started forward in his chair, his face livid. "you know----?" "yes. more than i wanted to know--more than i would ever have known if you'd played fair with me. you cared nothing for my life. you shot, twice, missed killing your man and then when the light went out, sneaked away like the coward that you are----" "d----n you," croaked mcguire feebly, falling back in his chair. "leaving me to the mercies of your ancient enemy in the dark--who thought _me_ your accomplice. you can hardly blame him under the circumstances. but i got the best of him--luckily for me, and disarmed him. if you had remained a few moments longer you might have taken part in our very interesting conversation. do you still deny all this?" mcguire, stifled with his fear and fury, was incapable of a reply. "very good. so long as we understand each other thus far, perhaps you will permit me to go on. as you know, i came to you in good faith. i wanted to help you in any way that a gentleman could do. last night you tricked me, and put my life in danger. if you had killed kennedy everything would have been all right for _you_. and i would have been accused of the killing. if _i_ had been killed no harm would have been done at all. that was your idea. it was a clever little scheme. pity it didn't work out." mcguire's faltering courage was coming back. "go on!" he muttered desperately. "thanks," said peter, "i will. one shot of yours scraped kennedy's shoulder. he was bleeding badly, so i took him to the cabin and fixed him up. he was rather grateful. he ought to have been. i gave him a drink too--several drinks. you said he wouldn't talk, but he did." "you _made_ him talk, d----n you," mcguire broke in hoarsely. "no. he volunteered to talk. i may say, he insisted upon it. you see, i happened to have the gentleman's acquaintance----" "you----!" "we met on the steamer coming over when we were escaping from russia. his name was jim coast then. he was a waiter in the dining saloon. so was i. funny, isn't it?" to mcguire it seemed far from that, for at this revelation his jaw dropped and he stared at peter as though the entire affair were beyond his comprehension. "you knew him! a waiter, _you_!" "yes. misfortune makes strange bedfellows. it was either that or starvation. i preferred to wait." "for--for the love of god--go on," growled mcguire. his hands were clutching the chair arm and there was madness in his shifting eyes, so peter watched him keenly. "i will. he told me how you and he had worked together out in colorado, up in the san luis valley, of the gold prospect near wagon wheel gap, of its failure--how you met again in pueblo and then went down into the copper country--bisbee, arizona." peter had no pity now. he saw mcguire straighten again in his chair, his gaze shifting past peter from left to right like a trapped animal. his fingers groped along the chair arms, along the table edge, trembling, eager but uncertain. but the sound of peter's narrative seemed to fascinate--to hypnotize him. "go on----!" he whispered hoarsely. "go on!" "you got an outfit and went out into the gila desert," continued peter, painting his picture leisurely, deliberately. "it was horrible--the heat, the sand, the rocks--but you weren't going to fail this time. there was going to be something at the end of this terrible pilgrimage to repay you for all that you suffered, you and hawk kennedy. there was no water, but what you carried on your pack-mules--no water within a hundred miles, nothing but sand and rocks and the heat. no chance at all for a man, alone without a horse, in that desert. you saw the bones of men and animals bleaching along the trail. that was the death that awaited any man----" "you lie!" peter sprang for the tortured man as mcguire's fingers closed on something in the open drawer of the table, but peter twisted the weapon quickly out of his hand and threw it in the corner of the room. "you fool," he whispered quickly as he pinioned mcguire in his chair, "do you want to add another murder to what's on your conscience?" but mcguire had already ceased to resist him. peter hadn't been too gentle with him. the man had collapsed. a glance at his face showed his condition. so peter poured out a glass of whisky and water which he poured between his employer's gaping lips. then he waited, watching the old man. he seemed really old now to peter, a hundred at least, for his sagging facial muscles seemed to reveal the lines of every event in his life--an old man, though scarcely sixty, yet broken and helpless. he came around slowly, his heavy gaze slowly seeking peter's. "what--what are you going to do?" he managed at last. "nothing. i'm no blackmailer." and then, playing his high card, "i've heard what hawk said about ben cameron," said peter. "now tell me the truth." at the sound of the name mcguire started and then his eyes closed for a moment. "you know--everything," he muttered. "yes, _his_ side," peter lied. "what's yours?" mcguire managed to haul himself upright in his chair, staring up at peter with bloodshot eyes. "he's lied to you, if he said i done it----," he gasped, relapsing into the vernacular of an earlier day. "it was hawk. he stabbed him in the back. i never touched him. i never had a thing to do with the killin'. i swear it----" peter's lips set in a thin line. "so hawk kennedy killed ben cameron!" he said. "he did. i swear to god----" "and then _you_ cleared out with all the water, leaving hawk to die. _that_ was murder--cold-blooded murder----" "my god, don't, nichols!" the old man moaned. "if you only knew----" "well, then--tell me the truth." their glances met. peter's was compelling. he had, when he chose, an air of command. and there was something else in peter's look, inflexible as it was, that gave mcguire courage, an unalterable honesty which had been so far tried and not found wanting. "you know--already," he stammered. "tell me your story," said peter bluntly. there was a long moment of hesitation, and then, "get me a drink, nichols. i'll trust you. i've never told it to a living man. i'll tell--i'll tell it all. it may not be as bad as you think." he drank the liquor at a gulp and set the glass down on the table beside him. "this--this thing has been hanging over me for fifteen years, nichols--fifteen years. it's weighted me down, made an old man of me before my time. maybe it will help me to tell somebody. it's made me hard--silent, busy with my own affairs, bitter against every man who could hold his head up. i knew it was going to come some day. i knew it. you can't pull anything like that and get away with it forever. i'd made the money for my kids--i never had any fun spending it in my life. i'm a lonely man, nichols. i always was. no happiness except when i came back to my daughters--to peggy and my poor marjorie...." mcguire was silent for a moment and peter, not taking his gaze from his face, patiently waited. mcguire glanced at him just once and then went on, slipping back from time to time into the speech of a bygone day. "i never knew what his first name was. he was always just 'hawk' to us boys on the range. hawk kennedy was a bad lot. i knew it up there in the san luis valley but i wasn't no angel from heaven myself. and he had a way with him. we got on all right together. but when the gold mine up at the gap petered out he quit me--got beaten up in a fight about a woman. i didn't see him for some years, when he showed up in pueblo, where i was workin' in a smelter. he was all for goin' south into the copper country. he had some money--busted a faro bank he said, and talked big about the fortune he was goin' to make. ah, he could talk, when he had something on his mind.... i had some money saved up too and so i quit my job and went with him down to bisbee, arizona. i wish to god i never had. i'd gotten pretty well straightened out up in pueblo, sendin' money east to the wife and all----. but i wanted to be rich. i was forty-five and i had to hurry. but i could do it yet. maybe this was my chance. that's the way i thought. that's why i happened to listen to hawk kennedy and his tales of the copper country. "well, we got an outfit in bisbee and set out along the mexican border. we had a tip that let us out into the desert. it was just a tip, that's all. but it was worth following up. it was about this man ben cameron. he'd come into town all alone, get supplies and then go out again next day. he let slip something over the drink one night. that was the tip we were followin' up. we struck his trail all right--askin' questions of greasers and indians. we knew he'd found somethin' good or he wouldn't have been so quiet about it. "i swear to god, i had no idea of harmin' him. i wanted to find what ben cameron had found, stake out near him and get what i could. maybe hawk kennedy had a different idea even then. i don't know. he never said what he was thinkin' about. "we found ben cameron. perched up in a hill of rocks, he was, livin' in the hole he'd dug where he'd staked his claim. but we knew he hadn't taken out any papers. he never thought anybody'd find him out there in that hell-hole. it was hell all right. even now whenever i think of what hell must be i think of what that gulch looked like. just rocks and alkali dust and heat. "it all comes back to me. every little thing that was said and done--every word. ben cameron saw us first--and when we came up, he was sittin' on a rock, his rifle acrost his knees, a hairy man, thin, burnt-out, black as a greaser. hawk kennedy passed the time of day, but ben cameron only cursed at him and waved us off. 'get the hell out of here,' he says--ugly. but we only laughed at him--for didn't we both see the kind of an egg ben cameron was settin' on? "'don't be pokin' jokes at the gila desert, my little man,' say hawk, polite as you please. 'it's hell that's here and here it will remain.' and then we said we were short of water--which we were not--and had he any to spare? but he waved us on with his rifle, never sayin' a word. so we moved down the gulch a quarter of a mile and went into camp. there was ore here, too, but nothin' like what ben cameron had. "hawk was quiet that night--creepin' about among the rocks, but he didn't say what was on his mind. in the mornin' he started off to talk to ben cameron an' i went with him. the man was still sittin' on his rock, with the rifle over his knees--been there all night, i reckon. but he let us come to hailin' distance. "'nice claim you got there, pardner,' says hawk. "'is it?' says he. "'ain't you afraid of rubbin' some o' that verdigris off onto your pants,' says hawk. "'they're my pants,' says cameron. 'you ain't here for any good. get out!' and he brings his rifle to his hip. we saw he was scared all right, maybe not so much at what we'd do to him as at sharin' what he'd found. "'the gila desert ain't _all_ yours, is it, pardner? or maybe you got a mortgage on the earth!' says hawk, very polite. 'you ain't got no objection to our stakin' alongside of you, have you? come along, now. let's be neighbors. we see what you've got. that's all right. we'll take your leavin's. we've got a right to them.' "and so after a while of palaverin' with him, he lets us come up and look over his claim. it didn't take any eye at all to see what he'd got. he wasn't much of a man--ben cameron--weak-eyed, rum-dum--poor too. you could see that by his outfit--worse off than we were. hawk told him we had a lot of friends with money--big money in the east. maybe we could work it to run a railroad out to tap the whole ridge. that kind of got him and we found he had no friends in this part of the country--so we sat down to grub together, ben cameron, like me, unsuspectin' of what was to happen. "my god, nichols, i can see it all like it had happened yesterday. hawk kennedy stood up as though to look around and then before i knew what he was about had struck ben cameron in the back with his knife. "it was all over in a minute. ben cameron reached for his gun but before his hand got to it he toppled over sideways and lay quiet. "i started up to my feet but hawk had me covered and i knew from what had happened that he'd shoot, too. "'don't make a fuss,' he says. 'give me your gun.' i knew he had me to rights and i did what he said. 'now,' he says, 'it's yours and mine.'" mcguire made a motion toward the glass. peter filled it for him and he drank. "and then--what happened?" asked peter quietly. "hawk kennedy had me dead to rights. there was only one thing to do--to make believe i was 'with him.' we buried ben cameron, then went down and brought our outfit up, hawk watchin' me all the while. he'd taken my gun and ben cameron's and unloaded them and carried all the ammunition about him. but i didn't know what i was in for. that night he made me sit down while he drew up a paper, torn from an old note book of ben cameron's--a partnership agreement, a contract." mcguire broke off suddenly and got up, moving nervously to the safe, from one of the drawers of which he took a blue linen envelope and brought forth a paper which he handed to peter. "that's the hellish thing, nichols," he said hoarsely. "that's why i'm afraid of hawk kennedy. a lie that he forced me to sign! and there's another paper like this in his possession. read it, nichols." peter took the paper in his fingers and looked at it curiously. it was soiled and worn, broken at the edges, written over in lead pencil, but still perfectly legible. agreement between hawk kennedy and mike mcguire us two found ben cameron on his copper claim in madre gulch. we killed him. both of us had a hand in it. this mine is hawk kennedy's and mike mcguire's and we are pardners in the same until death us do part, so help us god. (signed) mike mcguire. hawk kennedy. "he wanted it on me----" mcguire gasped. "you see? to keep me quiet." "i understand," said peter. "this is 'what you've got and what i've got' referred to in the placard." "yes," said mcguire. "a partnership agreement and a confession--of something i didn't do." peter's eyes were searching him through and through. "you swear it?" mcguire held up his right hand and met peter's gaze without flinching. "before god, i do." peter was silent for a moment, thinking. "and then, you left hawk kennedy there to die," he said slowly, watching the man. mcguire sank into his chair with a sigh, the perspiration now beaded on his pale forehead. "i didn't know what to do, i tell you," he almost whispered. "he had me. i was unarmed. i'd 'a' killed him if i'd had a gun. but i waited a few days after we buried cameron--makin' believe i was satisfied with everything and he believed me, and at last he fell asleep tired with keepin' watch on me. he was all in. i bored holes in ben cameron's barrels, lettin' the water out down the rocks, then took the three horses and the mules with all the water that was left and got away before he woke up. "it was a terrible thing to do, nichols--call it murder if you like. but it served him right. it was comin' to him--and i got away with it. at first when i reached water i had a thought of goin' back--to save him before he died--to get that paper i couldn't get that was inside his shirt." mcguire leaned forward, his face in his hands for a moment, trying to finish. "but i didn't go back, nichols. i didn't go back. that's the crime i'm payin' for now--not the other--not the murder of ben cameron--i didn't do that--the murder of hawk kennedy--who has come back." "what happened then?" "i turned ben cameron's horse and burros loose where there was water and grass and went on to bisbee. i told them my buddy had died of a fever. i thought he had by now. they didn't ask any questions. i was safe. the rest was easy. i filed a claim, found some real money and told what i'd found. i waited a month, then went back to madre gulch with bill munroe, the fellow that helped stake us. there was no one there. we searched the rocks and plains for miles around for signs of hawk kennedy's body, for we knew he couldn't have got far in that heat without water. but we found nothin'. hawk kennedy had disappeared." "then," said peter, "you built a railroad in and sold out for half a million dollars----?" mcguire looked up, mystified. "or thereabouts," he muttered. "but hawk kennedy was alive. i found that out later when he wrote from london. we steered him off the track. but i knew he'd come back some day with that paper i'd signed. that's what's been hangin' over me. an' now it's fallen. i've told you the truth. i had to. you believe me, don't you?" he asked appealingly. peter had watched him keenly. there seemed little doubt that what he told was the truth. there was no flaw in the tale. "yes," he said after a pause. "i believe you've told me the truth. but you can hardly blame hawk kennedy, murderer though he is, for hating you and wanting what he thinks is his." "no. that's true." "and you can't blame me for being angry at the trick you played me----" "i was desperate. i've been desperate since i saw him in new york. sometimes i've been a bit queer, i reckon--thinkin' about peggy hearin' this. i wanted to kill him. it was a good chance last night. nobody would have blamed me, after his being around the place. it was an easy shot--but my hand wasn't steady----" "pity you didn't know that before you put me in danger." "i'm sorry, nichols--sorry. i'll do anything you like. what do you want me to do?" instead of replying at once peter took out a cigarette and lighted it carefully. and then, "you've never taken the trouble to make any inquiries as to the whereabouts of the family of ben cameron?" he asked. the old man shook his head. "why not?" "i was afraid to ask." "i see. don't you think it's about time you did? it's _his_ money that made your fortune." "he was no good. nobody knew him. so far as i ever heard, nobody ever asked about him." "nevertheless he must have had some friends somewhere." "maybe. i don't know. i'm willing to help them if i can, providing this thing can be kept quiet." and then, pleadingly, "you're not going to talk--to use it against me, nichols?" peter's pity for mcguire had come back. the man's terror, his desperation of the past weeks had burned him out, worn him to a shell. "no, i'm not going to talk. hawk kennedy didn't dare tell what you've told me. that's why i believe you." "and you'll stay on here and help me?" "yes----we'll see how we can balk hawk kennedy." "i'll pay him fifty thousand--a hundred thousand--for that agreement----" "not a dollar. i've got a better use for your money than that." mcguire thought peter referred to the necessary improvements of the estate. but peter had another idea in mind. chapter xiii the chase peter had discovered the means of providing for beth's musical education. upon inquiry he had found that mcguire hardly knew beth except as a dependent relative of mrs. bergen, who came in sometimes to help her aunt with the cleaning--usually before mcguire came down from new york. their little home was not on his visiting list. he delayed telling mcguire. there was plenty of time and there was no doubt of his employer's doing the right thing by the daughter of the murdered man. meanwhile, having completed his plans for the estate, he had suggested that mcguire go off for a trip somewhere to rest and recover his poise. peter had promised his allegiance to mcguire when hawk kennedy returned, but he knew that he would have to fight fire with fire. for hawk had proved himself both skillful and dangerous, and would struggle desperately to get what he thought was his own. it was his last chance to make a big stake--to be independent for the rest of his life. he was tasting luxury now and wouldn't give up without a fight to the death. something must be thought of--some plan to outwit him, to circumvent the schemes which would come out of his visit of investigation to the copper country. peter had said nothing to beth or to mrs. cameron of what he had discovered. he was under no oath of secrecy to the old man, but he realized that while hawk kennedy held the "confession" mcguire was in a predicament which would only be made more difficult if the facts got abroad. and so peter had gone about his work silently, aware that the burden of mcguire's troubles had been suddenly shifted to his own shoulders. he spent most of his days at the lumber camp and now had every detail of the business at his fingers' ends. timbers had been hauled to the appointed sites and under his direction the fire towers were now half way to completion. he had found shad wells down at the mills, morose, sullen and disposed to question his authority, but mcguire had visited the bunk-house one night before he went away, and it was soon discovered that peter and no other was the boss of the job. peter for reasons of his own retained shad, much to that gentleman's surprise, as foreman of the lumbering gang, but peter wasn't at all satisfied with conditions as he had found them at the lumber camp and mills and, as he discovered later, the continuance of shad in the foreman's job was a mistake. if peter had hoped by this act of conciliation to heal shad's wounds and bring about a spirit of useful coöperation with the man, he soon found that the very reverse of this had been accomplished. the lumbermen were an unregenerate lot, some of them "pineys," a few italians, but most of them the refuse of the factories and shipyards, spoiled by the fatal "cost plus" contracts of war time. all of these facts peter learned slowly, aware of an undercurrent moving against him and yet entirely dependent upon this labor--which was the best, indeed the only labor, to be had. he made some improvements in the bunk-house for their comfort, increased the supply of food and posted notices that all complaints of whatever nature would be promptly investigated. but day after day new stories came to him of shirking, of dissatisfaction and continued trouble-making. this labor trouble was no new thing at black rock, and had existed practically since the beginning of the work on the lumber contract six months before peter had been employed. but it was not long before peter discovered through jesse brown, whose confidence he had gained, that there were agitators in the camp, undoubtedly receiving their inspiration and pay from sources inimical to all capital in the abstract and to all order and decency at black rock in the concrete, who were fomenting the unrest and dissatisfaction among the men. in order to investigate the difficulties personally peter went down to the camp and lived there for a time, bunking with the men and listening to their stories, winning some of them to his side and tracing as far as he could the troubles to their sources, two men named flynn and jacobi. he discharged these two men and sent them out of the camp over wells's protest. but even then he had a sense of failure. the trouble was deeper than was manifest upon the surface. no mere raise in wages would clear it away. it was born of the world's sickness, with which the men from the cities had been inoculated. one night while he sat in the bunk-house smoking a pipe and talking with jesse brown, shad wells suddenly appeared in the doorway, framed against the darkness. shad's gaze and peter's met--then peter's glance turned to shad's companion. as this man saw peter he turned his head and went down the length of the bunk-house. peter got up at once, followed him and faced him. the man now wore a dark beard, but there was no mistake. it was the fellow of the black mustache--the stranger whom peter had seen in the pennsylvania station in new york, the same man he had caught prowling some weeks ago around his cabin in the darkness. peter stared at him for a moment but the man would not meet his gaze. "who are you?" asked peter at last. and then, as he made no reply, "what were you doing prowling around my cabin up by the creek?" the stranger shook his head from side to side. "no understan'," he muttered. at this point, shad wells, who had followed with jesse brown, came in between them. "that's right, nichols," he growled. "no understan'--he's a 'guinea.'" to wells all men were "guineas" who didn't speak his own language. "italian? are you? french? spanish? slovak?" each time the man shook his head. and then, with an inspiration, peter shot at him a quick phrase in russian. but the man gave no sign of comprehension. "who put this man on?" asked peter, turning to wells. "i did," said the native sullenly. "why?" said peter, growing warmer. "didn't i tell you that in future i would hire all the men myself?" "we're short-handed, since you fired two of the best axmen we got----" "you disobeyed orders----" "_orders_--hell!" "all right. we'll see who's running this camp, you or me. to-morrow morning jesse brown starts as foreman here. understand?" shad's eyes shot fire, then smoldered and went out as he turned with a sneering laugh and walked away. "as for you," said peter to the stranger, who stood uncertainly, "you go to the office in the morning and get your envelope." then repeated the sentence in russian. "if you don't understand--find somebody who does." that the stranger had understood peter's demeanor if not his language was evident, for in the morning he had vanished. after that clearing of the air things went somewhat better at the camp. jesse brown, though not aggressive, was steady and honest and had a certain weight with the jerseymen. as to the others, there was doubt as to whether anything would have satisfied them. for the present, at least, it was a question of getting on as well as possible with the means at hand. there was a limit to peter's weekly pay roll and other men were not to be had. besides, peter had promised mcguire to keep the sawmills busy. he knew that when he had come to black rock the work on the lumber contract had already fallen behind the schedule, and that only by the greatest perseverance could he make up the time already lost. as he rode back to his cabin on the afternoon after his encounter with shad wells and the stranger with the black mustache, he found himself quite satisfied with regard to his summary dismissal of them both. on beth's account he had hesitated to depose shad. he knew that before he had come to black rock they had been friends as well as distant relatives, and beth in her frequent meetings with peter had expressed the hope that shad would "come around." peter had given him every chance, even while he had known that the jerseyman was working against both mcguire's and peter's interests. flynn and jacobi, the men peter had sent away, were radicals and agitators. flynn had a police record that did not bear close inspection, and jacobi was an anarchist out and out. before peter had come to black rock they had abused shad's credulity and after the fight at the cabin, he had been their willing tool in interrupting the completion of the contract. for of course shad had hoped that if peter couldn't get the lumber out when promised, mcguire would put the blame on the new superintendent and let him go. that was shad's idea. if he had ever been decent enough to warrant beth's friendship, his jealousy had warped his judgment. peter was no longer sorry for shad wells. he had brought all his troubles on himself. as to the stranger with the black mustache, that was a more serious matter. every circumstance--the recognition in new york, the skill with which the man had traced him to black rock, the craft with which he had watched peter and his success in finally getting into the camp and gaining shad's confidence, made a certainty in peter's mind that the stranger had some object in remaining near peter and keeping him under observation. and what other object than a political one? the trail he had followed had begun with the look of recognition in the pennsylvania station in new york. and where could that look of recognition have sprung from unless he had identified peter nichols as the grand duke peter nicholaevitch? it seemed incredible, but there could be no other explanation. the man had seen him somewhere--perhaps in russia--perhaps in paris or london, or perhaps had only identified him by his portraits which had been published frequently in the continental magazines and newspapers. but that he had really identified him there could not be the slightest doubt and peter's hope that he would have been able to lose his identity in the continent of america and become merged into a different civilization where he could work out the personal problem of existence in his own time, by his own efforts and in his own way, seemed destined to failure. if the stranger knew that peter was in new jersey there was no doubt that there were others who knew it also, those who employed him--those in whose interests he was working. who? the same madmen who had done nicholas to death and had killed one by one the misguided empress, olga, tania, the poor little czarevitch and the rest.... did they consider him, peter nichols, lumber-jack extraordinary, as a possible future claimant to the throne of russia? peter smiled grimly. they were "straining at a gnat while swallowing the camel." and if they feared him, why didn't they strike? the stranger had already had ample opportunity to murder him if he had been so disposed, could still do it during peter's daily rides back and forth from the cabin to the camp and to the upper reserve. all of these thoughts percolated slowly, as a result of the sudden inspiration at the bunk-house which had liberated a new train of ideas, beginning with the identification of the russian characteristics of the new lumberman, which were more clearly defined under the beard and workman's shirt than under the rather modish gray slouch hat and american clothing in which peter had seen him earlier. and peter had merely let the man go. he had no proof of the fellow's purposes, and if he had even discovered exactly what those purposes were, there was no recourse for peter but to ask for the protection of washington, and this he had no desire to do. if the man suspected from the quickly spoken russian sentence that peter now guessed his mission, he had given no sign of it. but that meant nothing. the fellow was clever. he was doubtless awaiting instructions. and unless peter took his case to the department of justice he could neither expect any protection nor hope for any security other than his own alertness. at the cabin beth was waiting for him. these hours of music and beth were now as much a part of peter's day as his breakfast or his dinner. and he had only failed her when the pressure of his responsibilities was too great to permit of his return to the cabin. the hour most convenient for him was that at the close of the day, and though weary or discouraged, peter always came to the end of this agreeable hour rested and refreshed, and with a sense of something definitely achieved. for whatever the days brought forth of trouble and disappointment, down at the logging camp or the mills, here was beth waiting for him, full of enthusiasm and self-confidence, a tangible evidence of success. the diligence with which she applied his instructions, the ease with which she advanced from one step to another, showed her endowed with an intelligence even beyond his early expectations. she was singing simple ballads now, english and french, and already evinced a sense of interpretation which showed the dormant artist. he tried at first, of course, to eliminate all striving for effect, content to gain the purity of tone for which he was striving, but she soared beyond him sometimes, her soul defying limitations, liberated into an empyrean of song. if anything, she advanced too rapidly, and peter's greatest task was to restrain her optimism and self-confidence by imposing the drudgery of fundamental principles. and when he found that she was practicing too long, he set her limits of half-hour periods beyond which she must not go. but she was young and strong and only once had he noted the slightest symptom of wear and tear on her vocal chords, when he had closed the piano and prohibited the home work for forty-eight hours. as to their personal relations, peter had already noticed a difference in his own conduct toward beth, and in hers toward him,--a shade of restraint in beth's conversation when not on the topic of music, which contrasted rather strangely with the candor of their first meetings. peter couldn't help smiling at his memories, for now beth seemed to be upon her good behavior, repaying him for her earlier contempt with a kind of awe at his attainments. he caught her sometimes in unguarded moments looking at him curiously, as though in wonder at a mystery which could not be explained. and to tell the truth, peter wondered a little, too, at his complete absorption in the task he had set himself. he tried to believe that it was only the music that impelled him, only the joy of an accomplished musician in the discovery of a budding artist, but he knew that it was something more than these. for reducing the theorem to different terms, he was obliged to confess that if the girl had been any one but beth, no matter how promising her voice, he must have been bored to extinction. no. he had to admit that it was beth that interested him, beth the primitive, beth the mettlesome, beth the demure. for if now demure she was never dull. the peculiarity of their situation--of their own choosing--lent a spice to the relationship which made each of them aware that the other was young and desirable--and that the world was very far away. however far beth's thoughts may have carried her in the contemplation of the personal pulchritude of her music master (somewhat enhanced by the extirpation of the hellion triplet in her own behalf) it was peter nicholaevitch who made the task of peter nichols difficult. it was the grand duke peter who wanted to take this peasant woman in his arms and teach her what other peasant girls had been taught by grand dukes since the beginning of the autocratic system of which he had been a part--but it was peter nichols who restrained him. peter nicholaevitch feared nothing, knew no restraint, lived only for the hour--for the moment. peter nichols was a coward--or a gentleman--he was not quite certain which. when peter entered the cabin on the evening after the appointment of jesse brown as foreman at the lumber camp, beth could not help noticing the clouds of worry that hung over peter's brows. "you're tired," she said. "is anything wrong at the camp?" but he only shook his head and sat down at the piano. and when she questioned him again he evaded her and went on with the lesson. music always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. it was the "elégie" of massenet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the french--like a parrot--written them out phonetically, because the french words were beautiful and the english, as written, abominable. and now she sang it to him softly, as he had taught her, again and again, while he corrected her phrasing, suggesting subtle meanings in his accompaniment which she was not slow to comprehend. "i didn't know that music could mean so much," she sighed as she sank into a chair with a sense of failure, when the lesson was ended. "i always thought that music just meant happiness. but it means sorrow too." "not to those who hear you sing, beth," said peter with a smile, as he lighted and smoked a corncob pipe, a new vice he had discovered at the camp. already the clouds were gone from his forehead. "no! do you really think that, mr. nichols?" she asked joyously. she had never been persuaded to call him by his christian name, though peter would have liked it. the "mr." was the tribute of pupil to master, born also of a subtler instinct of which peter was aware. "yes," he replied generously, "you'll sing that very well in time----" "when i've suffered?" she asked quickly. he glanced up from the music in his hand, surprised at her intuition. "i don't like to tell you so----" "but i think i understand. nobody can sing what she doesn't feel--what she hasn't felt. oh, i know," she broke off suddenly. "i can sing songs of the woods--the water--the pretty things like you've been givin' me. but the deep things--sorrow, pain, regret--like this--i'm not 'up' to them." peter sat beside her, puffing contentedly. "don't worry," he muttered. "your voice will ripen." "and will i ripen too?" he laughed. "i don't want you ever to be any different from what you are." she was thoughtful a moment, for peter had always taken pains to be sparing in personalities which had nothing to do with her voice. "but i don't want always to be what i am," she protested, "just growin' close to the ground like a pumpkin or a squash." he laughed. "you might do worse." "but not much. oh, i know. you're teachin' me to think--and to feel--so that i can make other people do the same--the way you've done to me. but it don't make me any too happy to think of bein' a--a squash again." "perhaps you won't have to be," said peter quietly. "and the factory--i've got to make some money next winter. i can't use any of aunt tillie's savin's. but when i know what i _might_ be doin', it's not any too easy to think of goin' back _there_!" "perhaps you won't have to go," said peter again. her eyes glanced at him quickly, looked away, then returned to his face curiously. "i don't just understand what you mean." "i mean," said peter, "that we'll try to find the means to keep you out of the glass factory--to keep on with the music." "but how----? i can't be dependent on----" she paused with a glance at him. and then quickly, with her characteristic frankness that always probed straight to her point, "you mean that _you_ will pay my way?" "merely that i'm going to find the money--somehow." but she shook her head violently. "oh, no, i couldn't let you do that, mr. nichols. i couldn't think of it." "but you've got to go on, beth. i've made up my mind to that. you'll go pretty fast. it won't be long before you'll know all that i can teach you. and then i'm going to put you under the best teacher of this method in new york. in a year or so you'll be earning your own way----" "but i can't let you do this for me. you're doin' too much as it is--too much that i can't pay back." "we won't talk of money. you've given me a lot of enjoyment. that's my pay." "but this other--this studyin' in new york. no, i couldn't let you do that. i couldn't--i can't take a cent from you or from any man--woman either, for that matter. i'll find some way--workin' nights. but i'm not goin' back," she added almost fiercely between her teeth, "not to the way i was before. i won't. i can't." "good. that's the way great careers are made. i don't intend that you shall. i'm going to make a great singer of you, beth." she colored with joy. "are you, mr. nichols? are you? oh, i want to make good--indeed i do--to learn french and italian----" and then, with a sharp sigh, "o lord, if wishes were horses----!" she was silent again, regarding him wistfully. "don't think i'm not grateful. i'm afraid you might. i _am_ grateful. but--sometimes i wonder what you're doin' it all for, mr. nichols. and whether----" as she paused again peter finished for her. "whether it wouldn't have been better if i hadn't let you just remain--er," he grinned, "a peach, let's say? well, i'll tell you, beth," he went on, laying his pipe aside, "i came here, without a friend, to a strange job in a strange country. i found you. or rather _you_ found _me_--lost like a babe in the woods. you made fun of me. nobody had ever done that before in my life, but i rather liked it. i liked your voice too. you were worth helping, you see. and then along came shad. i couldn't have him ordering you about, you know--not the way he did it--if he hadn't any claim on you. so you see, i had a sense of responsibility for you after that----about you, too----," he added, as though thinking aloud. his words trailed off into silence while beth waited for him to explain about his sense of responsibility. she wasn't altogether accustomed to have anybody responsible for her. but as he didn't go on, she spoke. "you mean that you--that i--that shad forced me on you?" "bless your heart, child--no." "then what _did_ you mean?" she insisted. peter thought he had a definite idea in his mind about what he felt as to their relationship. it was altruistic he knew, gentle he was sure, educational he was positive. but half sleepily he spoke, unaware that what he said might sound differently to one of beth's independent mind. "i mean," he said, "that i wanted to look after you--that i wanted our friendship to be what it has proved to be--without the flaw of sentiment. i wouldn't spoil a single hour by any thought of yours or mine that led us away from the music." and then, while her brain worked rapidly over this calm negation of his, "but you can't be unaware, beth, that you're very lovely." now "sentiment" is a word over which woman has a monopoly. it is her property. she understands its many uses as no mere man can ever hope to do. the man who tosses it carelessly into the midst of a delicate situation is courting trouble. beth perked up her head like a startled fawn. what did he mean? all that was feminine in her was up in arms, nor did she lay them down in surrender at his last phrase, spoken with such an unflattering air of commonplace. suddenly she startled peter with a rippling laugh which made him sit up blinking at her. "are you apologizin' for not makin' love to me?" she questioned impertinently. "say--that's funny." and she went off into another disconcerting peal of laughter. but it wasn't funny for peter, who was now made aware that she had turned his mind inside out upon the table between them, so to speak, that she might throw dust in the wheels. and so he only gasped and stared at her--startlingly convinced that in matters of sentiment the cleverest man is no match for even the dullest woman and beth could hardly be considered in this category. at the challenge of his half expressed thought the demureness and sobriety of the lesson hour had fallen from her like a doffed cloak. peter protested blandly. "you don't understand what----" but she broke in swiftly. "maybe you were afraid i might be fallin' in love with _you_," she twitted him, and burst into laughter again. "i--i had no such expectation," said peter, stiffening, sure that his dignity was a poor thing. "or maybe----," she went on joyfully, "maybe you were afraid _you_ might be fallin' in love with _me_." and then as she rose and gathered up her music, tantalizingly, "what _did_ you mean, mr. nichols?" he saw that he was losing ground with every word she uttered, but his sense of humor conquered. "you little pixie!" he cried, dashing for her, with a laugh. "where have you hidden this streak of impudence all these weeks?" but she eluded him nimbly, running around the table and out of the door before he could catch up with her. he halted at the doorsill and called to her. she emerged cautiously from behind a bush and made a face at him. "beth! come back!" he entreated. "i've got something to say to you." "what?" she asked, temporizing. "i want to talk to you--seriously." "good lord--seriously! you're not goin' to--to take the risk of--of havin' me 'vamp' you, are you?" "yes. i'll risk that," he grinned. but she only broke off a leaf and nibbled at it contemplatively. "maybe _i_ won't risk it. 'i don't want to spoil a single hour,'" she repeated, mocking his dignity, 'by any thought of yours or mine that would lead us away from the music.' maybe _i'm_ in danger." and then, "you know _you're_ not so bad lookin' yourself, mr. nichols!" "stop teasing, beth." "i won't." "i'll make you." he moved a step toward her. "maybe i hadn't better come any more," she said quizzically. "beth!" "suppose i _was_ learnin' to love you a little," she went on ironically, "with you scared i might be--and not knowin' how to get out of it. wouldn't that be terrible! for me, i mean. 'she loved and lost, in seven reels.'" she was treading on precarious ground, and she must have seen her danger in peter's face, for as he came toward her she turned and ran down the path, laughing at him. peter followed in full stride but she ran like a deer and by the time he had reached the creek she was already halfway over the log-jam below the pool. her laugh still derided him and now, eager to punish her, he leaped after her. but so intent he was on keeping her in sight upon the farther bank that his foot slipped on a tree trunk and he went into the water. a gay peal of laughter echoed in his ears. and he caught a last glimpse of her light frock as it vanished into the underbrush. but he scrambled up the bank after her and darted along the path--lost her in the dusk, and then deep in the woods at one side saw her flitting from tree to tree away from him. but peter's blood was now warm with the chase--and it was the blood of peter nicholaevitch too. forgotten were the studious hours of patience and toil. here was a girl who challenged his asceticism--a beautiful young female animal who dared to mock at his self-restraint. she thought that she could get away. but he gained on her. she had stopped laughing at him now. "beth! you little devil!" he cried breathlessly, as he caught her. "you little devil, i'll teach you to laugh at me." "let me go----" "no----" he held her in his arms while she struggled vainly to release herself. her flushed face was now a little frightened and her large blue eyes stared in dismay at what she saw in his face. "let me go?" she whispered. "i didn't mean it----" but he only held her closer while she struggled, as he kissed her--on the brows, the chin, the cheeks, and as she relaxed in sheer weakness--full on the lips--again--again. "do you think i haven't been trying to keep my hands off you all these weeks?" he whispered. "do you think i haven't wanted you--to teach you what women were meant for? it's for this, beth--and this. do you think i haven't seen how lovely you are? do you think i'm a saint--an anchorite? well, i'm not. i'll make you love me--love me----" something in the reckless tones of his voice--in his very words aroused her to new struggles. "oh, let me go," she gasped. "i don't love you. i won't. let me go." "you shall!" "no. let me loose or i--i'll despise you----" "beth!" "i mean it. let me go." if a moment ago when she was relaxed in his arms he had thought that he had won her, he had no such notion now, for with a final effort of her strong young arms, she thrust away from him and stood panting and disordered, staring at him as though at one she had never seen before. "oh--how i hate you!" "beth!" "i mean it. you--you----," she turned away from him, staring at the torn music on the ground as at a symbol of her disillusionment. peter saw her look, felt the meaning of it, tried to recall the words he had said to her and failed--but sure that they were a true reflection of what had been in his heart. he had wanted her--then--nothing else had mattered--not duty or his set resolve.... "you mocked at me, beth," he muttered. "i couldn't stand that----" "and is _this_ the way you punish me? ah, if you'd only--if you'd only----" and then with another glance at the torn music, she leaned against the trunk of a tree, sobbing violently. "beth----" he whispered, gently, "don't----" "go away. oh, go. go!" "i can't. i won't. what did you want me to say to you? that i love you? i do, beth--i do," he whispered. it was peter nichols, not peter nicholaevitch, who was whispering now. "was this what your teachin' meant?" she flashed at him bitterly. "was this what you meant when you wanted to pay my way in new york? oh, how you shame me! go! go away from me, please." "please don't," he whispered. "you don't understand. i never meant that. i--i love you, beth. i can't bear to see you cry." she made a valiant effort to control her heaving shoulders. and then, "oh, you--you've spoiled it all. s-spoiled it all, and it was so beautiful." had he? her words sobered him. no, that couldn't be. he cursed his momentary madness, struggling for words to comfort her, but he had known that she had seen the look in his eyes, felt the roughness of his embrace. love? the love that she had sung to him was not of these. he wanted now to touch her again--gently, to lift up her flushed face, wet like a flower with the fresh dew of her tears, and tell her what love was. but he didn't dare--he couldn't, after what he had said to her. and still she wept over her broken toys--the music--the singing--for they had mattered the most. very childlike she seemed, very tender and pathetic. "beth," he said at last, touching her fingers gently. "nothing is changed, beth. it can't be changed, dear. we've got to go on. it means so much to--to us both." but she paid no attention to the touch of his fingers and turned away, leaving the music at her feet, an act in itself significant. "let me go home. please. alone. i--i've got to think." she did not look at him, but peter obeyed her. there was nothing else to do. there was something in the clear depths of her eyes that had daunted him. and he had meant her harm. had he? he didn't know. he passed his hand slowly across his eyes and then stood watching her until she had disappeared among the trees. when she had gone he picked up the torn music. it was massenet's "elégie." o doux printemps d'autrefois.... tout est flétrie. the lines of the torn pieces came together. spring withered! the joyous songs of birds--silenced! beth's song? he smiled. no, that couldn't be. he folded the music up and strode off slowly, muttering to himself. chapter xiv two letters peter passed a troublous evening and night--a night of self-revelations. never that he could remember had he so deeply felt the sting of conscience. he, the grand duke peter nicholaevitch, in love with this little rustic? impossible! it was the real peter, tired of the sham and make-believe of self-restraint and virtue, who had merely kissed a country girl. he was no anchorite, no saint. why had he tied himself to such a duty from a motive of silly sentimentalism? he winced at the word. was it that? sentimentalism. he had shown her the best side of him--shown it persistently, rather proud of his capacity for self-control, which had ridden even with his temptations. why should it matter so much to him what this girl thought of him? what had he said to her? nothing much that he hadn't said to other women. it was the fact that he had said it to beth that made the difference. the things one might say to other women meant something different to beth--the things one might do.... he had been a fool and lost his head, handled her roughly, spoken to her wildly, words only intended for gentle moods, softer purposes. shrewd little beth, whose wide, blue eyes had seen right down into the depths of his heart. he had been clumsy, if nothing else, and he had always thought that clumsiness was inexcusable. he had a guilty sense that while beth was still the little lady to her finger tips, born to a natural nobility, he, the grand duke peter, had been the boor, the vulgar proletarian. the look in her eyes had shamed him as the look in his own eyes had shamed her. she had known what his wooing meant, and it hadn't been what she wanted. the mention of love on lips that kissed as his had done was blasphemy. yes. he cared what she thought of him--and he vainly cast about for a way in which to justify himself. to make matters worse beth still believed that this was the payment he exacted for what he had done for her, what he had proposed to do for her, that he measured her favors in terms of value received. what else could she think but that? every hour of his devotion to her music defamed her. the situation was intolerable. in the morning he went seeking her at her home. the house was open. no one in black rock village locked doors by day or night. beth was not there. a neighbor said that she had gone early alone into the woods and peter understood. if she hadn't cared for him she wouldn't have needed to go to the woods to be alone. of course she didn't appear at the cabin the next day, and peter searched for her--fruitlessly. she weighed on his conscience, like a sin unshrived. he had to find her to explain the unexplainable, to tell her what her confidence had meant to him, to recant his blasphemy of her idols in gentleness and repentance. as he failed to find her, he wrote her a note, asking her forgiveness, and stuck it in the mirror of the old hat-rack in the hall. many women in europe and elsewhere, ladies of the great world that beth had only dreamed about, would have given their ears (since ear puffs were in fashion) to receive such a note from peter. it was a beautiful note besides--manly, gentle, breathing contrition and self-reproach. beth merely ignored it. whatever she thought of it and of peter she wanted to deliberate a longer while. and so another music lesson hour passed while peter sat alone in the cabin waiting. that night two letters were brought to him. the superscription of one was scrawled in a boyish hand. the other was scented, dainty, of pale lavender, and bore a familiar handwriting and a familiar coronet. in amazement he opened this first. it was from the princess galitzin, written in the polyglot of french, english and russian which she affected. "chere pierre," it ran,--in the english, somewhat as follows: "you will no doubt be surprised at hearing from me in far-off america and amazed at the phenomenon of your discovered address at the outlandish place you've chosen for your domicile. it's very simple. in america you have been watched by agents of the so-called government of our wretched country. we know this here in london, because one of _our_ agents is also a part of their secret organization. he came upon the report of your doings and knowing that father was interested, detailed the information to us. "so far as i can learn at the present writing you are in no immediate danger of death, but we do not know here in london how soon the word may be sent forth to 'remove' persons of your importance in the cosmic scheme. it seems that your desire to remain completely in hiding is looked upon with suspicion in russia as evidence of a possible intention on your part to come to light at the beginnings of a bourbon movement and proclaim yourself as the leader of a royalist party. your uncles and cousins have chosen the line of least resistance in yielding to the inevitable, living in switzerland, and other spots where their identities are well known. "i pray, my well remembered and _bel ami_, that the cause of holy russia is still and ever present in your heart of hearts and that the thing these devils incarnate fear may one day come to pass. but i pray you to be discreet and watchful, if necessary changing your place of abode to one in which you will enjoy greater security from your enemies. there is at last one heart in london that ever beats fondly in memory of the dear dead days at galitzin and zukovo. "_helas!_ london is dead sea fruit. people are very kind to us. we have everything that the law allows us, but life seems to have lost its charm. i have never quite forgiven you, _mon pierre_, for your desertion of us at constantinople, though doubtless your reasons for preserving your incognito were of the best. but it has saddened me to think that you did not deem me worthy of a closer confidence. you are doubtless very much alone and unhappy--also in danger not only from your political enemies, but also from the american natives in the far away woods in which you have been given occupation. i trust, such as it is, that you have taken adequate measures to protect yourself. i know little of america, but i have a longing to go to that splendid country, rugged in its primitive simplicity, in spite of inconveniences of travel and the mass of uncultured beings with whom one must come into contact. do you think it would be possible for a spoiled creature like me to find a boudoir with a bath--that is, in the provinces, outside of new york? "it is terrible that you can have no music in your life! i too miss your music, _pietro mio_, as i miss you. perhaps one day soon you will see me. i am restless and bored to extinction, with these ramrods of englishmen who squeeze my rings into my fingers. but if i come i will be discreet toward peter nichols. that was a clever invention of yours. it really sounds--quite--american. "_garde toi bien, entendez vous? tout de suite je viendrai. au revoir._ "anastasie." peter read the letter through twice, amused, astounded and dismayed by turns. his surmise in regard to the stranger with the black mustache had been correct then. the man was a spy of the russian soviets. and so instead of having been born immaculate into a new life, as he had hoped--a man without a past, and only a future to be accounted for--he was only the grand duke peter after all. and anastasie! why the devil did she want to come nosing about in america, reminding him of all the things that he wanted to forget? the odor of her sachet annoyed him. a bath and boudoir! he realized now that she had always annoyed him with her pretty silly little affectations and her tawdry smatterings of the things that were worth while. he owed her nothing. he had made love to her, of course, because that was what a woman of her type expected from men of his. but there had been no damage done on either side, for he had not believed that she had ever really cared. and now distance, it seemed, had made her heart grow fonder, distance and the romantic circumstances of his exile. it was kind of her, of course, to let him know of his danger, but only human after all. she could have done no less, having the information. and now she was coming to offer him the charity of her wealth, to tempt him with ease, luxury and london. he would have none of them. he picked up the other letter with even more curiosity until he read the postmark, and then his interest became intense, for he knew that it was from jim coast--hawk kennedy. the letter bore the heading, "antlers hotel, colorado springs." "dear pete," he read, through the bad spelling, "here i am back at the 'springs,' at the 'antlers,' after a nice trip down bisbee way, and out along the 'j. and a.' to the mine. it's there all right and they're workin' it yet to beat the cards with half a mountain still to be tapped. i ain't going into particulars--not in a letter, except to tell you that i got what i went for--names, dates and amounts--also met the gents our friend sold out to--nice people. oh, i'm 'a ' with that outfit, old dear. i'm just writing this to show you i'm on the job and that if you've got an eye to business you'd better consider my proposition. i'll make it worth your while. you can help all right. you did me a good turn that night. i'll give you yours if you'll stand in proper and make mcg. do what's right. it ain't what you said it was--it's justice all around. that's all i'm asking--what's right and proper. "i ain't coming back just yet, not for a month, maybe. i'm living easy and there's a lady here that suits my fancy. so just drop me a line at the above address, letting me know everything's o. k. remember i'm no piker and i'll fix you up good. "your friend, "jim." peter clenched the paper in his fist and threw it on the floor, frowning angrily at the thought of the man's audacity. but after a while he picked the crumpled note up and straightened it out upon the table, carefully rereading it. its very touch seemed to soil his fingers, but he studied it for a long while, and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. it was a very careful game that peter would have to play with hawk kennedy, a game that he had no liking for. but if he expected to succeed in protecting mcguire, he would have to outwit jim coast--or hawk kennedy, as he now thought of him--by playing a game just a little deeper than his own. of course he now had the advantage of knowing the whole of mcguire's side of the story, while kennedy did not believe the old man would have dared to tell. and to hold these cards successfully it would be necessary to continue in kennedy's mind the belief that peter did not share mcguire's confidences. it would also be necessary for peter to cast in his lot, apparently, with kennedy against mcguire. it was a dirty business at best, but he meant to carry it through if he could, and get the signed agreement from the blackmailer. peter seemed to remember an old wallet that jim coast had always carried. he had seen it after coast had taken slips of paper from it and showed them to peter,--newspaper clippings, notes from inamorata and the like--but of course, never the paper now in question. and if he had carried it all these years, where was it now? in the vault of some bank or trust company probably, and this would make peter's task difficult, if not impossible. peter got up and paced the floor, thinking deeply of all these things in their relation to beth. and then at last he went out into the night, his footsteps impelled toward the village. after all, the thoughts uppermost in his mind were of beth herself. whatever the cost to his pride, he would have to make his peace with her. he knew that now. why otherwise did his restless feet lead him out into the pasture back of the little post office toward the rear of mrs. bergen's house? yet there he found himself presently, smoking his corncob pipe for comfort, and staring at the solitary light in tillie bergen's parlor, which proclaimed its occupant. mrs. bergen's house stood at a little distance from its nearest neighbor, and peter stole slowly through the orchard at the rear toward the open window. it was then that he heard the music for the first time, the "harmonium" wailing softly, while sweet and clear above the accompaniment (worked out painstakingly but lovingly by the girl herself) came beth's voice singing the "elégie." peter came closer until he was just at the edge of the shadow outside the window. he knew that her back would be turned to him and so he peered around the shutter at her unconscious back. she sang the song through until the end and then after a pause sang it again. peter had no ear now for the phrasing, for faults in technique, or inaccuracies in enunciation. what he heard was the soul of the singer calling. all that he had taught her in the hours in the cabin was in her voice--and something more that she had learned elsewhere.... her voice was richer--deeper, a child's voice no longer, and he knew that she was singing of his mad moment in the woods, which had brought the end of all things that had mattered in her life. it was no girl who sang now, but a woman who had learned the meaning of the song, the plaint of birds once joyous, of woodland flowers once gay--at the memory of a spring that was no more. he had told her that she would sing that song well some day when she learned what it meant. she would never sing it again as she had sung it to-night. all the dross that peter had worn in the world was stripped from him in that moment, all that was petty and ignoble in his heart driven forth and he stood with bowed head, in shame for what he had been, and in gentleness for this dear creature whose idols he had cast down. at the end of the second verse, her fingers slipped from the keys and fell to her sides while she bowed her head and sat for a moment immovable. and then her shoulders moved slightly and a tiny smothered sound came from her throat. suddenly her head bent and she fell forward on her arms upon the muted keys. noiselessly he passed over the low windowsill and before she even knew that he was there, fell to his knees beside her. "beth," he whispered. "don't--child--don't!" she straightened, startled and incredulous at the sight of him, and tried to move away, but he caught one of her hands and with bent head gently laid his lips upon it. "don't, beth--please. i can't bear to see you cry----" "i--i'm _not_ crying," she stammered helplessly, while she winked back her tears, "i--i've just--just got the--the--stomachache." she tried to laugh--failing dismally in a sob. "oh, beth--don't----" he whispered. "i--i can't help it--if i--i've got a--a pain," she evaded him. "but i can," he murmured. "it's in your heart, beth. i'm sorry for everything. forgive me." "there's nothing to forgive." "please!" "there's nothing to forgive," she repeated dully. but she had controlled her voice now and her fingers in his were struggling for release. "i was a brute, beth. i'd give everything to have those moments back. i wouldn't hurt you for the world. see--how changed i am----" she released her fingers and turned slightly away. "i--i'm changed too, mr. nichols," she murmured. "no. you mustn't be, beth. and i've got to have you back. you've got to come back to me, beth." "things can't be the same now." "yes--just the same----" "no. something's gone." "but if something else has taken its place----" "nothing can----" "something greater----" "i don't care for the sample you showed me," she returned quietly. "i was crazy, beth. i lost my head. it won't happen again." "no. i know it won't----" "you don't understand. it couldn't. i've made a fool of myself. isn't it enough for me to admit that?" "i knew it all the time." she was cruel, and from her cruelty he guessed the measure of her pride. "i've done all i can to atone. i want you to know that i love you. i do, beth. i love you----" there was a note in his voice different from that she had heard the other day. his head was bent and he did not hear the little gasp or see the startled look in her eyes, which she controlled before he raised his head. with great deliberateness she answered him. "maybe you and i--have a different idea of what love ought to be," she said. but he saw that her reproof was milder. "i know," he insisted. "you've sung it to me----" "no--not to you--not love," she said, startled. and then, "you had no right to be listenin'." and then, with a glance at aunt tillie's clock, "you have no right to be here now. it's late." "but i can't go until you understand what i want to do for you. you say that i can't know what love is. it asks nothing and only gives. i swear i wanted to give without thought of a return--until you laughed at me. and then--i wanted to punish you because you wouldn't understand----" "yes. you punished me----" "forgive me. you shouldn't have laughed at me, beth. if you knew everything, you'd understand that i'm doing it all without a hope of payment,--just because i've got to." her eyes grew larger. "what do you mean?" "i can't tell you now--but something has happened that will make a great difference to you." "what?" "forgive me. come to-morrow and perhaps i'll tell you. we've already wasted two days." "i'm not so sure they've been wasted," said beth quietly. "i don't care if you'll only come. will you, beth? to-morrow?" she nodded gravely at last. "perhaps," she said. and then, gently, "good-night, mr. nichols." so peter kissed her fingers as though she had been his czarina and went out. chapter xv superman of course beth cameron knew nothing of russia's grand dukes. the only duke that she had ever met was in the pages of the novel she had read in which the hero was named algernon. that duke was of the english variety, proud, crusty, and aged and had only made an unpleasant impression upon her because she had liked algernon, who had fallen in love with the daughter of the duke, and the duke had been very horrid to him in consequence or by reason of that mishap. when she had said to peter that he reminded her of algernon she had meant it, and that was really very nice of her, because she thought algernon all that a self-respecting hero should be. it was true that peter, though mostly an englishman, didn't play polo and ride to hounds or swagger around a club and order people about, because he was too poor and was obliged to work for his living. but he did remind her of algernon somehow. he had a way with him, as though if there _had_ been butlers and valets at black rock he _could_ have swaggered and ordered them around if he'd had a mind to. he was good looking too. she had noted that even from the very first when she had found him lugging his suitcase down on the road from pickerel river. then too he did say things to her, nicer things than any fellow had ever known how to say to her before, and he was much more polite than she had ever believed it possible for any one, to be without seeming queer. but when, eavesdropping at mcguire's, she had heard peter play the piano, she felt herself conducted into a new world which had nothing at all to do with glass factories and vineyards. even the sartorial splendor of miss peggy mcguire paled into insignificance beside the new visions which the music of peter nichols had invoked. he hadn't just lied to her. he _was_ a musician. he _could_ play. she had never heard anybody bring from a piano sounds like these. and he had said he wanted her to sing for him. beth had sung always--just as she had always breathed--but she had never heard any good music except on a talking machine at the boarding house at glassboro--an old record of madame melba's that they played sometimes. but even that song from an opera ("lay boheem" they called it), mutilated as it was, had shown her that there was something more wonderful than the popular melodies that the other people liked. beth's taste for good music, like her taste for nice people, was instinctive. and she had found that in her walk of life the one was about as difficult to find as the other. she had had her awakenings and her disillusionments, with women as well as men, but had emerged from her experiences of two winters in a factory town with her chin high and her heart pure--something of an achievement for one as pretty as beth. all in all, she had liked shad wells better than any of the men she had met. he was rough, but she had discovered that good manners didn't always mean good hearts or clean minds. it was this discovery that had made her look askance at peter nichols when she had first met him on the road, for he was politer than anybody she had ever met. if her philosophy was to be consistent this new superintendent would need watching. but his music disarmed her and captured her imagination. and then came the incident of the jealous shad and the extraordinary outcome of mr. nichols's championship of her rights. she had witnessed that fight from the shelter of the bushes. it had been dreadful but glorious. peter's chivalry appealed to her--also his strength. from that moment he was superman. then had followed the long wonderful weeks of music at the cabin, in which she had learned the beginnings of culture and training. her music-master opened new and beautiful vistas for her, told her of the great musicians and singers that the world had known, described the opera houses of europe, the brilliant audiences, the splendid ballets, the great orchestras, and promised her that if she worked hard, she might one day become a part of all this. she had learned to believe him now, for she saw that as time went on he was more exacting with her work, more sparing in his praise of her, and she had worked hard--in despair at times, but with a slowly growing confidence in her star of destiny. and all the while she was wondering why peter nichols was doing this for her and what the outcome of it all was to be. he spoke little of the future except to hint vaguely at lessons elsewhere when he had taught her all that he knew. the present it seemed was sufficient for them both. his moods of soberness, of joy, of enthusiasm, were all catching and she followed him blindly, aware of this great new element in her life which was to make the old life difficult, if not impossible. he treated her always with respect, not even touching her arms or waist in passing--an accepted familiarity of men by girls of her social class. beth understood that it was a consideration due to a delicate situation, the same consideration which had impelled her always to call him mr. nichols. and yet it was this very consideration of peter's that vexed her. it wasn't an air of superiority, for she couldn't have stood that. it was just discretion, maybe, or something else, she couldn't decide what. but beth didn't want to be put in a glass case like the wax flowers at home. her voice was a mere mechanical instrument, as he had taken pains so often to tell her, but he seemed to be making the mistake of thinking _her_ a mechanical instrument too. she wasn't. she was very much alive, tingling with vitality, very human under her demure aspect during the singing lessons, and it had bothered her that peter shouldn't know it. his ignorance, his indifference affronted her. didn't he see what she looked like? didn't he see that she might be worth making love to ... just a little, a very little ... once in a while? the clouds had broken suddenly, almost without warning, when he had talked like a professor--about sentiment--apologized--that was what he had done--_apologized_ for not making love to her! oh! and then things had happened swiftly--incredible, unbelievable things. the lightning had flashed and it had shown an ugly mr. nichols--a different mr. nichols from anything that she could have imagined of him. the things he had said to her ... his kisses ... shameful things! a hundred times she had brushed them off like the vision of him from her mind. and still they returned, warm and pulsing to her lips. and still the vision of him returned--remained. he _had_ been so nice to her before.... * * * * * now beth sat in the big chair opposite peter in the cabin by the log fire (for the evenings were getting cool) while he finished telling her about the death of ben cameron, of the murder and of jonathan k. mcguire's share in the whole terrible affair. it was with some misgivings, even after swearing her to secrecy, that he told her what he had learned through kennedy and mcguire. and she had listened, wide-eyed. her father of course was only the shadow of a memory to her, the evil shade in a half-forgotten dream, and therefore it was not grief that she could feel, not even sorrow for one who in life had been so vile, even if his miserable death had been so tragic--only horror and dismay at the thought of the perpetrator of the infamy. and not until peter had come to the end of the story did she realize what this revelation meant, that the very foundation of mcguire's great fortune was laid upon property which belonged to her. "out of all this evil must come some good, beth," he finished soberly. "that copper mine was yours. mcguire took it and he is going to pay you what he owes." beth had already exhausted all the expletives of horror and amazement, and now for a moment this last information staggered her and she stared at him unbelieving. "pay me? i can't believe----" "it was your property by every law of god and man, and i mean that you shall have it." he paused and smiled softly. "you see, beth, you won't need to depend on me now for your training." "oh--then this was what you meant----" "what i meant when i said that you should owe me nothing--that i----" "but i _will_ owe you--everything. i shall still owe you everything." and then, wonderingly, "and just to think of my livin' here all this time so near the man--and not knowin' about----" her words trailed off into silent astonishment. "yes. and to think of his making his fortune on money that belonged to you! millions. and he's going to pay you what he got out of the tarantula mine--every dollar with interest to date." "but how can you make him do that?" she cried eagerly. "what proof have you got?" he smiled grimly into the fire as he poked a fallen log into the blaze. "blackmail is an ugly word, beth. but it shouldn't be blackmail, if silence is the price of getting what really belongs to you. mcguire is using your money--and he must give it to you. it's your money--not his. if he won't give it to you of his own free will, he will give it against his will." "but how can you make him do that?" asked beth timidly. "by saving him from hawk kennedy. that's my price--and yours." "but how can you?" "i don't know. i've got to fight kennedy with his own weapons--outwit him. and i've thought out a plan----" "but he's dangerous. you mustn't take any further risks with a man like that for me." peter only smiled. "it will amuse me, beth. and besides----" he bent forward to tend the fire, his face immediately grave again. "besides--i think i owe you that, now." she understood what he meant and thrilled gently. her joy had come back to her with a rush. all through the music lesson and through the recital of the tale of mystery she had hung breathlessly on his words and watched the changing expression on his features as he talked into the fire. this was _her_ mr. nichols who was speaking now, her friend and mentor, who wanted her to understand that this was his way of atonement. but she ignored his last remark, to beth the most important of the entire conversation. "how--how much will the--the money amount to?" she asked timidly. peter laughed. "figure it out for yourself. half a million--six per cent--fifteen years----" "half a million dollars----!" "a million--or more!" "a million! god-a-mercy!" peter recognized one of aunt tillie's expressions, beth's vocabulary being inadequate to the situation. "but you haven't got it yet," he said. "and i daren't think of gettin' it. i won't think of it. i'd get my brain so full of things i wanted it would just naturally _bust_. oh lordy!" peter laughed. "you do want a lot of things, don't you?" "of course. a silk waist, a satin skirt, some silk stockings--but most of all, a real sure enough piano," she gasped. and then, as though in reproach of her selfishness, "and i could pay off the mortgage on aunt tillie's farm back in the clearing!" "how much is that?" "three thousand dollars. i've already paid off three hundred." "there ought to be enough for that," said peter soberly. "oh, mr. nichols. i hope you don't think i'm an awful fool talkin' this way." "not unless you think _i_ am." "but it _is_ nice to dream of things sometimes." "yes. i do that too. what do you dream of, beth?" "oh, of bein' a great singer, mostly--standin' on a stage with people lookin' up and clappin' their hands at me." "what else?" "oh," she laughed gayly, "i used to dream of marryin' a prince--all girls do. but there ain't any princes now to marry." "no, that's true," he assented. "the old world hasn't any use for princes now." and then, "but why did you want to marry a prince?" he asked. "oh, i don't know. it's just fairy tales. haven't you ever lived in a fairy tale and loved a princess?" "yes, i've lived in a fairy tale, but i've never loved a princess." "i guess if everybody knew," said beth with conviction, "the princes in europe are a pretty bad lot." "yes," said peter slowly, "i guess they are." she paused a moment, looking into the fire. and then, "were you ever acquainted with any princes in europe, mr. nichols?" peter smiled. "yes, beth. i did know one prince rather intimately--rather too intimately." "oh. you didn't like him?" "no, not much. he was an awful rotter. the worst of it was that he had good instincts and when he went wrong, he went wrong in spite of 'em. you see--he was temperamental." "what's temperamental?" "having the devil and god in you both at the same time," muttered peter after a moment. "i know," she said. "satan and god, with god just sittin' back a little to see how far satan will go." he smiled at her. "you don't mean that you have temptations too, beth?" she ignored his question, her face sober, and went back to her subject. "i guess your prince wasn't any better or any worse than a lot of other people. maybe he didn't give god a chance?" "no. maybe not," said peter. "it seems to me he must have been kind of human, somehow," beth commented reflectively. "what's become of him now?" she asked, then. "oh, he's out of it," replied peter. "dead?" "yes. his country has chucked all the nobility out on the dust heap." "russia?" "yes." "did they kill him?" "they tried to, but couldn't." "where is he now?" "a wanderer on the face of the earth." "i'm so sorry. it must be terrible to have to eat pork and beans when your stomach's only used to chocolate sundaes." peter grinned. "some of 'em were glad enough to get off with stomachs to put beans and pork into. oh, you needn't waste your pity, beth." "i don't. i read the papers. i guess they got what they deserved. the workin' people in the world ain't any too keen on buyin' any more diamond tiaras for loafers. i reckon it was about time for a new deal all around without the face cards." "perhaps, beth. but there's always the ten spot to take the deuce." "i hadn't thought of that," said beth reflectively. "people aren't really equal--are they? some apples _are_ better than others. i guess," she sighed, "that the real trouble with the world is because there ain't enough friendship in it." peter was silent for a moment. "yes, that's true," he said, "not enough friendship--not enough love. and it's all on account of money, beth. there wouldn't have been any european war if some people hadn't wanted property that belonged to somebody else." "i hope wanting this money won't make me hate anybody or make anybody hate me. i don't want to make mr. mcguire unhappy or miss mcguire----" "you needn't worry," said peter dryly. "you see, it's your money." beth gave a deep sigh. "i can't help it. i _would_ like to have a sport coat and a _cerise_ veil like peggy wears." "you shall have 'em. what else?" "some pretty patent leather shoes with rhinestone buckles----" "yes----" "and a black velvet hat and nice _lingerie_----" (beth pronounced it lingery). "of course. and the piano----" "oh, yes. a piano and books--lots of books." "and a red automobile?" "oh, i wouldn't dare wish for that." "why not? it's just as easy to wish for an automobile as a piano." "yes, i suppose so." she became immediately grave again. "but i can't seem to believe it all. i'm afraid." "of what?" "of hawk kennedy. i feel that he's going to make trouble for us all, mr. nichols. i'm afraid. i always seem to feel things before they happen. any man who could do what he did--murder!" "there will be some way to get around him." "but it's dangerous. i don't feel i've got the right to let you do this for me." "oh, yes, you have. i'd do it anyhow. it's only justice." "but suppose he--suppose----" "what----?" "he might kill you, too." peter laughed. "not a chance. you see, i wasn't born to die a violent death. if i had been, i'd have been dead months ago." "oh--the war, you mean?" she asked soberly. "yes--the war. everything is tame after that. i'm not afraid of hawk kennedy." "but there's danger just the same." "i hope not. i won't cross that bridge until i come to it." beth was silent for a long moment and then with a glance at the clock on the mantel slowly gathered her music, aware of his voice close at her ear. "and if i do this, beth,--if i get what belongs to you, will you believe that i have no motive but friendship for you, that i care for you enough to want you to forgive me for what has happened?" he had caught her fingers in his own but she did not try to release them. "oh, don't speak of that--_please_! i want to forget you--that day." "can't you forget it more easily by remembering me as i am now, beth? see. i want you as much now as i did then--just as much, but i cannot have you until you give yourself to me." what did he mean? she wasn't sure of him. if marriage was what he meant, why didn't he say so? marriage. it was such an easy word to say. her fingers struggled in his. "please, mr. nichols," she gasped. "you mean that you won't--that you don't care enough----?" "i--i'm not sure of you----" "i love you, beth----" "you _say_ so----" "i do--better than anything in the world." "enough to--enough to...?" she was weakening fast. she felt her danger in the trembling of her fingers in his. why didn't he finish her question for her? marriage. it was such a little word. and yet he evaded it and she saw that he meant to evade it. "enough to have you almost in my arms and yet hardly to touch you--enough to have your lips within reach of mine and yet not to take them. isn't that what you wanted, beth? gentleness, tenderness----" she flung away from him desperately. "no--no. i want nothing--nothing. please! you don't want to understand." and then with an effort she found her poise. "things must be as they are. nothing else. it's getting late, i must go." "beth--not yet. just a minute----" "no." but she did not go and only stood still, trembling with irresolution. he knew what she wanted him to say. there could be no middle ground for beth. she must be all to him or nothing. marriage. it was the grand duke peter nicholaevitch who had evaded this very moment while peter nichols had urged him to it. and it was peter nichols who knew that any words spoken of marriage to beth cameron would be irrevocable, the grand duke peter (an opportunist) who urged him to utter them, careless of consequences. and there stood beth adorable in her perplexity, conjuring both of him to speak. it was peter nichols who met the challenge, oblivious of all counsels of pride, culture, vainglory and hypocrisy. this was his mate, a sweeter lady than any he had ever known. "beth," he whispered. "i love you. nothing in the world makes any difference to me but your happiness." he came to her and caught her in his arms, while she still struggled away from him. "i want you. it doesn't matter who i am or who you are. i want you to----" beth suddenly sprung away from him, staring at a figure which stood in the doorway as a strident, highly pitched voice cut in sharply on peter's confession. "oh, excuse _me_! i didn't mean to intrude." it was miss peggy mcguire in her _cerise_ veil and her sport suit, with hard eyes somewhat scandalized by what she had seen, for peter was standing awkwardly, his arms empty of their prize, who had started back in dismay and now stood with difficulty recovering her self-possession. as neither of them spoke miss mcguire went on cuttingly, as she glanced curiously around the cabin. "so this is where you live? i seem to have spoiled your party. and may i ask who----" and her eyes traveled scornfully over beth's figure, beginning at her shoes and ending at her flushed face--"i think i've seen you before----" "miss mcguire," said peter quietly, "this is miss cameron----" "oh, yes--the kitchen maid." "miss beth cameron," insisted peter frigidly, "who has just done me the honor of promising to marry me." "oh! i see----" beth stared from one to the other, aware of the meaning of the visitor's manner and of peter's reply. "that is not true," she said very quietly, her deep voice vibrant with emotion. "i come here often. mr. nichols is teaching me music. i am very proud of his friendship. but i did not promise to marry him." peggy mcguire turned on her heel. "well, it's almost time you did," she said insultingly. peter, now pale and cold with fury, reached the door before her and stood blocking the passageway. "miss mcguire, i'll trouble you to be more careful in addressing my guests," he said icily. "let me pass----" "in a moment." "you'd dare----?" "i would like you to understand that this cabin is mine--while i am in black rock. any guest here comes at my invitation and honors me by accepting my hospitality. but i reserve the privilege of saying who shall come and who shall not. i hope i make myself clear----" and peter bowed low and then moved aside, indicating the door. "good-night," he finished. miss peggy mcguire glared at him, red as a young turkey cock, her finishing school training just saving her from a tirade. "oh, you! we'll see about this----" and dashed past him out of the door and disappeared into the darkness. peter followed her with his angry gaze, struggling for his self-control, and at last turned into the room toward beth, who now stood a smiling image turned into stone. "why did you deny what i said, beth?" he pleaded. "it wasn't the truth. i never promised to marry you. you never asked me to." "i _would_ have asked you. i ask you now. i _was_ asking you when that little fool came in----" "maybe you were. maybe you weren't. maybe i'm a little hard of hearin'. but i'm not goin' to make _that_ an excuse for my bein' here----" "i don't understand----" "it's just that i came here because i wanted to come and because you wanted me. people have been talkin'. let them talk. let _her_ talk----" "she will. you can be pretty sure of that." peter was pacing up and down the room, his hands behind him. "if she'd been a man----" he was muttering. "if she'd only been a man." beth watched him a moment, still smiling. "oh, i got what she meant--she was just tryin' to insult me." she laughed. "seems as if she'd kind of succeeded. i suppose i ought to have scratched her face for her. i think i would have--if she'd just stayed a minute longer. funny too, because i always used to think she was so sweet." peter threw his arms wildly into the air and exploded. "sweet! sweet! _that_ girl! yes, if vinegar is. she'll tear your reputation to shreds." beth had stopped smiling now and leaned against the wall, her chin lowered. "i reckon it serves me right. i hadn't any business to be comin' here--not at night, anyway." "oh, beth," he pleaded, catching her hands. "why couldn't you have let things be?" she struggled a little. and then, "let _her_ think i was _engaged_ to you when i wasn't?" she gasped. "but we are, beth, dear. say we are, won't you?" "not when we're not." "beth----!" "you should have spoken sooner, if you'd really meant it. oh, i know what it is. i've always known there's a difference between us." "no--not unless you make it." "yes. it was there before i was born. you were brought up in a different kind of life in a different way of thinkin' from mine----" "what has that got to do with it?" "everything. it's not my fault. and maybe i'm a little too proud. but i'm straight----" "don't, beth----" he put his arm around her but she disengaged herself gently. "no, let me finish. maybe you wanted me. i guess you did. but not that much--not enough to speak out--and you were too straight to lie to me. i'm thankful for that----" "but i _have_ spoken, beth," he insisted, taking her by the elbows and holding her so that he could look into her eyes. "i've asked you to--to be my wife. i ask you now. is that clear?" her eyes evaded him and she laughed uneasily. "yes, it's clear--and--and your reason for it----" "i love you----" "a little, maybe. but i'll marry no man just to save my face--and his." but he caught her close to him, finding a new joy in his momentous decision. she struggled still, but he would not be denied. "yes, you will," he whispered. "you've got to marry me whether you want to or not. you're compromised." "i don't care." "oh, yes, you do. and you love me, beth." "i don't love you----" "you do. and i'm going to marry you whether you want it or not." "oh, _are_ you?" "yes." "when?" "soon." he kissed her. she didn't resist him. resistance was useless. he had won. "beth, dear," he went on. "i couldn't lie to you. i'm glad you knew that. and i couldn't hurt you. i think i've always loved you--from the first." "i too--i too," she whispered. "i couldn't help it." "i think i knew that too----" "no, no. you couldn't----" "yes. it was meant to be. you've given a new meaning to life, torn from its very roots a whole rotten philosophy. oh, you don't know what i mean--except that nobility is in the mind, beauty in the heart. nothing else matters." "no. it doesn't," she sighed. "you see, i--i do believe in you." "thank god! but you know nothing of me--nothing of my past----" "i don't care what your past has been or who you are. you're good enough for me. i'm satisfied----" he laughed joyously at the terms of her acquiescence. "don't you want to know what i've been--who i am----?" "no. it wouldn't make any difference--not now." "i'll tell you some day." "i'll take a chance on that. i'm not afraid." "and whatever i am--you'll marry me?" "yes. whatever--you--are----" while he smiled down at her she straightened in his arms and gently released herself, glancing guiltily at the clock. "i--i must be going now," she whispered. and so through the quiet forest they went to black rock village, hand in hand. chapter xvi identification the sudden and unexpected arrival of miss peggy mcguire upon the scene had been annoying. that young person was, as peter knew, a soulless little snob and materialist with a mind which would not be slow to put the worst possible construction upon the situation. of course as matters stood at the close of that extraordinary evening of self-revelations, it did not matter a great deal what peggy mcguire thought or said or did, for nothing could hurt beth now. the grand duke peter nicholaevitch had capitulated and peter nichols gloried in his victory over inherited tradition. he had no regrets and he had made his choice, for beth was what he wanted. she completed him. she was effulgent,--even in homespun. a little tinsel more or less could make no difference in beth. those of his own class who would not accept her might go hang for all he cared. still peter had rather that almost any one but peggy should have come upon the scene, and beth's frankness had given her a handle for a scandal, if she chose to make one. beth cared nothing, he knew, for her soul was greater than his, but peter's anger still smoldered at the words that had been used to beth. he did not fear complications with mcguire, nor did he court them, but he knew how this daughter had been brought up, spoiled and pampered to the very limits of mcguire's indulgence and fortune, and he couldn't help holding her up in comparison with beth, much to peggy's detriment. for beth was a lady to her finger tips, born to a natural gentility that put to confusion the mannerisms of the "smart" finishing school which had not succeeded in concealing the strain of a plebeian origin, and beth's dropped g's and her quaint inversions and locutions were infinitely more pleasing to peter than miss peggy's slang and self-assurance, which reflected the modernity of the fashionable hotel tea-room. fortunately, jonathan k. mcguire, who had returned from the seashore the night before, was not disposed to take his daughter's animadversions too seriously and when peter announced his engagement to the niece of his housekeeper he made no comment further than to offer his congratulations. he did not even know her name and when mcguire was told that it was beth cameron, peter did not miss his slight start of inquiry. but of course, having only owned his acres of woodland for half a dozen years, he knew little as to the origins of the inhabitants of black rock and as peter said nothing at that moment he asked no questions and only listened to the forester's account of the progress of the work and of the difficulties experienced in attempting to complete the timber-contract. there was no way of improving the labor situation and a visit to the camp proved to him that peter had done all that could be expected with the poor material at hand. on the way back they stopped at the cabin and peter showed him the letter from hawk kennedy. and there for a while they sat discussing plans to outwit the enemy and draw his sting. it was going to be no easy task and could only be accomplished by peter's apparent compliance with kennedy's wishes in throwing in his lot with hawk and simulating an enmity for his employer. mcguire nodded his head and listened soberly. the rest at the seashore had done him good and he was disposed to meet the situation with courage, reflecting peter's own attitude of confidence and optimism, admitting that his confession to peter had lifted a weight from his shoulders and given him the spirit to meet the issue, whatever it might be. "you see," he said at last, "if the worst comes i'm in a pretty bad hole. but it was the shock of meeting hawk after all these years that took the courage out of me at first. i wasn't quite right in my head for a while. i'd have killed him gladly and gotten away with it perhaps--but i'm glad now that things turned out the way they did. i've got no blood on my hands--that's one thing--whatever i signed. i've been thinking a good deal since i've been away. if i signed that fake confession hawk kennedy signed it too. he won't dare to produce it except as a last resort in desperation, to drag me down with him if he fails. we can string him along for a while before he does that and if he falls for your game we may be able to get the paper away from him. you've thought of something, nichols?" he asked. "yes, of several things," said peter slowly. "i'm going to try diplomacy first. if that doesn't work, then something else more drastic." mcguire rose at last and took up his hat. "i don't know how to thank you for what you've done, nichols," he said awkwardly. "of course if--if money will repay you for this sort of service, you can count on my doing what you think is right." peter rose and walked to the window, looking out. "i was coming to that, mr. mcguire," he said gravely. mcguire paused and laid his hat down again. "before you went away," peter went on, turning slowly toward his employer, "you told me that you had never made any effort to discover the whereabouts of any of the relatives of ben cameron. but i inferred from what you said that if you _did_ find them, you'd be willing to do your duty. that's true, isn't it?" mcguire examined him soberly but agreed. "yes, that's true. but why do you bring this question up now?" "i'll explain in a moment. mr. mcguire, you are said to be a very rich man, how rich i don't know, but i think you'll be willing to admit to me, knowing what i do of your history, that without the 'tarantula' mine and the large sum it brought you you would never have succeeded in getting to your present position in the world of finance." "i'll admit that. but i don't see----" "you will in a minute, sir----" "go on." "if i have been correctly informed, you sold out your copper holdings in madre gulch for something like half a million dollars----" peter paused for mcguire's comment. he made none. but he had sunk into his chair again and was listening intently. "the interest on half a million dollars, even at six per cent, if compounded, would in fifteen years amount with the principal to a considerable sum." "ah, i see what you're getting at----" "you will admit that what i say is true?" "yes----" "you'll admit also, if you're reasonable, that the money which founded your great fortune was as a matter of fact not yours but ben cameron's----?" "but why speak of him now?" muttered the old man. "do you admit this?" mcguire frowned and then growled, "how can i help admitting it, since you know the facts? but i don't see----" "well then, admitting that the 'tarantula' mine was ben cameron's and not yours or hawk kennedy's, it seems clear that if any of ben cameron's heirs should turn up unexpectedly, they might claim at least a share of what should have been their own." mcguire had started forward in his chair, his gaze on peter's face, as the truth was suddenly borne in upon him. "you mean, nichols, that----." he paused and gasped as peter nodded. "i mean that ben cameron's only child, a daughter, lives here at black rock--the niece of your housekeeper--mrs. bergen----" "miss cameron--my god!" mcguire fell back in his chair, staring at peter, incapable of further speech. "beth cameron," said peter gently, "the lady who has done me the honor of promising to become my wife----" "but how do you know?" gasped mcguire. "there must be some mistake. are you sure you----" he broke off and then a sly smile curled at the corners of his lips. "you know, nichols, cameron is not an unusual name. it's quite possible that you're--er--mistaken." "no. i'm quite sure there's no mistake. i think the facts can be proved--that is, of course, if you're willing to help to establish this claim and to admit it when established. otherwise i intend to establish it without your assistance--as an act of justice and of--er--retribution." mcguire watched his superintendent's face for a while before replying. and then, briefly, "what are the facts on which you base this extraordinary statement?" he asked. "i'll present those facts when the time comes, mr. mcguire," said peter at a venture. "i don't think it will be a difficult matter to identify the murdered man. he wrote home once or twice. he can be traced successfully. but what i would like to know first is what your disposition toward his daughter will be when the proper proofs are presented." "_if_ they're presented," said mcguire. "will you answer me?" "it would seem time enough to answer then. i'll do the right thing." "meaning what?" "money enough to satisfy her." "that won't do. she must have what is hers by right. her price is one million dollars," said peter quietly. mcguire started up. "you're dreaming," he gasped. "it's her money." "but i developed that mine." "it was her mine that you developed." mcguire stopped by the window and turned. "and if i refuse----?" "i don't think you will----" the two men stared at each other, but peter had the whip hand--or mcguire thought he had, which was quite sufficient. "will you help me to perform this act of justice?" peter went on calmly. "it's the only thing to do, mr. mcguire. can't you see that?" mcguire paced the floor heavily a few times before replying. and then, "i've got to think this thing over, nichols. it's all so very sudden--a million dollars. my god! man, you talk of a million as if it grew on the trees." he stopped abruptly before the fireplace and turned to peter. "and where does hawk kennedy come in on this?" "beth cameron's claim comes before his--or yours," said peter quietly. "whatever happens to either of you--it's not her fault." peter hadn't intended a threat. he was simply stating the principal thought of his mind. but it broke mcguire's front. he leaned upon the armchair and then fell heavily into it, his head buried in his hands. "i'll do--whatever you say," he groaned at last, "but you've got to get me out of this, nichols. i've got to have that paper." peter poured out a drink of the whisky and silently handed it to his employer. "come, mr. mcguire," he said cheerfully, "we'll do what we can. there'll be a way to outwit hawk kennedy." "i hope to god there is," muttered mcguire helplessly. "i'll make a bargain with you." "what?" asked mcguire helplessly. "if i get the confession from kennedy, you give beth cameron the money i ask for." "no publicity?" "none. i give you my word on it." "well," muttered the old man, "i guess it's coming to her. i'll see." he paused helplessly. "a million dollars! that's a big sum to get together. a big price--but not too big to clear this load off my conscience." "good. i'm glad you see it in this way." the old man turned shrewdly. "but i've got to have the proofs----" "very well. if you're honest in your intentions you'll help me confirm the evidence." "yes," said the other slowly. "i'll do what i can." "then perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what ben cameron looked like----" "i've told you as near as i can remember," muttered mcguire. "had the murdered man, for instance, lost the little finger of his left hand?" asked peter, coolly concealing the anxiety which lay behind his question. but he had his reward, for mcguire shot a quick glance at him, his heavy jowl sagging. and as he didn't reply, peter urged him triumphantly. "you promised to help. will you answer me truthfully? it will save asking a lot of questions." at last mcguire threw up his hands. "yes," he muttered, "that was ben cameron. one of his little fingers was missing all right enough." "thanks," said peter, with an air of closing the interview. "if you want this proof that the murdered man was beth's father, ask mrs. bergen." there was a silence. peter had won. mcguire gathered up his hat with the mien of a broken man and moved toward the door. "all right, nichols. i guess there's no doubt of it. i'll admit the proof's strong enough. it can be further verified, i suppose, but i'd rather no questions were asked. you do your part and i--i'll do mine." "very good, sir. you can count on me. if that fake agreement is still in existence, i'll get it for you. if it has been destroyed----" "i'll have to have proof of that----" "won't you leave that in my hands?" mcguire nodded, shook peter's hand and wandered out up the path in the direction of black rock house. from the first, peter had had no doubt that the murdered man was beth's father, but he had to admit under mcguire's questioning that there might still be a difficulty in tracing the vagrant from the meager history of his peregrinations that mrs. bergen had been able to provide. mcguire's attitude in regard to the absent little finger had been really admirable. peter was thankful for that little finger, and for mcguire's honesty. there was no doubt in his mind now--if any had existed--who ben cameron's murderer was. the affair was simplified amazingly. with beth's claim recognized, peter could now enter heart and soul into the interesting business of beating hawk kennedy at his own game. he would win--he must win, for the pitiful millionaire and for beth. and so, jubilantly, he made his way to black rock village to fill a very agreeable engagement that he had, to take supper (cooked and served by her own hands) with miss beth cameron. he found that beth had tried to prevail upon aunt tillie to be present but that the arrival of the mcguire family at black rock house had definitely prevented the appearance of their chaperon. peter's appetite, however, suffered little diminution upon that account and he learned that singing was not beth's only accomplishment. the rolls, as light as feathers and steaming hot, were eloquent of her skill, the chicken was broiled to a turn, the creamed potatoes delicious, and the apple pie of puff-paste provoked memories of the paris ritz. aunt tillie's best tablecloth and family silver--old, by the looks of it--had been brought into requisition and a bunch of goldenrod and purple asters graced the centerpiece. and above it all presided beth, her face aflame from the cookstove, gracious and more than lovable in her pride and self-consciousness. when the supper was finished, peter helped her to clear away the things and insisted on being allowed to help wash the dishes. but to this beth demurred for they were of aunt tillie's blue colonial china set and not to be trusted to impious hands. but she let peter sit in the kitchen and watch her (which was quite satisfactory) and even spared him a kiss or two at propitious intervals. then when all things had been set to rights they went into the little parlor and sat on the worn victorian plush-covered sofa. there was much to talk about, matters of grave importance that concerned themselves alone, explanations to be made, hopes to be expressed, and beth's affair with mcguire to be discussed in all its phases. peter told her nothing of his rank or station in life, saving that revelation for a later moment. was not the present all-sufficient? and hadn't beth told him and didn't she tell him again now that she believed in him and that "no matter what" she loved him and was his, for ever after, amen. she didn't care who he was, you see. and when the important business of affirming those vows was concluded again and again, the scarcely less important business of beth's future was talked over with a calmness which did much credit to beth's control of the situation. peter brought out hawk kennedy's letter and they read it together, and talked about it, peter explaining his intention to acquiesce in hawk's plan. then peter told of his conversation with mcguire and of the proof of ben cameron's identity which the old man had honestly admitted. "it looks very much, beth," said peter at last, with a smile, "as though you were going to be a very wealthy young woman." "oh, peter," she sighed (the elimination of formal appellations had been accomplished during the earlier stages of the repast), "oh, peter, i hope it isn't going to bring us unhappiness." "unhappiness! why, beth!" "oh, i don't know. it seems to me that people with a lot of money always look unhappy wantin' _to want_ somethin'." he laughed. "the secret of successful wanting is only to want the things you can get." "that's just the trouble. with a million dollars i'll get so much more than i want. and what then----?" "you'll have to start all over again." "no," she said quietly. "i won't. if wantin' things she can't buy makes a girl _hard_, like peggy mcguire, i think i'd rather be poor." peter grew grave again. "nothing could ever make you like peggy mcguire," he said. "i might be--if i ever get into the habit of thinkin' i was somethin' that i wasn't." "you'll never be a snob, beth, no matter how much money you have." "i hope not," she said with a laugh. "my nose turns up enough already." and then, wistfully, "but i always _did_ want a _cerise_ veil." "i've no doubt you'll get it, a _cerise_ veil--mauve, green and blue ones too. i'll be having to keep an eye on you when you go to the city." she eyed him gravely and then, "i don't like to hear you talk like that." but he kept to his topic for the mere delight of hearing her replies. "but then you might see somebody you liked better than me." she smiled at him gently. "if i'd 'a' thought that i wouldn't 'a' picked you out in the first place." "then you did pick me out. when?" "h-m. wouldn't you like to know!" "yes. at the cabin?" "no----" "at mcguire's----?" "no-o. before that----" "when----" she blushed very prettily and laughed. "down pickerel river road." "did you, beth?" "yes. i liked your looks. you _do_ smile like you meant it, peter. i said to myself that anybody that could bow from the middle like you was good enough for me." "now you're making fun of me." "oh, no. i'm not. you see, dear, you've really lived up to that bow!" "i hope," said peter gently, "i hope i always will." "i'm not worryin'. and i'm glad i knew you loved me before you knew about the money." "you did know, then----" "yes. what bothered me was your findin' it so hard to tell me so." peter was more awkward and self-conscious at that moment than he could ever remember having been in his life. her frankness shamed him--made it seem difficult for him ever to tell her the real reasons for his hesitation. what chance would the exercise of inherited tradition have in the judgment of this girl who dealt instinctively and intimately with the qualities of the mind and heart, and only with them? "i--i was not good enough for you," he muttered. she put her fingers over his lips. and when he kissed them--took them away and gave him her lips. "i'll hear no more of _that_, peter nichols," she whispered. "you're good enough for me----" altogether, it may be said that the evening was a success at every angle from which peter chose to view it. and he made his way back to the cabin through the deep forest along the path that beth had worn, the path to his heart past all the fictitious barriers that custom had built about him. the meddlesome world was not. here was the _novaya jezn_ that his people had craved and shouted for. he had found it. new life--happiness--with a mate ... his woman--soon to be his wife--whether beth nichols or the grand duchess elizabeth...? there was no title of nobility that could make beth's heart more noble, no pride of lineage that could give her a higher place than that which she already held in his heart. his blood surging, he ran along the log at the crossing and up the path to the cabin, where a surprise awaited him. for he found the lamp lighted, and, seated complacently in peter's easy chair, stockinged feet toward the blaze of a fresh log, a bottle at his elbow, was hawk kennedy. chapter xvii peter becomes a conspirator peter entered and stood by the door, startled from his rhapsody by the appearance of the intruder, who had made himself quite at home, regardless of the fact that the final words of their last meeting had given no promise of a friendship which would make his air of easy familiarity acceptable to peter, whose first impulse moved him to anger, fortunately controlled as he quickly remembered how much hung upon the assumption of an amicable relationship with mcguire's arch enemy. peter hadn't replied to hawk's letter which had indicated that some weeks might elapse before black rock received another of his visitations. the speculations in peter's mind as to the change in his visitor's plans and the possible causes for them may have been marked in his face, for hawk grinned at him amiably and rose and offered his hand with an air of assurance. "wondering why i dropped in on you so unexpected-like? let's say that i got tired of staring at the lonely grandeur of pike's peak, _mon gars_, or that the lady who gave me the pleasure of her society skipped for denver with a younger man, or that the high altitude played billy-be-damned with my nerves, and you'll have excuse enough. but the fact is, pete, i _was_ a bit nervous at being so long away from the center of financial operations, and thought i'd better come right on and talk to you." "i got your letter," said peter calmly, "i hadn't answered it yet----" "i thought it better to come for my answer." "i've been thinking it over----" "good. it will be worth thinkin' over. you'll bless the day jim coast ran athwart your course." "you seem to be taking a good deal for granted." "i do. i always do. until the present opportunity it was about the only thing i got a chance to take. you wouldn't of done me a good turn that night, if you hadn't been o.k. will you have a drink of your own? it's good stuff--ten years in the wood, i see by the label, and i'm glad to get it, for whisky is scarcer than hen's teeth between this and the rockies." as peter nodded he poured out the drinks and settled down in peter's chair with the air of one very much at home. "well, pete, what's yer answer to be?" he said at last. "you weren't any too polite when i left here. but i didn't think you'd turn me down altogether. and you're straight. i know that. i've been countin' on your sense of justice. how would _you_ like to be treated the way _i_ was treated by mike mcguire?" "i wouldn't like it." "you just bet you wouldn't. you wouldn't stand for it, _you_ wouldn't. i've got justice on my side and i've got the law--if i choose to use it--but i'd rather win this case as man to man--without its getting into the newspapers. that wouldn't matter much to a poor man like me, but it would make a heap of difference to a man who stands where mcguire does." "that's true." "yes. and he knows it. he hasn't got a leg to stand on." kennedy paused and looked peter over coolly. peter had been studying the situation critically, playing his game with some care, willing to placate his visitor and yet taking pains not to be too eager to gain his confidence. so he carefully lighted his cigarette while he debated his course of action. "what makes you think that i'm in a different mood now from when you left here?" "haven't i told you? because i believe that you know that right's right and wrong's wrong." "but i told you that i didn't want to have anything to do with the case." "true for you. but you will when i've finished talking to you." "will i?" "you will if you're not a fool, which you ain't. i always said you had somethin' between your ears besides ivory. you don't like to stay poor any more than anybody else. you don't have to. a good half of mcguire's money is mine. if it hadn't been for me helpin' to smell that copper out he'd of been out there grub-stakin' yet an' that's a fact. but i'm not goin' to be too hard on him. i'm no hog. i'm goin' to let him down easy. what's a million more or less to him? it might pinch him a little here and there sellin' out securities he had a fancy for, but in a year or so he'd have it all back and more, the way he works. oh, i know. i've found out a bit since i've been away. and he'll come across all right, when he hears what i've got to say to him." "why don't you go to him direct?" asked peter. "and have him barricadin' the house and shootin' promiscuous at me from the windows? not on your life. i know what i'm about. this thing has got to be done quiet. there's no use stirring up a dirty scandal to hurt his reputation for honest dealin' in new york. even as it is, the story has got around about the mystery of black rock. no use makin' talk. that's why i want you. you stand ace high with the old man. he'll listen to you and we'll work the game all right and proper." "but suppose he won't listen to me." "then we'll put the screws on." "what screws?" hawk kennedy closed one eye and squinted the other at peter quizzically. "i'll tell you that all in good time. but first i've got to know how you stand in the matter." peter judicially examined the ash of his cigarette. "he ought to do the right thing," he said slowly. "he will--never you fear. but can i count on _you_, pete?" "what do you want me to do?" asked peter after a moment. "oh, now we're talkin'. but wait a minute. we won't go so fast. are you with me sure enough--hope i may die--cross my heart?" "if you'll make it worth my while," said peter cautiously. "a hundred thousand. how's that?" "it sounds all right. but i can't see what i can do that you couldn't do yourself." "don't you? well, you don't know all this story. there's some of it you haven't heard. maybe it's that will convince you you're makin' no mistake----" "well--i'm listening." a shrewd look came into kennedy's face--a narrowing of the eyelids, a drawing of the muscles at the mouth, as he searched peter's face with a sharp glance. "if you play me false, pete, i'll have your heart's blood," he said. peter only laughed at him. "i'm not easily scared. save the melodrama for mcguire. if you can do without me--go ahead. play your hand alone. don't tell me anything. i don't want to know." the bluff worked, for kennedy relaxed at once. "oh, you're a cool hand. i reckon you think i need you or i wouldn't be here. well, that's so. i do need you. and i'm goin' to tell you the truth--even if it gives away my hand." "suit yourself," said peter, indifferently. he watched his old "bunkie" pour out another drink of the whisky, and a definite plan of action took shape in his mind. if he could only get kennedy drunk enough.... the whisky bottle was almost empty--so peter got up, went to his cupboard and brought forth another one. "good old pete!" said hawk. "seems like july the first didn't make much difference to you." "a present from mr. mcguire," peter explained. "well, here's to his fat bank account. may it soon be ours." and he drank copiously. peter filled his own glass but when the opportunity offered poured most of it into the slop-bowl just behind him. "i'm goin' to tell you, pete, about me and mcguire--about how we got that mine. it ain't a pretty story. i told you some of it but not the real part--nobody but mike mcguire and i know that--and he wouldn't tell if it was the last thing he said on earth." "oh," said peter, "something crooked, eh?" kennedy laid his bony fingers along peter's arm while his voice sank to an impressive whisper. "crooked as hell, pete--crooked as hell. you wouldn't think mike mcguire was a murderer--would you?" "a murderer----!" kennedy nodded. "we took that mine--stole it from the poor guy who had staked out his claim. mike killed him----" "you don't mean----?" "yes, sir. killed him--stuck him in the ribs with a knife when he wasn't lookin'. what do you think of that?" "mcguire--a murderer----!" "sure. nice sort of a boss you've got! and he could swing for it if i didn't hold my tongue." "this is serious----" "you bet it is--if he don't come across. now i guess you know why he was so cut up when i showed up around here. i've got it on him all right." "can you prove it?" kennedy rubbed his chin for a moment. "i could but i don't want to. you see--pete----" he paused again and blinked pensively at his glass. "well, you see--in a manner of speakin'--he's got it on me too." and peter listened while his villainous companion related the well known tale of the terrible compact between the two men in which both of them had agreed in writing to share the guilt of the crime, carefully omitting to state the compulsion as used upon mcguire. hawk kennedy lied. if peter had ever needed any further proof of the honesty of his employer he read it in the shifting eye and uncertain verbiage of his guest, whose tongue now wagged loosely while he talked of the two papers, one of which was in mcguire's possession, the other in his own. hawk was no pleasant companion for an evening's entertainment. from the interesting adventurer of the _bermudian_, jim coast had been slowly changing under peter's eyes into a personality more formidable and sinister. and the drink seemed to be bringing into importance potentialities for evil at which peter had only guessed. that he meant to fight to the last ditch for the money was clear, and if the worst came would even confess, dragging mcguire down among the ruins of both their lives. in his drunken condition it would have been ridiculously easy for peter to have overpowered him, but he was not sure to what end that would lead. "you say there were two papers," said peter. "where are they?" "mcguire's got his--here at black rock," muttered hawk. "how do you know that?" asked peter with interest. "where would he keep it?" sneered hawk. "in his business papers for 'zecutors to look over?" "and where's yours?" asked peter. he hoped for some motion of kennedy's fingers to betray its whereabouts, but the man only poured out another drink and leered at peter unpleasantly. "that'sh _my_ business," he said with a sneer. "oh. is it? i thought i was to have a hand in this." kennedy grinned. "y'are. your job is t' get other paper from mcguire's safe. and then we'll have fortune in--hic--nutshell." the man wasn't as drunk as he seemed. peter shrugged. "i see. i've got to turn burglar to join your little criminal society. suppose i refuse?" "y' won't. why, pete, it ought to be easiest job in world. a few dropsh in glass when you're talkin' business and he'd never know it happened. then we 'beat it,' y'understand, 'n' write lettersh--nice lettersh. one of 'em to that swell daughter of his. that would do the business, _pronto_." "yes, it might," admitted peter ruminatively. "sure it will--but we'll give him chance. are y' on?" he asked. peter was silent for a moment. and then, "i don't see why you want that paper of mcguire's," he said. "they're exactly alike, you say--both incriminating. and if you've got your paper handy----" peter paused but kennedy was in the act of swallowing another glass of whisky and he didn't stop to answer the half-formulated query. he gave a gasp of satisfaction and then shrugged. "no use, pete," he said huskily. "i said i had paper and i _have_ paper handy, but i've got to have mcguire's paper too. i ain't got money and spotless rep'tation like mike mcguire but i don't want paper like that floatin' roun' universh with _my_ name signed to it." "i don't blame you," said peter dryly. hawk kennedy was talking thickly now and spilled the whisky in trying to pour out a new glassful. "goo' whisky this--goo' ole whisky, pete. goo' ole peter. say, you'll get pater, peep--i mean peter pape--oh h---- paper. _you_ know." "i'll have to think about it, jim." "can't think when yer drunk, pete," he muttered with an expiring grin. "to-morr'. 'nother drink an' then we'll go sleep. don't mind my sleepin' here, pete. nice plache shleep. goo' old shleep...." peter paused in the act of pouring out another drink for him and then at a sound from kennedy set the bottle down again. the man suddenly sprawled sideways in the chair, his head back, snoring heavily. peter watched him for a moment, sure that he couldn't be shamming and then looked around the disordered room. hawk's overcoat and hat lay on the bed. on tiptoe peter got up and examined them carefully, watching the man in the chair intently the while. hawk stirred but did not awaken. peter searched the overcoat inch by inch. there was nothing in the pockets, but a tin of tobacco and a philadelphia newspaper. so peter restored the articles and then hung the hat and coat on the nails behind the door. hawk kennedy did not move. he was dead drunk. the repulsive task of searching the recumbent figure now lay before him. but the game had been worth the candle. if the fateful confession was anywhere in hawk's clothing peter meant to find it and yet even now he hesitated. he put the whisky bottle away, cleared up the mess and then bodily picked his visitor up and carried him to the bed. hawk muttered something in his sleep but fell prone and immediately was snoring stertorously. then peter went through his pockets methodically, removing an automatic pistol from his trousers, and examining all his papers carefully by the light of the lamp-a hotel bill receipted, some letters in a woman's hand, a few newspaper clippings bearing on the copper market, a pocketbook containing bills of large denomination, some soiled business cards of representatives of commercial houses, a notebook containing addresses and small accounts, a pass book of a philadelphia bank, the address of which peter noted. and that was all. exhausting every resource peter went over the lining of his coat and vest, inch by inch, even examined his underwear and his shoes and stockings. from the skin out, hawk kennedy had now no secrets from peter. the incriminating confession was not on hawk kennedy's clothing. at last peter gave up the search and went out into the air, and lighted his corncob pipe, puzzled at his failure. and yet, was it a failure after all? hawk had eluded every attempt to discuss his copy of the confession. he had it "handy," he had said. a safe deposit box at the philadelphia bank of which peter had made record would be handy, but somehow peter thought the chances were much against kennedy's having put it there. men of his type usually carry everything they possess about their persons. peter remembered the ragged wallet of the _bermudian_. what if after all these years of hardship the paper had been worn so that it was entirely illegible, or indeed that in kennedy's many wanderings it had been lost? either of these theories was plausible, but none provoked a decision. so after awhile peter went indoors and opening all the windows and doors to cleanse the air, sat in the big chair and bundling himself in a blanket fell asleep. chapter xviii face to face we are told, alas, that at the highest moment of our expectations the gods conspire to our undoing, and therefore that it is wise to take our joys a little sadly, that we may not fall too far. but beth, being wholesome of mind and body and an optimist by choice, was not disposed to question the completeness of her contentment or look for any dangers which might threaten its continuance. and so when peter went home through the forest, she took her kerosene lamp to her room, there to smile at her joyous countenance in the mirror and to assure herself that never since the beginning of the world had there been a girl more glad that she had been born. all the clouds that had hung about her since that evening in the woods had been miraculously rolled away and she knew again as she had known before that peter nichols was the one man in all the world for her. their evening together was a wonderful thing to contemplate, and she lay in bed, her eyes wide open, staring toward the window, beyond which in a dark mass against the starlit sky she could see the familiar pines, through which was the path to peter's cabin. the stars twinkled jovially with assurance that the night could not be long and that beyond the night were to-morrows still more wonderful than to-day. and praying gently that all might be well with them both, she fell asleep, not even to dream. early morning found her brisk at her work around the house, cleansing and polishing, finishing to her satisfaction the tasks which peter's impatience had forbidden the night before. all of aunt tillie's blue china set was carefully restored to its shelves, the napery folded away, the shiny pots hung upon their hooks and the kitchen carefully mopped. then, with a towel wrapped about her head (for such was the custom of the country), she attacked the dining-room and parlor with broom and dust-cloth, singing _arpeggios_ to remind herself that everything was right with the world. it was upon the plush-covered sofa where she and peter had sat the night before that beth's orderly eye espied a square of paper just upon the point of disappearing in the crease between the seat and back of aunt tillie's most cherished article of furniture and of course she pounced upon it with the intention of destroying it at the cookstove. but when she drew it forth, she found that it was an envelope, heliotrope in color, that it bore peter's name in a feminine handwriting, and that it had a strange delicate odor with which beth was unfamiliar. she held it in her hand and looked at the writing, then turned it over and over, now holding it more gingerly by the tip ends of her fingers. then she sniffed at it again. it was a queer perfume--strange--like violet mixed with some kind of spice. she put her broom aside and walked to the window, her brow puckered, and scrutinized the postmark. "london!" of course--london was in england where peter had once lived. and peter had drawn the letter from his pocket last night with some other papers when he had shown her the communication from "hawk" kennedy. it was lucky that she had found it, for it might have slipped down behind the plush covering, and so have been definitely lost. of course peter had friends in london and of course they should wish to write to him, but for the first time it seemed curious to beth that in all their conversations peter had never volunteered any information as to the life that he had lived before he had come to black rock. she remembered now that she had told him that whatever his past had been and whoever he was, he was good enough for her. but the heliotrope envelope with the feminine handwriting and the strange odor immediately suggested queries along lines of investigation which had never before entered her thoughts. who was the lady of the delicate script and the strange perfume? what was her relationship to peter? and upon what topic was she writing to him? beth slipped the note about a quarter of an inch out of its envelope until she could just see a line of the writing and then quickly thrust it in again, put the envelope on the mantel above the "parlor heater" and resolutely went on with her sweeping. from time to time she stopped her work and looked at it just to be sure that it was still there and at last took it up in her fingers again, a prey to a more lively curiosity than any she had ever known. she put the envelope down again and turning her back to it went into the kitchen. of course peter would tell her who this lady was if she asked him. and there was no doubt at all that it _was_ a lady who had written the letter, some one familiar with a delicate mode of existence and given to refinements which had been denied to beth. it was this delicacy and refinement, this flowing inscription written with such careless ease and grace which challenged beth's rusticity. she would have liked to ask peter about the lady at once. but peter would not be at the cabin at this early hour of the morning, nor would beth be able to see him until late this afternoon--perhaps not until to-night. meanwhile, the note upon the mantel was burning its way into her consciousness. it was endued with a personality feminine, insidious and persuasive. no ladies of london affecting heliotrope envelopes had any business writing scented notes to peter now. he was beth's particular property.... when she went up to the second floor of the cottage a few minutes later she took the heliotrope letter with her and put it on her bureau, propped against the pincushion, while she went on with her work. and then, all her duties for the morning finished, she sat down in her rocking chair by the window, the envelope in her idle fingers, a victim of temptation. she looked out at the pine woods, her gaze afar, her guilty fingers slipping the letter out of its covering an inch, two inches. and then beth opened peter's heliotrope note and read it. at least, she read as much of it as she could understand,--the parts that were written in english--with growing amazement and incertitude. a good deal of the english part even was greek to her, but she could understand enough to know that a mystery of some sort hung about the letter and about peter, that he was apparently a person of some importance to the heliotrope lady who addressed him in affectionate terms and with the utmost freedom. beth had learned in the french ballads which peter had taught her that _ami_ meant friend and that _bel_ meant beautiful. and as the whole of the paragraph containing those words was written in english, beth had little difficulty in understanding it. what had peter to do with the cause of holy russia? and what was this danger to him from hidden enemies, which could make necessary this discretion and watchfulness in black rock? and the last sentence of all danced before beth's eyes as though it had been written in letters of fire. "there is at least one heart in london that ever beats fondly in memory of the dear dead days at galitzin and zukovo." what right had the heliotrope lady's heart to beat fondly in memory of dear dead days with peter nichols at galitzin or zukovo or anywhere else? who was she? was she young? was she beautiful? and what right had peter given her to address him in terms of such affection? anastasie! and now for the first time in her life, though to all outward appearance calm, beth felt the pangs of jealousy. this letter, most of it in the queer-looking script (probably russian) that she could not even read, in its strange references in english to things beyond her knowledge, seemed suddenly to erect a barrier between her and peter that could never be passed, or even to indicate a barrier between them that had always existed without her knowledge. and if all of the parts of the letter that she could not understand contained sentiments like the english part that she _could_ understand, it was a very terrible letter indeed and indicated that this heliotrope woman (she was no longer "lady" now) had claims upon peter's heart which came long before beth's. and if this anastasie--other women too.... beth read the letter again and then slipped it back into its envelope, while she gazed out of the window at the pines, a frown at her brows and two tiny lines curving downward at the corners of her lips. she was very unhappy. but she was angry too--angry at the heliotrope woman, angry at peter and angrier still at herself. in that moment she forgot that she had taken peter nichols without reference to what he was or had been. she had told him that only the future mattered and now she knew that the past was beginning to matter very much indeed. after a while she got up, and took the heliotrope letter to the bureau where she wrote upon the envelope rather viciously with a soft lead pencil, "you left _this_ last night. you'd better go back to anastasie." then she slipped the letter into her waist and with an air of decision went down the stairs (the ominous parentheses still around her mouth), and made her way with rapid footsteps toward the path through the forest which led toward peter's cabin. beth was primitive, highly honorable by instinct if not by precept, but a creature of impulse, very much in love, who read by intuition the intrusion of what seemed a very real danger to her happiness. if her conscience warned her that she was transgressing the rules of polite procedure, something stronger than a sense of propriety urged her on to read, something stronger than mere curiosity--the impulse of self-preservation, the impulse to preserve that which was stronger even than self--the love of peter nichols. the scrawl that she had written upon the envelope was eloquent of her point of view, at once a taunt, a renunciation and a confession. "you left _this_ last night. you'd better go back to anastasie!" it was the intention of carrying the letter to peter's cabin and there leaving it in a conspicuous position that now led her rapidly down the path through the woods. gone were the tender memories of the night before. if this woman had had claims upon peter nichols's heart at the two places with the russian names, she had the same claims upon them now. beth's love and her pride waged a battle within her as she approached the cabin. she remembered that peter had told her last night that he would have a long day at the lumber camp, but as she crossed the log-jam she found herself hoping that by some chance she would find peter still at home, where, with a fine dignity (which she mentally rehearsed) she would demand explanation, and listening, grant forgiveness. or else ... she didn't like to think of the alternative. but instead of peter, at the cabin door in the early morning sunlight she found a strange man, sitting in a chair in the portico, smoking one of peter's cigarettes, and apparently much at home. the appearance of the stranger was for a moment disconcerting, but beth approached the familiar doorway, her head high, the heliotrope letter burning her fingers. she had intended to walk in at the door of the cabin, place the letter in a conspicuous position where peter could not fail to see it, and then return to her home and haughtily await peter's arrival. but the presence of this man, a stranger in black rock, making free of peter's habitation, evidently with peter's knowledge and consent, made her pause in a moment of uncertainty. at her approach the man in the chair had risen and she saw that he was tall--almost as tall as peter, that he had a hooked nose and displayed a set of irregular teeth when he smiled--which he did, not unpleasantly. there was something about him which repelled her yet fascinated at the same time. "mr. nichols has gone out?" beth asked, for something to say. "yes, miss," said the stranger, blinking at her with his bleary eyes. "mr. nichols is down at the lumber camp--won't be back until night, i reckon. anythin' i can do for ye?" "no, i----?" beth hesitated. "i just wanted to see him--to leave somethin' for him." "i guess he'll be right sorry to miss you. who shall i say called?" "oh, it doesn't matter," said beth, turning away. but she was now aware of a strange curiosity as to this person who sat with such an air of well-being in peter's chair and spoke with such an air of proprietorship. the insistence of her own personal affair with peter had driven from her mind all thoughts of the other matters suggested in the letter, of the possible dangers to peter even here in black rock and the mysterious references to holy russia. this man who stood in peter's portico, whoever he was, was not a russian, she could see that at a glance and read it in his accents, but she was equally certain from his general character that he could be no friend of peter's and that his business here was not of peter's choosing. "if ye'd like to wait a while----" he offered her the chair, but beth did not accept it. "ye don't happen to be miss peggy mcguire, do ye?" asked the stranger curiously. "no," replied the girl. "my name is beth cameron." "beth----?" "cameron," she finished firmly. "oh----" the stranger seemed to be examining her with a glowing interest, but his look was clouded. beth had decided that until peter came explaining she had no further possible interest either in him or his affairs, but in spite of this she found her lips suddenly asking, "are you a friend of mr. nichols's?" the man in the portico grinned somberly. "yes. i guess i am--an old friend--before he came to america." "oh!" said beth quietly. "you've known him a long time then?" "ye might say so. we were buddies together." "then you knew him in--in london?" the man grinned. "can't say i did. not in london. why do you ask?" "oh, i just wanted to know." the gaze of the stranger upon her was disquieting. his eyes seemed to be smoldering like embers just ready to blaze. she knew that she ought to be returning and yet she didn't want to go leaving her object unaccomplished, the dignity of her plan having already been greatly disturbed. and so she hesitated, curiosity at war with discretion. "would you mind telling me your name?" she asked timidly. the man shrugged a shoulder and glanced away from her. "i reckon my name wouldn't mean much to you." "oh--i'm sorry. perhaps i shouldn't have asked?" the stranger put his hands into his coat pockets and stared down at beth with a strange intrusive kind of smile. "you and pete seem kind of thick, don't ye?" he muttered. "pete!" "pete nichols. that's his name, ain't it? kind of thick, i'd say. i can't blame him though----" "you're mistaken," said beth with dignity, "there's nothin' between peter nichols and me." and turning heel, beth took a step away. "there! put my foot in it, didn't i? i'm sorry. don't go yet. i want to ask ye something." beth paused and found that the stranger had come out from the portico and still stood beside her. and as her look inquired fearlessly, "it's about your name, miss," he muttered, and then with an effort spoke the word savagely, as though it had been wrenched from him by an effort of will, "cameron----? your name's cameron?" "yes," said beth, in some inquietude. "common name in some parts--cameron--not so common in others--not in jersey anyway----" "i didn't know----" "is yer father livin'?" he snapped. "no--dead. many years ago. out west." "tsch!" he breathed, the air whistling between his teeth, "out west, ye say--out west?" he stood in front of beth now, his arms akimbo, his head bent forward under the stress of some excitement. beth drew away from him, but he came forward after her, his gaze still seeking hers. "yes--out west," said beth haltingly. "where?" he gasped. "i don't know----" "was his name--was his name--ben cameron?" he shot the question at her with a strange fury, catching meanwhile at her arm. "let me go----," she commanded. "you're hurtin' me." "was it----?" "yes. let me go." the stranger's grip on her arm suddenly relaxed and while she watched his face in curiosity the glow in his eyes suddenly flickered out, his gaze shifting from side to side as he seemed to shrink away from her. from timidity at his roughness she found new courage in her curiosity at his strange behavior. what had this stranger to do with ben cameron? "what did you want to know for?" she asked him. but his bent brows were frowning at the path at his feet. he tried to laugh--and the sound of the dry cackle had little mirth in it. "no matter. i--i thought it might be. i guess ye'd better go--i guess ye'd better." and with that he sank heavily in peter's chair again. but beth still stood and stared at him, aware of the sudden change in his attitude toward her. what did it all mean? what were peter's relations with this creature who behaved so strangely at the mention of her name? why did he speak of ben cameron? who was he? who----? the feeling of which she had at first been conscious, at the man's evil leering smile which repelled her suddenly culminated in a pang of intuition. this man ... it must be ... hawk kennedy--the man who ... she stared at him with a new horror in the growing pallor of her face and hawk kennedy saw the look. it was as though some devilish psychological contrivance had suddenly hooked their two consciousnesses to the same thought. both saw the same picture--the sand, the rocks, the blazing sun and a dead man lying with a knife in his back.... and beth continued staring as though in a kind of horrible fascination. and when her lips moved she spoke as though impelled by a force beyond her own volition. "you--you're hawk kennedy," she said tensely, "the man who killed my father." "it's a lie," he gasped, springing to his feet. "who told you that?" "i--i guessed it----" "who told ye about hawk kennedy? who told ye about him?" "no one----" "ye didn't dream it. ye can't dream a name," he said tensely. "pete told ye--he lied to ye." "he didn't." but he had caught her by the wrist again and dragged her into the cabin. she was thoroughly frightened now--too frightened even to cry out--too terrified at the sudden revelation of this man who for some days had been a kind of evil spirit in the background of her happiness. he was not like what she had thought he was, but he embodied an idea that was sinister and terrible. and while she wondered what he was going to do next, he pushed her into the armchair, locked the door and put the key into his pocket. "now we can talk," he muttered grimly. "no chance of bein' disturbed--pete ain't due for hours yet. so he's been tellin' _you_ lies about me. has he? sayin' _i_ done it. by g--, i'm beginnin' to see...." he leered at her horribly, and beth seemed frozen into her chair. the courage that had been hers a moment ago when he had shrunk away from her had fled before the fury of his questions and the violence of his touch. she was intimidated for the first time in her life and yet she tried to meet his eyes, which burned wildly, shifting from side to side like those of a caged beast. in her terror she could not tell what dauntless instinct had urged her unless it was ben cameron's soul in agony that had cried out through her lips. and now she had not only betrayed peter--but herself.... "i'm beginnin' to see. you and pete--playin' both ends against the middle, with mcguire comin' down somethin' very handsome for a weddin' present and leavin' me out in the cold. very pretty! but it ain't goin' to work out just that way--not that way at all." all of this he muttered in a wildly casual kind of a way, at no one in particular, as his gaze flitted from one object in the room to another, always passing over beth almost impersonally. but in a moment she saw his gaze concentrate upon her with sudden eagerness. "he told ye i done it, did he? well, i didn't," he cried in a strident voice. "i didn't do it. it was mcguire and i'll prove it, all right. mcguire. pete can't fix _that_ on me--even if he wanted to. but he told _you_ or ye wouldn't of spoke like ye did. i guess maybe ye wouldn't of said so much if pete had been here. but ye let the cat slip out of the bag all right. you and pete--and maybe mcguire's with ye too--all against me. is that so?... can't yer speak, girl? must ye sit there just starin' at me with yer big eyes? what are ye lookin' at? are ye dumb?" "no, i'm not dumb," gasped beth, struggling for her courage, aware all the while of the physical threat in the man's very presence. "speak then. tell me the truth. pete said it was your money mcguire took--your money mcguire's got to make good to ye? ain't that the truth?" "i won't answer." "oh, yes, ye will. you'll answer all right. i'm not goin' to trifle. what did ye come here to see pete about? what's that letter ye came to give him? give it to me!" beth clutched the heliotrope note to her bosom but hawk kennedy caught at her hands and tried to tear it away from her. it needed only this new act of physical violence to give beth the courage of despair. she sprang to her feet eluding him but he caught her before she reached the window. she struck at him with her fists but he tore the letter away from her and hurled her toward the bed over which she fell breathless. there was no use trying to fight this man.... there was a cruelty in his touch which spoke of nameless things.... and so she lay motionless, nursing her injured wrists, trying desperately to think what she must do. meanwhile, watching her keenly from the tail of his eye, hawk kennedy was reading the heliotrope letter, spelling out the english word by word. fascinated, beth saw the frown of curiosity deepen to interest and then to puzzled absorption. "interestin'--very," she heard him mutter at last, as he glanced toward the bed. "holy russia. h----! what's this mean, girl? who _is_ peter nichols? answer me." "i--i don't know," she said. "yes, ye do. where did ye get this letter?" "he left it at--at my house last night." "oh! _your_ house! where?" "in the village." "i see. an' this scrawl on the envelope--you wrote it----" beth couldn't reply. he was dragging her through the very depths of humiliation. at her silence his lips curved in ugly amusement. "anastasie!" he muttered. "some queen that--with her purple paper an' all. and ye don't know who she is? or who pete is? answer me!" "i--i don't know," she whispered. "i--i don't, really." "h-m! well, he ain't what he's seemed to be, that's sure. he ain't what he's seemed to be to you and he ain't what he's seemed to be to me. but whoever he is he can't put anything over on _me_. we'll see about this." beth straightened and sat up, watching him pace the floor in deep thought. there might be a chance that she could escape by the window. but when she started up he ordered her back roughly and she soon saw that this was impossible. at last he stopped walking up and down and stared at her, his eyes narrowed to mere slits, his brows drawn ominously together. it seemed that he had reached a decision. "you behave yourself an' do what i tell ye an' ye won't be hurt," he growled. "wh-what are you goin' to do?" she gasped. "nothin' much. ye're just goin' with me--that's all." "w-where?" "that's my business. oh, ye needn't be scared of any love makin'. i'm not on that lay this trip." he went to the drawer of peter's bureau and took out some handkerchiefs. "but ye'd better be scared if ye don't do what i tell ye. here. stand up!" beth shrank away from, him, but he caught her by the wrists and held her. "ye're not to make a noise, d'ye hear? i can't take the chance." and while she still struggled desperately, he fastened her wrists together behind her. then he thrust one of peter's handkerchiefs in her mouth and securely gagged her. he wasn't any too gentle with her but even in her terror she found herself thanking god that it was only abduction that he planned. hawk kennedy went to the window and peered out up the path, then he opened the door and looked around. after a moment he came in quickly. "come," he muttered, "it's time we were off." he caught her by the arm and helped her to her feet, pushing her out of the door and into the underbrush at the corner of the cabin. her feet lagged, her knees were weak, but the grasp on her shoulder warned her of cruelties she had not dreamed of and so she stumbled on--on into the depths of the forest, hawk kennedy's hard hand urging her on to greater speed. chapter xix yakimov reveals himself it was with some misgivings that peter left his cabin, leaving hawk kennedy there to sleep off the effects of his potations, but the situation at the lumber camp was so hazardous that his presence was urgently required. hawk had awakened early, very early, and very thirsty, but peter had told him that there was no more whisky and threatened to throw over the whole affair if he didn't sober up and behave himself. and so, having exacted a promise from hawk kennedy to leave the cabin when he had had his sleep out, peter had gotten the "flivver" from mcguire's garage (as was his custom) and driven rapidly down toward the camp. he had almost reached the conclusion that the copy of the partnership agreement which hawk had held as a threat over mcguire had ceased to exist--that it had been lost, effaced or destroyed. but he wanted to be more certain of this before he came out into the open, showed his hand and mcguire's and defied the blackmailer to do his worst. he felt pretty sure now from his own knowledge of the man that, desperate though he was in his intention to gain a fortune by this expedient, he was absolutely powerless to do evil without the signature of mcguire. the question as to whether or not he would make a disagreeable publicity of the whole affair was important to mcguire and had to be avoided if possible, for peter had given his promise to bring the affair to a quiet conclusion. until he could have a further talk with mcguire, he meant to lead hawk kennedy on to further confidences and with this end in view and with the further purpose of getting him away from the cabin, had promised to meet him late that afternoon at a fork of the road to the lumber camp, the other prong of which led to a settlement of several shanties where hawk had managed to get a lodging on the previous night and on several other occasions. in his talk with the ex-waiter he learned that on his previous visits the man had made a careful survey of the property and knew his way about almost as well as peter did. it appeared that he also knew something of peter's problems at the lumber camp and the difficulties the superintendent had already encountered in getting his sawed lumber to the railroad and in completing his fire-towers. indeed, these difficulties seemed only to have begun again, and it was with great regret that peter was obliged to forego the opportunity of seeing beth that day, perhaps even that evening. but he had told her nothing of his troubles the night before, not wishing to cloud a day so fair for them both. the facts were these: flynn and jacobi, the men he had dismissed, had appeared again at the camp in his absence, bent on fomenting trouble, and shad wells, already inflamed against the superintendent, had fallen an easy prey to their machinations. accidents were always happening at the sawmills, accidents to machinery and implements culminating at last in the blowing out of a tube of one of the boilers. it was this misfortune that had held the work up for several days until a spare boiler could be installed. peter tried to find out how these accidents had happened, but each line of investigation led up a blind alley. jesse brown, his foreman, seemed to be loyal, but he was easy-going and weak. with many of his own friends among the workers both at the camp and mills he tried to hold his job by carrying water on both shoulders and the consequences were inevitable. he moved along the line of least resistance and the trouble grew. peter saw his weakness and would have picked another man to supersede him, but there was no other available. the truth was that though the men's wages were high for the kind of work that they were doing, the discontent that they had brought with them was in the air. the evening papers brought word of trouble in every direction, the threatened railroad and steel strikes and the prospect of a coalless winter when the miners went out as they threatened to do on the first of november. at first peter had thought that individually many of the men liked him. he had done what he could for their comfort and paid them the highest price justifiable, but gradually he found that his influence was being undermined and that the good-natured lagging which peter had at first tried to tolerate had turned to loafing on the job, and finally to overt acts of rebellion. more men had been sent away and others with even less conscience had taken their places. some of them had enunciated bolshevist doctrines as wild as any of flynn's or jacobi's. jonathan k. mcguire stood as a type which represented the hierarchy of wealth and was therefore their hereditary enemy. peter in a quiet talk at the bunk-house one night had told them that once jonathan k. mcguire had been as poor, if not poorer, than any one of them. but even as he spoke he had felt that his words had made no impression. it was what mcguire was _now_ that mattered, they told him. all this land, all this lumber, was the people's, and they'd get it too in time. with great earnestness, born of a personal experience of which they could not dream, peter pointed out to them what had happened and was now happening in russia and painted a harrowing picture of helplessness and starvation, but they smoked their pipes in silence and answered him not at all. they were not to be reasoned with. if the soviet came to america they were willing to try it. they would try anything once. but shad wells was "canny" and peter had never succeeded in tracing any of the accidents or any of the dissensions directly to his door. without evidence against him peter did not think it wise to send him out of camp, for many of the men were friendly to shad and his dismissal was sure to mean an upheaval of sorts. peter knew that shad hated him for what had happened at the cabin but that in his heart he feared to come out into the open where a repetition of his undoing in public might destroy his influence forever. so to peter's face he was sullenly obedient, taking care to give the appearance of carrying out his orders, while as soon as peter's back was turned he laughed, loafed and encouraged others to do the same. and for the last week peter had not liked the looks of things. at the lumber camp the work was almost at a standstill, and the sawmills were silent. jesse brown had told him that flynn and jacobi had been at the bunk-house and that the men had voted him down when the foreman had tried to send them away. it was clear that some radical step would have to be taken at once to restore discipline or peter's authority and usefulness as superintendent would be only a matter of hours. it was of all of these things that peter thought as he bumped his way in the "flivver" over the corduroy road through the swampy land which led to the lower reserve, and as he neared the scene of these material difficulties all thought of hawk kennedy passed from his mind. there was the other danger too that had been one of the many subjects of the letter of anastasie galitzin, for peter had no doubt now that the foreigner with the dark mustache who had followed him down from new york and who some weeks ago had been sent out of the camp was no other than the agent of the soviets, who had forwarded to london the information as to his whereabouts. peter had not seen this man since the day of his dismissal, but he suspected that he was in the plot with flynn, jacobi and perhaps shad wells to make mischief in the lumber camp. the opportunity that peter sought to bring matters to a focus was not long in coming, for when he reached the sawmills, which had resumed desultory operations, he found flynn and jacobi, the "reds," calmly seated in the office, smoking and talking with shad wells. peter had left his "flivver" up the road and his sudden entrance was a surprise. the men got up sullenly and would have slouched out of the door but peter closed it, put his back to it, and faced them. he was cold with anger and held himself in with difficulty, but he had taken their measure and meant to bring on a crisis, which would settle their status and his own, once and for all time. "what are you doing here?" he began shortly, eying flynn. the irishman stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged impudently. "that's my business," he muttered. "h-m. you two men were discharged because you were incompetent, because you were getting money you didn't earn and because you were trying to persuade others to be as worthless and useless as yourselves. you were ordered off the property----" "ye can't keep us off----" "i'll come to that in a moment. what i want to say to you now is this," said peter, planting his barbs with the coolness of a matador baiting his bull. "some men go wrong because they've been badly advised, some because they can't think straight, others because they'd rather go wrong than right. some of you 'reds' believe in what you preach, that the world can be made over and all the money and the land divided up in a new deal. you two don't. you don't believe in anything except getting a living without working for it--and trying to make honest men do the same. you, jacobi, are only a fool--a cowardly fool at that--who hides behind the coat-tails of a man stronger than you----" "look-a here, mister----" "yes, flynn's your master, but he isn't mine. and he isn't the master of any man on this job while i'm superintendent----" "we'll see about that," said flynn with a chuckle. "yes, we will. very soon. _now_, as a matter of fact----" "how?" "by proving which is the better man--you or me----" "oh, it's a fight ye mean?" "exactly." the irishman leered at him cunningly. "i'm too old a bird to be caught wit' that stuff--puttin' you wit' the right on yer side. we're afther sheddin' no blood here, misther nichols. we're on this job for peace an' justice fer all." "then you're afraid to fight?" "no. but i'm not a-goin' to----" "not if i tell you you're a sneak, a liar and a coward----" flynn's jaw worked and his glance passed from jacobi to wells. "i'll make ye eat them names backwards one day, misther nichols--but not now--i'm here for a bigger cause. stand away from the door." "in a moment. but first let me tell you this, and shad wells too. you're going out of this door and out of this camp,--all three of you. and if any one of you shows himself inside the limits of this property he'll have to take the consequences." "meanin' what?" asked wells. "meaning _me_," said peter, "and after me, the law. now go." he stood aside and swung the door open with one hand, but he didn't take his eyes from them. they laughed in his face, but they obeyed him, filing out into the open, and strolled away. peter had hoped to coax a fight out of flynn, thinking that the irish blood in him couldn't resist his taunts and challenge. but flynn had been too clever for him. a defeat for flynn meant loss of prestige, a victory possible prosecution. either way he had nothing to gain. perhaps he was just a coward like jacobi or a beaten bully like shad. whatever he was flynn seemed very sure of himself and peter, though apparently master of the situation for the present, was conscious of a sense of defeat. he knew as flynn did that no matter what forces he called to his aid, it was practically impossible to keep trespassers off a property of this size, and that, after all, the success of his logging operations remained with the men themselves. but he breathed more freely now that he had made his decision with regard to shad wells. he spent a large part of the morning going over the mills, getting the men together and giving them a little talk, then went up to the camp in search of jesse brown. the news of his encounter with shad and the "reds" had preceded him and he saw that trouble was brewing. jesse brown wagged his head in a deprecating way and tried to side-step the entire situation. but peter had reached a point where he was tired of equivocation. "i say, jesse," he said at last, "you've let things get into a pretty bad mess down here." "i'm a peaceable man, mr. nichols," said jesse. "i've tried to steer this camp along easy-like, 'til this bit of woods is cleared up and here you go stirrin' up a hornet's nest about our ears." peter frowned. "you know as well as i do that the men are doing just as they please. at the rate they're going they wouldn't have this section finished by christmas. i'm paying them for work they don't do and you know it. i put you in here to see that mcguire gets what he's paying for. you haven't done it." "i've done the best i could," muttered jesse. "that isn't the best i want. you knew flynn and jacobi were back in camp yesterday. why didn't you tell me so?" "i can't do nothin'. they've got friends here." "and haven't you got friends here too? i sent those men out of camp. if they're here again i'll find the power to arrest them." "i'd advise you not to try that." "why?" "they're stronger than you think." "i'll take my chances on that. but i want to know where you stand. are you with me or against me?" "well," said jesse, rubbing his head dubiously, "i'll do what i can." "all right. we'll make a fresh start. round up all hands. i'm going to talk to them at dinner time." jesse glanced at him, shrugged and went out and peter went into the office where he spent the intervening time going over the books. it was there that one of the clerks, a man named brierly, brought forth from the drawer of his desk a small pamphlet which he had picked up yesterday in the bunk-house. peter opened and read it. it was a copy of the new manifest of the union of russian workers and though written in english, gave every mark of origin in the lenin-trotzky regime and was cleverly written in catch phrases meant to trap the ignorant. it proposed to destroy the churches and erect in their stead places of amusement for the working people. he read at random. "beyond the blood-covered barricades, beyond all terrors of civil war, there already shines for us the magnificent, beautiful form of man, without a god, without a master, and full of authority." fine doctrine this! the pamphlet derided the law and the state, and urged the complete destruction of private ownership. it predicted the coming of the revolution in a few weeks, naming the day, of a general strike of all industries which would paralyze all the functions of commerce. it was bolshevik in ideal, bolshevik in inspiration and it opened peter's eyes as to the venality of the gentleman with the black mustache. brierly also told him that whisky had been smuggled into the camp the night before and that a fire in the woods had luckily been put out before it had become menacing. brierly was a discharged soldier who had learned something of the value of obedience and made no effort to conceal his anxiety and his sympathies. he voiced the opinion that either flynn or jacobi had brought in the liquor. peter frowned. jesse brown had said nothing of this. the inference was obvious. at the dinner-shed, peter was to be made aware immediately of the difficulty of the task that confronted him, for dour looks met him on all sides. there were a few men who sat near him whom he thought he might count on at a venture, but they were very few and their positions difficult. some of the men still showed the effects of their drink and hurled epithets about the room, obviously meant for peter's ear, but he sat through the meal patiently and then got to his feet and demanded their attention. as he began he was interrupted by hoots and cat-calls but he waited calmly for silence and seeing that they couldn't ruffle him by buffoonery they desisted after a moment. "men, i'm not going to take much of your time," he said. "a short while ago i came down here and talked to you. some of you seemed to be friendly toward me and those are the men i want to talk to now. the others don't matter." "oh, don't they?" came a gruff voice from a crowd near the door. and another, "we'll see about that." peter tried to find the speakers with his gaze for a moment and then went on imperturbably. "i'm going to talk to you in plain english, because some things have happened in this camp that are going to make trouble for everybody, trouble for me, trouble for mcguire, but more trouble for you." "that's what we're lookin' for--trouble----," cried the same voice, and peter now identified it as flynn's, for the agitator had come back and stolen in unawares. "ah, it's you, flynn," said peter easily. "you've come back." and then to the crowd, "i don't think flynn is likely to be disappointed if he's looking for trouble," he said dryly. "trouble is one of the few things in this world a man can find if he looks for it." "aye, mon, an' without lookin' for it," laughed a broad-chested scot at peter's table. "that's right. i met flynn a while ago over in the office. i made him an offer. i said i'd fight him fair just man to man, for our opinions. he refused. i also told him he was a coward, a sneak and a liar. but he wouldn't fight--because he's what i said he was." "i'll show ye, misther----," shouted flynn, "but i ain't ready yet." "you'll be ready when this meeting is over. and one of us is going out of this camp feet first." "we'll see about that." "one of us will. and i think i'll do the seeing." a laugh went up around peter, drowned immediately by a chorus of jeers from the rear of the room. but peter managed to be heard again. "well, _i_ didn't come on this job looking for trouble," he went on coolly. "i wanted to help you chaps in any way i could." ("the hell you did.") "yes, i did what i could for your comfort. i raised your wages and i didn't ask more than an honest day's work from any one of you. some of you have stuck to your jobs like men, in spite of the talk you've heard all about you, and i thank you. you others," he cried, toward the rear of the room, "i've tried to meet in a friendly spirit where i could, but some of you don't want friendship----" ("not with you, we don't.") "nor with any one else----" peter shouted back defiantly. "you don't know what friendship means, or you wouldn't try to make discontent and trouble for everybody, when you're all getting a good wage and good living conditions." ("that ain't enough!") peter calmly disregarded the interruptions and went on. "perhaps you fellows think i don't know what socialism means. i do. to the true socialist, socialism is nothing else but christianity. it's just friendship, that's all. he believes in helping the needy and the weak. he believes in defending his own life and happiness and the happiness of others." ("that's true--that's right.") "and he believes that the world can be led and guided by a great brotherhood of humanity seeking just laws and equality for all men." (conflicting cries of "that's not enough!" and "let him speak!") "but i know what anarchy means too, because less than six months ago i was in russia and i saw the hellish thing at work. i saw men turn and kill their neighbors because the neighbors had more than they had; i saw a whole people starving, women with children at the breast, men raging, ready to fly at one another's throats from hunger, from anger, from fear of what was coming next. that is what anarchy means." "what you say is a lie," came a clear voice in english, with a slight accent. a man had risen at the rear of the room and stood facing peter. he was not very tall and he was not in working clothes, but peter recognized him at once as the man with the dark mustache, the mysterious stranger who had followed him to black rock. peter set his jaw and shrugged. he was aware now of all the forces with which he had to deal. "what does anarchy mean, then?" he asked coolly. "you know what it means," said the man, pointing an accusing finger at peter. "it means only the end of all autocracy whether of money or of power, the destruction of class distinction and making the working classes the masters of all general wealth which they alone produce and to which they alone are entitled." a roar of approval went up from the rear of the room and cries of, "go it, bolsche," and "give him hell, yakimov." peter waited until some order was restored, but he knew now that this type of man was more to be feared than flynn or any other professional agitator of the i. w. w. when they had first come face to face, this russian had feigned ignorance of english, but now his clearly enunciated phrases, though unpolished, indicated a perfect command of the language, and of his subject. that he should choose this time to come out into the open showed that he was more sure of himself and of his audience than peter liked. and peter had no humor to match phrases with him. whatever his own beliefs since he had come to america, one fact stood clear: that he was employed to get this work done and that yakimov, flynn and others were trying to prevent it. it was to be no contest of philosophies but of personalities and peter met the issue without hesitation. "you are a communist then and not a socialist," said peter, "one who believes in everybody sharing alike whether he works for it or not--or an anarchist who believes in the destruction of everything. you're an agent of the union of russian workers, aren't you?" "and what if i am----?" "oh, nothing, except that you have no place in a nation like the united states, which was founded and dedicated to an ideal, higher than any you can ever know----" "an ideal--with money as its god----" "and what's your god, yakimov?" "liberty----" "license! you want to inflame--pillage--destroy--and what then?" "you shall see----" "what i saw in russia--no wages for any one, no harvests, factories idle, blood--starvation--if that's what you like, why did you leave there, yakimov?" the man stood tense for a second and then spoke with a clearness heard in every corner of the room. "i came for another reason than yours. i came to spread the gospel of labor triumphant. _you_ came because----" here the russian leaned forward, shaking his fist, his eyes suddenly inflamed and hissing his words in a fury. "_you_ came because you believed in serfs and human slavery--because your own land spewed you out from a sick stomach, because you were one of the rotting sores in its inside--that had made russia the dying nation that she was; because it was time that your country and my country cleansed herself from such as you. that's why you came. and we'll let these men judge which of us they want to lead them here." the nature of the attack was so unexpected that peter was taken for a moment off his guard. a dead silence had fallen upon the room as the auditors realized that a game was being played here that was not on the cards. peter felt the myriads of eyes staring at him, and beyond them had a vision of a prostrate figure in the corner of a courtyard, the blood reddening his blouse under the falling knout. they were all michael kuprins, these foreigners who stared at him, all the grievances born of centuries of oppression. and as peter did not speak at once, yakimov pursued his advantage. "i did not come here to tell who this man is," he shouted, "this man who tells you what liberty is. but you ought to know. it's your right. you know why russia rose and threw off the yoke of bondage of centuries. it was because this man before you who calls himself peter nichols and others like him bound the people to work for him by terrible laws, taxed them, starved them, beat them, killed them, that he and others like him might buy jewels for their mistresses and live in luxury and ease, on the sweat of the labor of the people. and he asks me why i came to america! it was for a moment such as this that i was sent here to find him out that i might meet him face to face and confront him with his crimes--and those of his father--against humanity." yakimov paused suddenly in his furious tirade for lack of breath and in the deathly silence of the room, there was a sudden stir as a rich brogue queried anxiously of nobody in particular: "who in hell _is_ he, then?" "i'll tell you who he is," the russian went on, getting his breath. "he's one of the last of a race of tyrants and oppressors, the worst the world has ever known--in russia the downtrodden. he fled to america to hide until the storm had blown over, hoping to return and take his place again at the head of a new government of the democrats and the bourgeoisie--the grand duke peter nicholaevitch!" the uproar that filled the room for a moment made speech impossible. but every eye was turned on peter now, some in incredulity, some in malevolence, and some in awe. he saw that it was now useless to deny his identity even if he had wished to do so, and so he stood squarely on his feet, staring at yakimov, who still leaned forward menacingly, shrieking above the tumult, finally making himself heard. "and this is the man who dares to talk to you about a brotherhood of humanity, just laws and equality among men! this tyrant and son of tyrants, this representative of a political system that you and men like you have overthrown for all time. is this the man you'll take your orders from? or from the union of russian workers which hates and kills all oppressors who stand in the way of the rights and liberties of the workers of the world!" a roar of negation went up from the rear of the room, and an ominous murmur spread from man to man. only those grouped around peter, some americans, the scot, brierly, the ex-soldier, jesse brown, and one or two of the italians remained silent, but whether in awe of peter or of his position could not be determined. but peter still stood, his hands in his pockets, firm of jaw and unruffled. it has been said that peter had a commanding air when he chose and when he slowly raised a hand for silence the uncouth "reds" at the rear of the room obeyed him, the menacing growl sinking to a mere murmur. but he waited until perfect silence was restored. and then quietly, "what this man has said is true," he announced calmly. "i _am_ peter nicholaevitch. i came to america as you have come--to make my way. what does it matter who my fathers were? i am not responsible for what my fathers did before me. i am only responsible for what i am--myself. if this man in whom you put your trust would speak the truth, he would tell you that i tried to bring peace and brotherhood into the part of russia where i lived----" "he lies----" "i speak the truth. there people knew that i was their friend. they came to me for advice. i helped them----" "then why did they burn down your castle?" broke in yakimov triumphantly. "because people such as you from the soviet came among honest and peaceful men, trying to make them as mad as you--i came from russia to find new life, work, peace and happiness. i came to build. you came to destroy. and i intend to build and you shall not destroy. if the madness of russia comes to black rock it will be because mad dogs come foaming at the mouth and making others mad----" a savage cry went up and a glass came hurtling at peter's head, but it missed him and crashed against the wall behind him. that crash of glass liberated the pent-up forces in the hearts of these men, for in a moment the place was in a furious uproar, the men aligning themselves in two camps, that of peter and his friends much the smaller. peter retreated a pace or two as a shot was fired from a revolver, but the scot and brierly and two of the americans joined him and met the first onslaught bravely. the handful of men was forced back against the wall by sheer weight of numbers, but they struck out manfully with their fists, with chairs, and with their feet, with any object that came to hand, and men went down with bleeding heads. peter was armed but he did not wish to kill any one--his idea being to make a successful retreat to the office, where the telephone would put him in touch with may's landing and reinforcements. yakimov stood at the edge of the crowd, waving a revolver, when a well-aimed missile from the hand of the scot sent him sprawling to the floor among the benches. peter and his crowd had fought their way to the door, when flynn and jacobi who had led a group of men by the other door, fell on them from the rear. between the two groups their position was hopeless but peter fought his way out into the open, dodging a blow from jacobi and using the terrible _savate_ in flynn's stomach, just as shad wells rushed at him from one side. peter saw the blow coming from a broken axhandle--but he had no time to avoid it. instinctively he ducked his head and threw up his left arm, but the bludgeon descended and peter fell, remembering nothing more. chapter xx the russian pays when peter came back to consciousness, he found himself lying in the shelter of the underbrush alone. and while he attempted to gather his scattered wits together a figure came creeping through the bushes toward him. it was brierly, the clerk, carrying a hatful of water which he had procured from the neighboring rivulet. brierly had a lump on his forehead about the size of a silver dollar, and his disheveled appearance gave evidence of an active part in the mêlée. "what's happened?" asked peter slowly, starting up as memory came back to him. but brierly didn't answer at once. "here, drink this. i don't think you're badly hurt----" "no. just dazed a bit," muttered peter, and let brierly minister to him for a moment. "you see, there were too many for us," brierly explained. "we made a pretty good fight of it at that, but they buried us by sheer weight of numbers. yours isn't the only bruised head, though. yakimov got his early in the game--and jacobi. and gee! but that was a 'beaut' you handed flynn--right in the solar plexus with your heel. the _savate_--wasn't it? i saw a frenchy pull that in a dive in bordeaux. i reckon flynn won't be doin' much agitatin' for a while--except in his stommick." "how did i get here?" asked peter. "i hauled you into the bush as soon as i got a chance--in the confusion--and gradually, got you back in here. but i think they're lookin' for us, so we'd better get a move on soon as you're fit enough." "where's jesse?" "beat it, i reckon. haven't seen him." "i see." and then, "brierly, i'm obliged to you. i'll try to make it up to you for this." "you needn't bother. i'm for you. you can't let a lot of roughnecks put it over on you like this." "no--i can't--i can't," muttered peter. "i wish we had a bunch of the boys i was with over in france down here. there's a few up in may's landing who'd clean this lot up in no time." "i wish we had them." peter straightened with some difficulty and rose to a sitting posture as the thought came to him. "i've got to get to the 'phone, brierly." "no. i wouldn't advise that--not here. those roughnecks are between us and the office--in the office too, i reckon, by this time. it wouldn't be safe. who were you goin' to 'phone to?" "may's landing--the sheriff. i'm going to see this thing through." "righto! and i'm with you to a fare-ye-well. but it's got to be managed different. they'll beat you to death if you show up now. it was yakimov that shot at you. he's after you. you were armed. it's a wonder you didn't shoot him down." and then, with some hesitation, "say, mr. nichols. you ain't really the grand duke peter, are you?" peter smiled. "what's left of him--i am. this man yakimov is an agent of trotzky." brierly whistled softly between his teeth. "i reckon _they_ want to get you, don't they?" peter nodded. "but they won't--not yet." they held a brief council of war and in a moment on hands and knees were making their way through the underbrush in the general direction of black rock. behind them they heard rough laughter and an occasional outburst of song which proclaimed that new supplies of whisky had been unearthed and that the anarchy which yakimov so much desired now prevailed. after a while, peter managed to get to his feet and moved on at a greater speed. he had only been stunned by shad's blow--a part of the force of which he had caught on his arm. the arm was still numb and his head thumped, but as he went on in the cool air his brain cleared and he found it possible to plan with some definiteness. brierly knew the sheriff at may's landing. there was nothing his friends would rather do than to be sworn in as deputies for a job like this. he had thought it a wonder that peter hadn't called the sheriff in before. "i thought i could manage the situation alone, brierly," said peter quietly, "but it's got the best of me." the way was long to black rock--at least eight miles by the way they took--and it was almost six o'clock when, they reached mcguire's. they knew that with the "flivver" in the possession of the outlaws it was quite possible that some of the ringleaders of the disturbance might have preceded them, and so they kept under cover until near the house, when they quickly emerged from the bushes and made their way to the kitchen door, entering without knocking. an unpleasant surprise awaited them here, for in the kitchen, securely gagged and bound to a chair, they found mcguire's valet, stryker. it took only a moment to release the man and to get the gag out of his mouth, when he began sputtering and pointing toward the door into the house. "hawk--hawk kennedy!" the amazed peter made out. and after staring at the man in a moment of bewilderment, peter drew out his revolver and dashed through the house, keyed up at once to new adventure, the eager brierly at his heels. they went up the stairs and to the door of mcguire's own room, where they stood for a moment aghast at the disorder and havoc before them. papers and books were scattered everywhere upon the floor, chairs were overturned, and the door of the safe was ajar. at first he saw no one, but when peter entered the room he heard a sound from the corner beyond the table, a sound halfway between a gasp and a groan, and there he found his employer, jonathan k. mcguire, doubled up on the floor, bound and trussed like his valet and quite as helpless. it was evident that the long awaited terror had come to black rock. but if he was dismayed and frightened it seemed that mcguire was uninjured and when he was released he was lifted to his feet and a chair, into which he sank speechless for a moment of rehabilitation. there was no need to question him as to what had happened in this room, for the evidences of hawk's visit and its purpose were all too evident. without a word to mcguire, peter found the telephone in the hall, called for may's landing, then turning the instrument over to brierly, with instructions as to what he was to do, returned to mcguire's room and closed the door behind him. "well, sir," he said briefly. "i see he's come." "my god, yes," gasped mcguire. "and you know what he came for--he got it, nichols. he got it." "that proves that he _had_ lost the duplicate," said peter quietly. "how did it all happen?" the old man drew a trembling hand across his brow. "he took me off my guard--all of us. i don't know. it only happened half an hour ago. where's stryker?" "he was tied to a chair in the kitchen. we let him loose. he's outside somewhere." "and mrs. bergen and sarah?" "i don't know, sir." peter went to the door and called stryker and that bewildered person appeared at the foot of the steps with mrs. bergen and sarah who had been locked in the cellar. peter called them up and they all began screaming their tale at once. but at last peter got at the facts. hawk kennedy had come suddenly into the kitchen where the two women were and, brandishing a revolver, commanding silence, threatening death if they made a sound. he had surprised the valet in the lower hall and had marched him back into the kitchen, where he had bound him to a chair with a clothes-line and then gagged him. mcguire waved the trio out of the room when their story was told, and signaled to peter to close the door again, when he took up his interrupted tale. "i was at the window, looking out, nichols. i didn't expect him for a couple of weeks anyway. i'd just about gotten my nerve back. but he got the drop on me, nichols. how he ever got into the room without my hearin' him! i must have been in a trance. his shoes were off. the first thing i know is a voice close at my ear and a gun in my ribs. i turned quick--but my gun was in the table drawer. his face was close to mine and i knew he meant business. if i'd 'a' moved he'd 'a' killed me. so i put my hands up. there wasn't anything else to do. i thought i'd play for time but he caught my glance toward the door and only laughed. "'there ain't anybody comin', mike,' he says. 'it's just you an' me.' i asked him what he wanted and he grinned. 'you know,' he says. and with his left hand he brought out a rope he had stuffed in his pocket. 'i'll fix _you_ first. then we'll talk,' he says. he was cool like he always was. he caught a slip noose around my wrists before i knew it, twisted the rope around me and threw me over on the floor. i tell you that man is the devil himself." "what then?" "he made me give up the keys to the drawers in the safe--it was open just like it is now. i wouldn't speak at first but he kicked me and then put the gun at my head. i still hoped some one would come. i gave in at last. he found it. my god!" the old man aroused himself with an effort and rose to his feet. "but we've got to catch him--just you and i. he can't have gone far. we've got the right to shoot him now--to shoot on sight----" "yes--yes. i'm getting the sheriff at may's landing now----" "the sheriff!" the irishman's small eyes stared and then became alive in sudden comprehension. "not the sheriff, nichols. i won't have him." "you've got to--at once." and then rapidly peter gave an account of what had happened at the logging camp. but it seemed to have no effect upon mcguire, who listened with glassy eyes. he was obsessed with the other--the graver danger. "we'll keep this thing quiet if you like--the real meaning of this visit, and we've got to pick up his trail. but we can't let those men at the camp have the run of the place. they'll be looting this house next." and then, as mcguire seemed to agree, peter went to the door and found brierly still on the 'phone. he was talking to the sheriff and had told the whole story. the sheriff had already heard something about the black rock camp trouble and would be ready to move in an hour. "tell him to move fast and to come to mcguire's first," said peter. "and you'll be here to show him the way." brierly nodded and finished the message, while peter returned to mcguire. "what else did kennedy say?" peter asked him. "he asked a lot of questions--about you and beth cameron--about the money--about what i'd promised you. he's the very devil, i tell you. he knows everything. he said he'd 'get' you and that he'd 'get' beth cameron." peter caught mcguire fiercely by the shoulder. "what did you say? are you sure?" with all of his other troubles peter had forgotten beth and now thought guiltily of the possible danger to which she might have been subjected. how could hawk have found out about beth cameron? "what i told you," muttered mcguire wearily, "he said he'd 'get' her----" sick with anxiety, peter flung away from his protesting employer and made for the door, rushing past the astonished brierly in the hall, down the stairs and out at a run over the bridge and through the village to the bergen house. the door was open and he rushed in, calling beth's name. there was no response. now desperate and fearing the worst, he ran from room to room, downstairs and up. there were signs of her--a towel on a chair, a broom leaning against a door upstairs, the neatly made beds, the orderly kitchen, giving evidence of the morning cleaning, but no supper cooking on the stove, the fire of which had burned to cinders. she had not been here for a long while--since early morning possibly. but where had she gone--where? hawk kennedy would hardly have dared to come here--to the village--hardly have succeeded in enticing her away from this house, surrounded by neighbors--still less have succeeded in carrying her off without their knowledge. he rushed out into the road and questioned. no one seemed to have seen her. the eagerness and suppressed anxiety of peter's manner quickly drew a crowd which felt the contagion of his excitement. a man joined the group. yes. he had seen beth in the morning early. she was hurrying down the path which led into the pines. he had not seen her since. peter glanced at him just once more to be sure that he was speaking the truth and then, without a thought as to the impression he had created in the minds of the villagers, set off running through the path toward his cabin. fool that he had been! to leave beth unguarded--unwarned even--with hawk within a quarter of a mile of her. why had he not seen the hand of fate in beth's presence here at black rock near mcguire, the man who had wronged her father--the hand of fate, which with unerring definiteness was guiding the principals in this sordid tragedy together from the ends of the earth for a reckoning? and what was this reckoning to be? mcguire had already fallen a victim to the man's devilish skill and audacity. and beth----? what match was she for a clever desperate rogue who balked at nothing? how had he learned of beth's existence and how, knowing of it, had he managed to beguile her away from the village? peter was beginning to believe with mcguire that hawk kennedy was indeed in league with the devil. peter was not now aware of any pain or even of bodily fatigue, for there was no room in his mind for any thought of self. scarcely conscious of his new exertions, he ran across the log-jam below the pool and up the path to the cabin. what he expected to find there he did not know, but it seemed clear that beth had come this way in the morning and if not to the cabin, where else? hawk had been here when she had come into the woodland path. that was enough. as he reached the turn in the path, he saw that the door of the cabin was open and when he rushed in, prepared for anything, he saw that the room was unoccupied. he stood aghast for a moment, trying to adjust his mind to take in logically the evidence he found there--the overturned chair, the blankets dragging on the floor by the bed, the broken water pitcher, the opened bureau drawers, the torn bits of linen--parts of his own handkerchiefs--upon the floor--all visible signs' of a commotion, perhaps of a struggle, that had taken place. and then under the table he espied a square of heliotrope paper. he picked it up quickly and took it to the light of the window. it was the envelope of the letter he had received from anastasie galitzin. and what was this----? a scrawl in beth's hand, "you left _this_ last night. you'd better go back to anastasie." bewildered for a moment, peter stared at the forceful characters of the handwriting, written hurriedly in a scrawl of lead pencil, and then the probable sequence of events came to him with a rush. she had opened the note of anastasie galitzin and read it. what had it said? he had forgotten details. but there were phrases that might have been misconstrued. and beth----. he could see her now coming up the path, her head high, seeking explanations--and meeting hawk! but where was the letter itself? he searched for it without success. hawk! the answer to all of his questions was in the personality of the man as peter knew him. the bits of torn linen and beth's own handkerchief, which he found in the corner of the bed against the wall, crumpled into a ball and still moist with her tears, were mute but eloquent evidences of her suffering and torture in the presence of this man who had not been too delicate in the means by which he had accomplished her subjugation. peter raged up and down the floor of the cabin like a caged animal. what must he do--which way turn? that hawk had gagged and bound her was obvious. but what then? he rushed outside and examined the shrubbery around the cabin. there was nothing to indicate the direction in which he had taken her--and the forest at his very elbow stretched for miles in all directions, a hiding place that had served other guilty ones before hawk--the new jersey pines that he had learned to love, now wrapped in a conspiracy of silence. it would be dusk very soon. a search of the pine barrens at night would be hopeless. besides, hawk had had the whole of the morning and most of the afternoon in which to carry out his purpose.... what was that purpose? where had he taken beth? where had he left her when he had returned to black rock house to rob mcguire? or had he...? impossible! even hawk wouldn't have dared.... peter clenched his fists in agony and rage at the terrible thoughts that came swarming into his brain, driving out all reason. his highness had suffered greatly the last few years of his life, the physical pain of wounds received in battle, the mental pain of falling hopes, of fallen pride, of disillusionment, but he could not remember any pain that had seemed to matter like the anguish of the present moment. the other sufferings were those of the grand duke peter nicholaevitch, material sufferings born of his high estate. but this present suffering was primitive. it wrenched at the very fibers of the heart, for the love that he had found was a finer thing than had ever happened in his life, a love which asked nothing and only craved the joy of giving. and this woman--this mate that he had chosen out of all the women that he had known in the world...! hawk kennedy would have fared badly if peter could have had him within arm's reach at that moment. but after a time, as peter went into the cabin, he grew calmer, and pacing the floor for a while, began to think more lucidly. less than an hour ago hawk kennedy had been at black rock house giving jonathan mcguire and stryker their unpleasant half-hour. he wouldn't have dared to return and accomplish what he had done after a deed so terrible as that which had entered peter's thoughts. he was still a human being and beth.... he couldn't have killed beth out of hand. the thought was monstrous--even of hawk. he had taken her somewhere--to one of his hiding-places in the woods, and proposed keeping her, the legal heir of ben cameron, for ransom, as a part of his plot to win his share of the mcguire fortune. he had stolen the telltale agreement too and now held all the cards--all of them. peter paused standing by the window seat, looking out at the leaves falling in the rising wind, his mind already resolved on a plan. he was about to turn toward the telephone, when he noted a commotion in the bushes opposite his window. a flash of fire almost at the same moment, a crash of broken glass, and the hair on his head twitched violently. instinctively peter dropped to the floor. close shooting! his scalp stung uncomfortably--but aside from that he knew that he was not hurt. a fraction of an inch lower---- hawk----! his first impulse had been to rush to the door--but the events of the day had taught him caution and so he crouched, drawing his revolver. too much depended upon his existence at the present moment to take a chance in the open with a hidden enemy--especially if that enemy were hawk kennedy. he listened intently. no sound. then the breaking of a twig and the sibilance of whispering voices--two of them--perhaps more. and still peter did not move. his quick thinking had done him a service. it was clear that the men outside had decided that the shot had taken effect. and now, instead of creeping to the doorway, peter settled back upon the floor again, prostrate, but in such a position that his eyes and his revolver commanded the entrance to the cabin. he waited. it was a nerve-racking business but the thought of all that depended upon his safety steadied him into a preternatural calm like that which falls at the presence of death. death was imminent here for some one. it lurked just outside. it lurked in the finger that peter held against the trigger. and peter meant that the adventure should end at the doorway. presently he heard a gentle shuffling of feet outside and the whisper again, this time quite distinctly, "you got him, i reckon." whose voice was that? not hawk kennedy's ... peter lowered his head to his arm and closed his eyes, watching the door-jamb through his eyelashes, his revolver hidden but its muzzle in line. a bulky shadow on the step, a foot and then a head cautiously protruded--that of shad wells, followed immediately by another, swathed in a bandage which only partially concealed the dark eyes and beard of yakimov the russian. it took considerable exercise of will on peter's part to remain quiescent with the stare of those four eyes upon him, especially when he noted the weapon in the fingers of the russian. but he waited until the two men got into the room. "there he is. you got him, yakimov," said shad with a laugh. "perhaps----" peter heard, "but i'll make sure of it----" yakimov's pistol rose slowly, halfway to the level of his eyes. but it was never fired, for peter's revolver flashed fire, twice--three times, and yakimov with a sudden wide stare at vacancy pitched forward and crashed down. the surprise was complete, for a fourth shot went into the right arm of shad wells, which ruined his shot and sent his weapon clattering to the floor. peter had taken shad's measure once before and the memory of the blow from the axhandle earlier in the day did nothing to soften peter's intent. the quick command as he scrambled to his feet and the sight of the imminent weapon caused shad suddenly to forget everything but the desire, whatever else happened, not to die as yakimov had done. and so he put his hands up--staggering back against the wall. peter, with his weapon still covering shad, put his fingers over yakimov's heart. the man was dead. then he rose soberly and faced shad. "i ought to kill you like the dog that you are," he said tensely, "but i want to question you first. stand over by the bed." shad obeyed and peter, watching him closely, picked up his weapon and yakimov's and examined them carefully, putting one in his pocket and laying the other beside him on the mantel. but all the fight was out of shad, who stood stupidly while peter bound his wrists behind him. the man was badly hurt, but it was no time for peter to be playing the good samaritan. "so much for keeping bad company," said peter coolly. "you'll find more of the same sort in the lock-up at may's landing." "you daresn't send me there," muttered shad, with a feeble attempt at bravado. "won't i? you'll see--for attempted murder. the sheriff is on his way here now. have you anything to say?" shad was silent, eying the dead man. "oh, very well," said peter. he closed and locked the door and, keeping the man covered with his revolver, moved to the telephone and got mcguire at black rock house, telling him in a few phrases what had happened. "yes, yakimov the russian--i shot him.... yes.... i killed him. it was to save my own life.... shad wells.... a prisoner. send brierly with a car down here at once. hawk has been here too and has met beth cameron ... god knows. he has taken her away with him somewhere--abducted her.... yes ... yes ... i've got to find her. yes, _beth_--can't you understand?... she came here to bring me a letter ... i found it. hawk was here early this morning.... i know it. he bound her with some of my handkerchiefs ... no, there's no doubt of it--none at all.... i can't stand here talking. send brierly at once. understand?" and peter hung up the receiver and turned toward shad, who was leaning forward toward him, his face pale, his mouth agape at what he had heard. but peter, unaware of the sudden transformation in his prisoner, only glanced at him and bending over began a search of the pockets of the dead man, when shad's voice cut the silence---- "you--you say----," he stammered chokingly, "you say b-beth has been abducted, mister--beth cameron?" peter straightened, his eyes searching the lumberman's face. "yes. to-day--this morning," he answered crisply. "what of it? do you know anything----?" "hawk kennedy took her?" the man faltered. "are you sure?" peter sprang up, his eyes blazing with eagerness. "what do you know of hawk kennedy?" he cried. and then, as shad seemed suddenly to have been stricken dumb, peter seized him by the shoulder and shook him. "speak! do you know hawk kennedy?" "yes," said shad in a bewildered way. "i do--but beth----" "he's taken her away--don't you understand?" "w-why?" "god knows," said peter wildly. "it's part of a plot--against mcguire--to get money. do you know where he is? do you know where he's gone with her? speak, man! or must i----?" "i know him. i've seen him----," muttered shad with a hang-dog air. "to-day?" "no." peter gasped in disappointment, but still questioned quickly. "where did you see him?" "down near the camp. he came back again yesterday. he'd been away----" "yes, yes, i know. what did he say?" "oh, he was very peart--swaggered around like he owned the place and talked about a lot of money he was goin' to have. an' how he was----" "do you know where he took beth cameron?" broke in peter again. "no. i don't--my god--_him!_" "yes, _him_. you know what it means. he'd kill her if he dared." "would he? my god! mister. you can't let----" "no. no." and then, sharply, "speak up, wells, and i'll set you free. do you know where he could have taken her?" "i'm not sure, but maybe----" "where----?" "he stayed down at the forks----" "yes. but he wouldn't have dared to take her there----" "no. that's so. maybe----" "where?" "some other place----" "of course. was there any other place that he knew about?" "yes, there was. but when he first came he rode down on a horse from hammonton." "yes, yes. go on. and later----" "he used to come around the camp for food. it was when you first came on the job. but he bought it and paid for it." "i don't care about that. where was he hiding?" "back in the woods. he used to sleep in the old tool house down by the cedar swamp." peter was now on edge with excitement. "do you think he'd be likely to take beth there?" "how should i know? maybe he took her to hammonton or egg harbor." "no. he wouldn't have had time. where's this tool house?" "about half a mile from the mills." "could you show me the way?" "i reckon i could----," shad wells sank into a chair and bent his head. "my god! mister. if i'd only 'a' known! if you'd only let me help you--i can't stand thinkin' of anythin' happenin' to beth--you an' me--we ain't got along, an' maybe you've got the upper hand of me, but----" "we've got to forget that now," put in peter quickly, and taking out his hasp knife he cut the cords that bound shad's wrists. "just to show you that i mean what i say." and then, soberly, "you know these woods. help me to find beth cameron and i'll make no charge against you. is that a bargain?" "yes, mister." peter glanced at his face and at the blood dripping from his finger ends. the man was suffering much pain but he hadn't whimpered. "all right. take off your coat and i'll tie your arm up first." silently shad rose and obeyed while peter got water and washed the wound, a clean one right through the muscles of the forearm. but no bones were broken and peter bandaged it skillfully. shad clenched his jaws during the washing of the wound but he said nothing more. peter knew that the man still hated him but he knew also that shad was now powerless to do him any injury, and that there was a tie to bind them now into this strange alliance. as peter finished the bandaging and was improvising a sling for the wounded arm, shad crumpled side-long upon the edge of the bed, his face ghastly, and would have fallen to the floor if peter hadn't held him upright, and half carried him to the armchair. then peter unlocked a cupboard and brought forth whisky, giving shad half a tumblerful and in a moment the man began to revive. so peter poured another glass and slowly shad pulled himself together. "perhaps you're not up to it----," peter began. but shad wagged his head with some determination. "yes, i--i'm up to it all right. i've got to go, mister. we'll find her if she's in these woods----" "bully for you. feeling better now?" shad nodded and then raised his head, staring with a frown out of the window by the piano. peter had been so absorbed in his task of setting the man to rights that he had not noticed the dull glow that had risen in the southern sky. and following shad's glance he turned his head and looked out of the window. at first he thought it might be the afterglow of the sunset until a word from shad aroused him to the real significance of the light. "fire!" gasped the lumberman. "fire!" echoed peter, aghast. "they've set the woods afire, mister," muttered shad helplessly. at the same moment the telephone from the house began jangling furiously. it was mcguire, who had made the same discovery. "yes," replied peter to the hysterical questions. "it's the lumber camp. they've broken loose and set the woods afire. you've got to get all the men you can together and rush them down there. where's brierly? on the way? oh, all right. good. he'll take me down and i'll send him back.... yes. i've got a clew to hawk ... i don't know, but i'm going to try it. i'm taking shad wells with me ... the old tool house by the cedar swamp. brierly will know. send the men on in relays when they come--with shovels and sacks.... what did you say?... what?... oh, 'd----n the woods.'... all right. i'll get the paper if i can ... yes. it's my affair as much as yours now.... yes.... good-by." peter hung up the receiver and turned to shad, who had risen, his arm in the sling, just as brierly came running up the path to the door. chapter xxi the inferno the way through the woods was long, but beth stumbled on, urged by the rough tone and strong hand of her captor. she knew the woods well, better than hawk, but she had never ventured so far into the forest as he led her. she felt very certain that he knew even less than she of the way he was taking, and that his object in avoiding the roads and paths which led to the southward was to keep her hidden from the eyes of any persons that might be met on the paths between black rock and the lumber camp. but after a while she began to think that he knew with more or less definiteness the general direction in which they were moving, for he stopped from time to time to look at the sun and get his bearings. and then with a gruff word he would move on again, always to the south and east, and she knew that he had already decided upon their destination. with her hands still bound behind her, progress through the underbrush was difficult, for the branches stung her like whip-lashes, and thorn-bushes caught at her arms and tore her flimsy frock to shreds. the gag in her mouth made breathing painful, but hawk seemed to be unaware of her sufferings or purposely oblivious of them, for he hardly glanced at her and said no word except to urge her on to greater exertion. when they approached the road which he wanted to cross, he warned her with an oath to remain where he left her and went forward to investigate, after which he returned and hurried her across into the thicket upon the other side. and it was not until they were securely hidden again far from the sight of any possible passers-by that he untied the bonds at her wrists and took the gag from her mouth. but she knew more than ever that she was completely in his power. he was sinister. he typified terror, physical and mental--and behind the threat of his very presence lay the gruesome vision of sand and sun and the bearded man lying with the knife in his back. she tried to summon her native courage to combat her fears, to believe that the situation in which she found herself was not so evil as she imagined it--and that soon hawk kennedy would have a change of heart and give her a chance to speak in her own behalf. but he silenced her gruffly whenever she addressed him and she gave up at last, in fear of bringing his wrath upon her. she could see that he was deeply intent upon his object to get her away from black rock where none could find her. and what then? in a wild impulse--a moment of desperation, she broke away from him and ran, but he caught her easily, for by this time she was very tired. again, she thought of a struggle with him hand to hand, but he read her mind and drew a pistol, pushing her on ahead of him as before, threatening bodily injury. by this time she had learned to believe him capable of any cruelty. but she thanked god that the dangers that threatened were only those which could come from a brutal enemy and in his very brutality she even found refuge from the other and more terrible alternative of his amiability. as hawk had said, he wasn't "on that lay this trip." but what his ultimate purpose was she had no means of determining. she knew that he was totally without scruple and had thought in her first moments of terror that he meant to take her far back into the woods--and there kill her as he had done her father, thus again destroying all claim. but as the moments passed and she saw that he had some definite objective, the feeble remnants of her courage gathered strength. her attempt to escape had failed, of course, but his tolerance gave her a hope that he did not dare to do the dreadful violence of which she had thought. for hours--it seemed--they went through underbrush and swamp-land, stopping from time to time at hawk's command while he listened and got their bearings. beth had never been in this part of the woods, but she had an idea, from the crossing of the road and the character of the trees, that they were now somewhere in the lower reserve and not very far from the lumber camp. it was there that peter nichols was. her heart leaped at the thought of his nearness. all memory of the heliotrope envelope and of its contents seemed to have been wiped from her consciousness by the rough usage of this enemy to them both. it seemed to matter very little now who this woman was that peter had known. she belonged to a mysterious and unhappy past--for he had hinted at that--which had nothing to do with the revelation that beth had read in his eyes as to the meaning of the wonderful present for them both. she knew now that he could have explained, if she had given him the chance. instead of which she had rushed heedlessly to misfortune, the victim of a childish pride, plunging them both into this disaster. that pride was a pitiful thing now, like her disordered hair and her bedraggled frock, which flapped its ribbons, soaked and muddy, about her knees. but as long as she was still alive and in no immediate danger, she tried to hope for some incident which would send peter back to black rock earlier than hawk had expected, where, at the cabin, he would guess the truth as to her meeting with hawk and what had followed. but how could he guess all that? the difficulty dismayed her, he would hunt for her of course as soon as he learned of her disappearance, but clever as he was there seemed no way in which he could solve the mystery of her flight, still less, having guessed hawk kennedy's purpose, follow any trail through the wilderness by which her captor had led her. even in the apparent hopelessness of her situation, she had not reached the point of actual despair. youth and her customary belief in all that was good in the world sustained her. something would happen--something _must_ happen.... as she trudged along, she prayed with her whole heart, like david, to be delivered from the hand of the oppressor. that prayer comforted her and gave her strength and so when they came out at the edge of the swamp some moments later she obeyed his instructions more hopefully. there was a path along the edge of the water which presently led into the heart of the woods again, and there almost before she was aware of it she found herself facing a small wooden house or shanty which seemed in a fairly good state of preservation. silently, hawk kennedy unfastened the hasp which held the door, and gruffly ordered her to go inside. wondering, she obeyed him. but her captor now acted with a celerity which while it gave her new fears, set other fears at rest, for he took the handkerchiefs from his pockets and gagged and bound her arms and wrists again, pushing her down on a pile of sacking which had served some one for a bed, tying her feet and knees with ropes that were there so that she could neither move nor make a sound. there for a moment he stood, staring down at her with a grim kind of humor, born of his successful flight. "some kid, by g----! i'm kinder sorry--d---- if i ain't. but ye hadn't any business bein' who ye are. i believe i'd rather kill ye outright than hurt ye any more--that i would. maybe i won't have to do either. understand? but i got somethin' to do first. it ain't any child's play an' i ain't got much time to spare. be a good kid an' lie quiet an' go to sleep and i'll be back after a while an' set ye free. understand?" beth nodded helplessly, for it was the only thing that she could do and with relief watched his evil shape darken the doorway out of which he went, carefully closing the door and fastening the hasp on the outside. then she heard the crunch of his footsteps in the dry leaves behind the cabin. they moved rapidly and in a few moments she heard them no more. lying on her side, her head pillowed on the bagging, it did not seem at first as though she were uncomfortable, and her eyes, wide open, peered around her prison. there was a small window unglazed and by the light which came from it she could see some axhandles piled in one corner of the hut, several cross-cut saws on a box at one side, a few picks and a shovel or two. it must be a tool house used for the storage of extra implements and she remembered dimly that shad had once spoken of the cutting that had been begun down by the swamp and abandoned for a better location. this then was where hawk kennedy had taken her and she knew that it was a spot little visited nowadays except by hunters, and at some distance from the scene of present logging operations, toward the spur of the railroad. it was here perhaps that hawk kennedy had hidden while making his earlier investigations of black rock while he ripened his plot against mr. mcguire. there were several empty bottles upon the floor, a moldy crust of bread, and a broken water-pitcher which confirmed the surmise. she realized that hawk had planned well. it seemed hardly possible to hope for a chance passer-by in this deserted spot. and even if she heard the sound of guns or even heard footsteps in the leaves, what chance had she of making known her whereabouts? but she strained her ears, listening, only to hear the twittering of the birds, the chattering of squirrels and the moaning of the wind in the tree tops. how near was freedom and yet how difficult of attainment! she wriggled gently in her bonds but each motion seemed to make them tighter, until they began to cut more and more cruelly into her tender flesh. she tried by twisting her hands and bending her body to touch the knots at her knees but her elbows were fastened securely and she couldn't reach them. and at last she gave up the attempt, half stifled from her exertions and suffering acutely. then she lay quiet, sobbing gently to herself, trying to find a comfortable posture, and wondering what was to be the end of it all. hours passed in which the scampering of the four-footed things grew less and less and the birds ceased their chirping. only the moaning of the wind continued, high in the tree tops. once or twice she thought she plainly heard footsteps near by and renewed her efforts to free herself, but desisted again when she learned that it was only the sound of the flying leaves dancing against the outside walls of her prison. she thought of all the things that had happened in her brief and uneventful life, but most she thought of peter nichols, and all that his visit to black rock had meant to her. and even in her physical discomfort and mental anguish found herself hoping against hope that something would yet happen to balk the sinister plans of hawk kennedy, whatever they were. she could not believe that happiness such as hers had been could come to such a dreadful end so soon. but what was hawk kennedy's mission now? where had he gone unless to black rock again? and what would he be doing there? was revenge his motive now, stronger since her revelation of her parentage? and was it peter that he was going to...? her cry was muffled in the bandage. he had gone back to black rock to lie in wait for peter--to kill him perhaps. sobbing anew she struggled again with her bonds, until at last she lay back relaxed and exhausted, and prayed with all her might to the god that had always been her guide. and after a while she grew calm again, refreshed and strengthened by her faith. no harm would befall peter. no further harm would come to her. evil such as hawk's was powerless against her prayers. already he had done her a great injury. the god of her faith would keep her scatheless until peter, the man she loved, came to save her. she was as sure of this now as though she could see him coming, vengeance in his hand, with long strides through the forest to her hiding-place. and so, after a while, exhausted from her efforts, she fell into a doze. when she awoke from troubled dreams it was with a sense of suffocation. she had stirred in her sleep and the thongs had cut more deeply into the flesh at her knees, causing her pain. below the knees she was numb from the constant pressure, but she moved her toes up and down and her limbs tingled painfully as the constricted blood flowed into her extremities. how long she had lain there she did not know, but the interior of the shed seemed to have grown quite dark, as though a storm were rising outside. the wind was still blowing, and above the moaning of the pines she could hear the continuous rustle of the leaves and the creaking of moving branches. she managed with an effort to turn her head toward the window, where through the dark leaves of the overshadowing trees she could catch glimpses of the sky, which seemed to have turned to a pinkish purple, like the afterglow of a sunset. was it possible that she could have slept so long? in the turning of her head it seemed that the bandage over her mouth had become loosened and as she tried the experiment again, the handkerchief slipped down around her neck. in a moment she had gotten rid of the wad of linen in her mouth. at least she could breathe freely now and moisten her parching lips. this boon seemed almost in answer to her prayers. and if one bandage could come loose by god's help, why not another? and so cheerfully and with a persistence which took no thought of the pain she was inflicting upon herself, she began working her hands to and fro behind her until she fancied that the pressure on her wrists was not so great as before. with an effort she managed to wriggle over against the wall and so to straighten into a sitting posture. it was then that she suddenly raised her head and sniffed at the air from the small window above her through which a slender wisp of smoke came curling. smoke! the smell of burning brush, familiar to her, and yet back here in the woods, unless from a well tended camp-fire, fraught with perilous meaning. she glanced out of the small opening again. the purple had grown redder, a dull crimson shot with streaks of blue--smoke everywhere, endless streamers and tortuous billows sweeping down on the wings of the wind. fire in the woods! she knew the meaning of that. and the reddish purple was not the sunset but the glow of mighty flames near by, a "crown" fire in the pines! from the volume of smoke, increasing with every moment, it seemed that the old tool house in which she was imprisoned must be directly in the path of the flames. now thoroughly aware of her possible fate if she could not release herself she strained her ears, listening, and now heard distinctly above the sounds nearer at hand a distant crackling roar and the thud of heavy branches falling. the interior of the cabin had now grown even dimmer--to a dark redness--and the smoke came billowing in at the window almost stifling her with its acrid fumes. outside the window, when she struggled for freedom, she caught a glimpse of sparks, flying like meteors past the dim rectangle of her vision, small ones, larger ones, and then flaming brands which must set fire to whatsoever they touched. she was half mad now with terror. she tried to think calmly, because she knew that unless a miracle happened she would die alone here--the most horrible of all deaths. and then her eye caught the gleam of something upon the tool chest in the shadows beyond--the teeth of the cross-cut saw! if she could reach it! she fell over purposely on the sacking and with great difficulty wriggled slowly toward it, inch by inch. could she reach it with her wrists? with an effort she squirmed to the chest and straightened, her back against it, as she had done against the wall, and then turning, in spite of the increased pressure of her thongs, managed in some way to get to her knees, feeling for the teeth of the saw with her fingers behind her. it was not very sharp, but if she could direct it between her wrists it would do. in her new thrill of hope, she was hardly conscious of the suffocating smoke which now filled the cabin, stinging her eyes so that she could hardly see, or of the heat which with her exertions had sent the perspiration streaming down her face. for now, balancing herself with great care, she moved her tortured arms, half numb with pain, up and down against the rusty edges. a sharp pain and she bit her lips,--readjusting herself to her task. but she felt the saw cutting into the rope--one strand, another, and in a moment her hands were released. in her joy of the achievement, she toppled over on the floor, but managed to release her elbows. now, panting with her exertions and moving her arms quickly to restore the circulation, she felt for the knots at her knees and ankles and in a moment her limbs were free. but she had not reckoned with the effects of their long period of inactivity, for when she tried to get to her feet she found that her limbs were powerless. but she moved her knees up and down, suffering keenly as the blood took up its course, and after a time managed to scramble to her feet, and stagger to the opening in the wall. it seemed that all the forest was now a mass of flaming brands and that the roar of the flames was at her very ears. it was stiflingly hot too and in one corner of the cabin there was a tiny bright spot and a curl of smoke. had her liberty come too late? she was not even free yet, for the hole in the wall of the building was no larger than a single pane of glass and the door of the shanty was fastened by the hasp on the outside. there was no time now to hesitate unless she wished to be burned alive. with an effort she threw herself against the door--again and again, but it would not yield. despairing and blinded by smoke, she staggered to the box hunting an ax, when her fingers met the handle of the friendly saw. it was heavy but she knew how to use it, and set it at the hole in the wall, drawing it back and forth. the wood was dead and she felt it yield to the strong teeth of the tool, so that she struggled on, the width of the board; then cut again, at the upper edge of the aperture, and in a moment the board fell away. she was not a moment too soon, for as she crawled through the opening and fell exhausted on the outside, one end of the building suddenly caught fire, blazing fiercely. the sparks were all around her and her skirt caught fire in the flaming leaves into which she had fallen, but she put it out with her blistered hands and rose to her feet. a figure was coming toward her, bent, its hand before its eyes. she could not make out who it was, but as she turned to run hawk kennedy espied her. "ho there, kid! got loose, hey? just in time. did ye think i was goin' to let ye be burned to death?" * * * * * with brierly leading them to the machine and listening to peter's story as they went, peter made his way across the foot of the lawn to the road where the machine was waiting for them. as they climbed into it, the glow to the south had turned a lurid red, staining the dusky sky to the zenith. brierly drove and for precaution's sake peter sat in the tonneau with shad. but the lumberman, if he had ever been considered formidable even in his own estimation, showed no evidence of any self-confidence. peter had given him signs of mettle which were not to be denied and like all bullies shad knew that he was beaten. the one vestige of his decency,--his honorable affection for beth, which had blinded him to reason and all sense of duty, was now dedicated to the task of saving her. and though the dull hatred of peter still burned in his breast, the instinct of self-preservation, and the chance of retrieving himself at the last, made it necessary for him to put his pride in his pocket and accept the inevitable. "ye'll keep yer word, mister?" he inquired of peter, after a moment. "i didn't have nothin' to do with settin' them woods afire. ye'll get me out o' this scrape?" "yes," said peter shortly. "i will." but he watched him nevertheless. the ex-soldier drove the car at a furious pace over the rough road, rejoicing in the open cut-out and the rush of the wind past his ears. he had been, for a time, a chauffeur of a staff car on the other side, and the present conditions were full of promise of the kind of excitement that appealed to his youthful spirit. shad shouted instructions over his shoulder but brierly only nodded and sent the car on over the corduroy to which they had come, with the throttle wide. night had nearly fallen but the road was a crimson track picked out with long pencilings of shadow. the wind was still tossing the tree tops and leaves and twigs cut sharply across their faces. there was no mistaking the danger to the whole of the lower reserve unless the wind fell--a "crown" fire after two weeks of drought was not a subject for jest. but peter was not thinking of the damage to mcguire's property. he roared questions eagerly at wells as to the location of the cabin with reference to the probable course of the flames. the man only shook his head dubiously, but it was plain that he was considering that danger. as they neared the fire they could see the flames clearly now, beyond the pines just before them, which were etched in deeply bitten lines, every quivering frond in silhouette against the glare. as the car neared the "forks," shad directed brierly to take the turn to the left--away from the main road to camp, and they swung into a sandy road, the wind at their backs, their way for a time almost parallel to the course of the flames. they passed the small settlement of the "forks," the few denizens of which were standing beside the road, their few household goods packed in barrows and carts, undecided whether or not the red terror would come their way. the flames were clearly visible now, leaping skyward like devils freed from hell, and so hot was the fire and so high the wind that whole branches were carried high into the air and flaming fell beyond into the cool dark to kindle new destruction. anything that lay to leeward of the holocaust was doomed. peter furiously questioned wells again, but he only shook his head while he anxiously watched the flames as the road converged toward them. but as the road swung to the left shad shouted and held up his hand and brierly brought the car to a stop. "this is the nearest point, i guess, mister. from here on to cranberry town the road runs to the left of cedar swamp." "where's the cabin?" queried peter anxiously. "in yonder, not far from the edge of the swamp," shad replied with a frown. "looks like the fire's pretty near there." "come on, then," said peter quickly. "brierly, you go back to black rock and bring the men here. follow in. we'll be on the lookout for you." and leaving brierly to turn the car, he started off with shad wells into the underbrush. his heart sank as he saw how furiously the fire was raging and how near it seemed to be. but shad needed no urging now and led the way with a long stride, peter following closely. the woods were not so heavy here and the forest was now as bright as at midday, and so they made rapid progress, coming out at the end of some minutes at the edge of the swamp, whose burnished pools sullenly reflected the fiery heavens. there they found a path and proceeded more quickly. to peter's anxious questions shad shook his head and only peered before him, forgetting his own suffering in the dreadful danger to which the girl they sought might be subjected. a terrible thought had come into peter's mind in the last few moments--that it was hawk kennedy who had set fire to the woods after imprisoning beth in a cabin in the path of the flames. this was his vengeance, terrible in its simplicity--for a lighted match in the dry leaves would do the trick, and incendiarism in the woods was difficult to trace. a vengeance fatal in its effectiveness, for such a fire would tell no tales. peter found himself hoping that it was not to the old tool cabin that beth had been taken--that she was even far away from this inferno that lay before him. the glare was already hot on his face and stray breezes which blew toward him from time to time showed that the wind might be veering to the eastward, in which case all the woods which they now traversed would soon be afire. but to the credit of shad wells it may be said that he did not hesitate, for when he reached a point in the path where it turned closely along the edge of the swamp, he plunged boldly into the woods, directly toward the flames, and peter, even more eager than he, ran ahead, peering to right and left for signs of the cabin which now could not be far away. the roar and the crackling were now ominously near and the flames seemed to be all about them, while the tree tops seemed to be filled with flaming brands. sparks and live cinders fell upon them and the hot breath of the wind blistered them with its heat. suddenly the panting shad grasped peter sharply by the arm with his uninjured hand. "the cabin! my god! it's burning now----quick, mister--or----" peter sprang forward through the flaming leaves. he seemed to be in the very midst of the flames. blinded and suffocated by the smoke, peter plunged forward and reached the cabin. one end and side of it was blazing furiously but he dashed around the lower end of it, seeking the door. it was open and already aflame. the hut was empty. he ran out again, blinded by the smoke and the glare. was it a fool's errand? and had he and shad only entrapped themselves to no good end? to the right of him the fire roared and with his back to the glare his eyes eagerly sought the shadows down the wind. vague shapes of gnarled branches and pallid tree trunks, spectral bushes quivering before the advancing demon, some of them already alight. safety lay only in this one direction--for beth, if she had been there, for shad----peter suddenly remembered the lumberman and turned to his left to look, when suddenly he espied a figure moving away from him and ran after it, calling. he realized immediately that his hoarse cry was lost in the inferno of the flames, but he ran more rapidly, beating out the embers which had ignited the sleeve of his shirt. he saw the figure clearly now, but it was not shad--for shad had been in his shirt sleeves. this figure wore a coat and stumbled away half bent, one arm over its head, pushing something--some one ahead of it. peter drew his revolver, leaping the burning leaves and calling aloud. he saw the figures ahead of him halt and turn as they heard his voice and the glare behind him shone full upon them, the face of the man agape with inflamed surprise--hawk kennedy's, and the other, wide-eyed as at the sight of an apparition--beth's. only thirty paces separated them when hawk kennedy fired. peter heard beth's scream and saw her strike at the man's arm, but furiously he swung her in front of him and fired again. but her struggles and the uncertain light sent the bullet wide. peter did not dare to shoot for the man was using her as a shield, but he did not hesitate and ran in, trusting to luck and beth's struggles. one bullet struck him somewhere as beth seemed to stumble and crumple to the ground, but he went on unspent and catapulted into his man with a rush that sent them both sprawling into the smoldering foliage. blinded by the smoke, but mad with fury, peter struck and clutched, and hawk's last shot went upward for peter wrenched his wrist and then struck him full on the head with his own weapon. he felt the man relax and slip down into the dust and smoke, where he lay motionless. peter drew himself up to arm's length, wondering at the feebleness of his muscles and the trouble with his breathing. "beth!" he gasped, frantically, searching the smoking ground for her. "peter--thank god!" her voice was just at his ear and an arm went around his neck. "beth! beth! you've got to get out of this." "come, peter--there's time----" just then a branch crashed down just beside them, showering them with sparks. "come, peter--come!" she cried. he struggled up with an effort, one hand clutching at his breast. "go, beth!" he gasped. "for god's sake, go!" beth stared at him for one short terrible moment as she realized what had happened to him. "peter! you--you're----" "i--i think i'm hurt--a little--it isn't much." he swayed but she caught him and put an arm around one shoulder, clutching it with the other hand. "lean on me," she muttered. "i'm strong enough----" "no--go, beth----" but she put her strength under him and began walking while he staggered on beside her. sparks and fiery brands rained down upon them, blistering and burning, the hot breath of the furnace drove their breath poisoned back into their lungs and scorched their bodies, but still they remained upright--and by a miracle still moved on. "to the left," peter heard dimly, "the swamp is close by." he obeyed her, more dead than alive, and by sheer effort of will kept his feet moving, paced to hers. he seemed to be walking as though in a red fever, on leaden feet, carrying a body that had no weight or substance. but after a while his feet too seemed to grow lighter and he felt himself falling through space. but her arms were still about him. "peter," he heard her voice in agony, "only a few yards further----" with a last remaining effort he struggled and then his feet stumbling, toppled forward and sank into something soft, something deliciously cool and soothing. he felt a hand tugging at him, but he had no pain now, no weakness--only the perfect happiness of a body that, seeking rest, has found it. after a while he revived at the sound of a voice at his ear. water was splashing over his face and he struggled up. "no--keep down," he heard beth's voice saying. "we're safe, peter--the wind is changing----" "and you, beth----?" "all right, dear. a little patience----" the voice trembled, but there was a world of faith in it. after all that had happened, it was impossible that further disaster should follow now. "y-you're all right?" he gasped weakly. "yes. yes. lie still for a while." and so they half lay, half crouched in the mud and water, while the inferno swept over them, passing to the south. his head was on her breast and against his ear he could feel her heart beating bravely, a message of strength and cheer. from time to time her wet fingers brushed his hair with water and then, as he seemed to be sinking into a dream again, he felt lips light as thistle-down upon his brows. death such as this, he thought, was very pleasant. and then later he was aroused by a shrill clear call.... then saw lights flashing.... heard men's voices.... felt himself carried in strong arms ... but all the while there were soft fingers in his own. chapter xxii retribution when they lifted him into the automobile and beth got in beside him, his fingers moved in her own. "beth," she heard him whisper. "peter--i'm here." "thank god. and--and shad----? he--he was with me----" "he's asking for shad," she repeated to brierly, unaware that her cousin, like his biblical namesake, had come scatheless through the fiery furnace. but some one heard the question and replied: "shad's here, miss. he's all right----" "oh," gasped peter. "and there's something else----" "no, no--we must go. your wound----" but he insisted. "i--i'm all--right. something else,--beth--some one must get--paper--blue envelope--hawk ken----" his words ended in a gasp and he sank back in her arms. beth was frightened at the sudden collapse and the look in his face, but she knew that his injunction was important. and keeping her courage she called shad wells to the side of the car and gave quick directions. there was a note of appeal in her voice and shad listened, his gaze over his shoulder in the direction she indicated. "if he ain't burned to a crisp by now----" "go, shad--please! and if you can get to him bring the papers in his pocket to me." he met her gaze and smiled. "i reckon i'll get to him if anybody can." "oh, thanks, shad--thanks----" she muttered, as the lumberman turned, followed by one of the others, and silently moved toward the flames. and in a moment the car was on its way to black rock, brierly driving carefully over the rough road. that was a terrible ride for beth. she supported the wounded man against her shoulder, her gaze on his pallid face. her poor blistered arm was about his waist, but she had no thought for her own suffering. every ounce of strength that remained to her was given to holding peter close to her so that he would not slip down, every ounce of faith in her soul given to combat with the fears that assailed her. it seemed to beth that if the faith that had brought her through this day and out of that furnace were still strong enough she could combat even the death that rode with them. and so she prayed again, holding him closely. but he was so cold and inert. she put her hand over his heart and a tiny pulsation answered as though to reassure her. her hand came away dry, for the wound was not near his heart. she thanked god for that. she found it high up on the right side just below the collar bone and held her fingers there, pressing them tightly. if this blood were life and she could keep it within him she would do it. but he was so pale.... brierly drove to black rock house instinctively. here were beds, servants and the telephone. he sounded his horn as they came up the driveway and an excited group came out upon the porch. but beth saw only mcguire. "mr. nichols has been shot, mr. mcguire--he's dangerously hurt," she appealed. "he's got to have a doctor--at once." "who--who shot him?" "hawk kennedy." "and he--hawk----?" "he's dead, i think." she heard mcguire's sudden gasp and saw aunt tillie come running. "he's got to be put to bed--aunt tillie," she pleaded. "of course," said mcguire, finding his voice suddenly, "of course--at once. the blue room, mrs. bergen. we'll carry him up. send stryker." and aunt tillie ran indoors. peter was still quite unconscious, but between them they managed to get him upstairs. mcguire seemed now galvanized into activity and while the others cut peter's coat away and found the wound he got hammonton and a doctor on the 'phone. it was twelve miles away but he promised to be at black rock house inside half an hour. "twenty minutes and you won't regret it. drive like hell. it's a matter of life or death." meanwhile, aunt tillie, with anxious glances at beth, had brought absorbent cotton, clean linen, a basin of water and a sponge, and stryker and brierly washed the wound, while mcguire rushed for his bottle and managed to force some whisky and water between peter's teeth. the bullet they found had gone through the body and had come out at the back, shattering the shoulder-blade. but the hemorrhage had almost ceased and the wounded man's heart was still beating faintly. "it's the blood he's lost," muttered brierly sagely. "he'll come around all right. you can't kill a man as game as that." beth clung to the arms of the chair in which they had placed her. "you think--he--he'll live?" "sure he will. i've seen 'em worse'n that----" she sank back into her chair, exhausted. she had never fainted in her life and she wasn't going to begin. but now that all that they could do had been done for peter, they turned their attention to beth. she had not known how much she needed it. her hair was singed, her wrists were raw and bleeding, and her arms, half naked, were red and blistered. her dress, soaked with mud and water, was partly torn or burned away. "she must be put to bed here, mrs. bergen," said mcguire. "she'll need the doctor too." beth protested and would not leave the room until the doctor came. but mcguire, who seemed--and somewhat justly--to have complete faith in the efficacy of his own remedy, gave her some of the whisky and water to drink, while aunt tillie washed her face and rubbed vaseline upon her arms, crooning over her all the while in the comforting way of women of her kind, to the end that beth felt the pain of her body lessen. it was not until the doctor arrived with a businesslike air and made his examination, pronouncing peter's condition serious but not necessarily fatal, that the tension at beth's heart relaxed. "he--he'll get well, doctor?" she asked timidly. "i think so," he said with a smile, "but we've got to have absolute quiet now. i'd like some one here to help me----" "if you'd only let me----" but she read refusal in his eyes as he looked at her critically, and saw him choose stryker. "you're to be put to bed at once," he said dryly. "you'll need attention too, i'm thinking." and so beth, with mcguire's arm supporting and aunt tillie's arm around her, was led to the room adjoining,--the pink room of miss peggy mcguire. mcguire closed the door and questioned her eagerly. "you say hawk kennedy was killed----?" "i think so--or--or burned," said beth, now quivering in the reaction of all that she had experienced. "i--i sent shad wells to see. we left him lying there. we just had time to get away. the fire was all around. we got to the swamp--into the water--but he----" she put her face into her hands, trembling with the recollection. "it was horrible. i can't talk about it." aunt tillie glared at mcguire, but he still questioned uneasily. "you--you saw nothing of a blue envelope, a paper----" with an effort beth lowered her hands and replied: "no--peter--mr. nichols thought of it. shad wells will bring it--if it isn't burned." "oh, i see----" "but what you can't see," broke in aunt tillie with spirit, "is that the poor child ain't fit to answer any more questions to-night. and she shan't." "er--no--of course," said mcguire, and went out. if it had been an eventful day for peter and beth, the night was to prove eventful for mcguire, for not content to wait the arrival of shad wells, he took his courage in his hands and with brierly drove at once to the scene of the disaster. the wind had died and a gentle rain began to fall, but the fire was burning fiercely. the other matter in mcguire's thoughts was so much the more important to him that he had given little thought to the damage to his property. his forests might all be burned down for all that he cared. at the spot to which beth and peter had been carried he met shad and the party of men that had been looking for hawk kennedy, but the place where the fight had taken place was still a mass of fallen trees and branches all flaming hotly and it was impossible for any one to get within several hundred yards of it. there seemed little doubt as to the fate of his enemy. jonathan k. mcguire stood at the edge of the burned area, peering into the glowing embers. his look was grim but there was no smile of triumph at his lips. in his moments of madness he had often wished hawk kennedy dead, but never had he wished him such a death as this. he questioned shad sharply as to his share in the adventure, satisfying himself at last that the man had told a true story, and then, noting his wounded arm, sent him back with brierly in the car to black rock house for medical treatment with orders to send the chauffeur with the limousine. the rain was now falling fast, but jonathan k. mcguire did not seem to be aware of it. his gaze was on the forest, on that of the burning area nearest him where the fire still flamed the hottest, beneath the embers of which lay the one dreadful secret of his life. even where he stood the heat was intense, but he did not seem to be aware of it, nor did he follow the others when they retreated to a more comfortable spot. no one knew why he waited or of what he was thinking, unless of the damage to the reserve and what the loss in money meant to him. they could not guess that pity and fear waged their war in his heart--pity that any man should die such a death--fear that the man he thought of should not die it. but as the hours lengthened and there was no report brought to him of any injured man, being found in the forest near by, he seemed to know that peter nichols had not struck for beth in vain. when the limousine came, he sent the other watchers home, and got into it, sitting in solitary grandeur in his wet clothing, peering out of the window. the glow of the flames grew dimmer and died at last with the first pale light to the eastward which announced the coming of the dawn. a light drizzle was still falling when it grew light enough to see. mcguire got down and without awakening the sleeping chauffeur went forth into the spectral woods. he knew where the old tool cabin had stood and, from the description wells had given him, had gained a general idea of where the fight had taken place--two hundred yards from the edge of the swamp where nichols and the cameron girl had been found, and nearly in a line with the biggest of the swamp-maples, the trunk of which still stood, a melancholy skeleton of its former grandeur. the ground was still hot under the mud and cinders, but not painfully so, and he was not aware of any discomfort. clouds of steam rose and among them he moved like the ghost of a sin, bent, eager, searching with heavy eyes for what he hoped and what he feared to find. the old tool house had disappeared, but he saw a heap of ashes and among them the shapes of saws and iron picks and shovels. but he passed them by, making a straight line to the eastward and keeping his gaze upon the charred and blackened earth, missing nothing to right and left, fallen branches, heaps of rubbish, mounds of earth. suddenly startled, mcguire halted and stood for a long moment.... then, his hand before his eyes he turned away and slowly made his way back to his automobile. but there was no triumph in his eyes. a power greater than his own had avenged ben cameron. his vigil was over--his nightly vigil--the vigil of years. he made his way to his car and, awakening his chauffeur, told him to drive to black rock house. but when he reached home, the set look that his face had worn for so many weeks had disappeared. and in its place among the relaxed muscles which showed his years, sat the benignity of a new resolution. it was broad daylight when he quietly knocked at the door of the room in which the injured man lay. the doctor came to the door. it seemed that all immediate danger of a further collapse had passed for the heart was stronger and unless there was a setback peter nichols had an excellent chance of recovery. mcguire himself offered to watch beside the bed; but the doctor explained that a trained nurse was already on the way from philadelphia and would arrive at any moment. so mcguire went to his own room and, sinking into his armchair, slept for the first time in many weeks at peace, smiling his benignant smile. * * * * * beth awoke in the pink room of miss peggy mcguire in which she had been put to bed. she lay for a moment still stupefied, her brain struggling against the effects of the sleeping potion that the doctor had given her and then slowly straightened to a sitting posture, regarding in bewilderment the embroidered night-robe which she wore and the flowered pink hangings at the windows. she couldn't at first understand the pain at her head and other aches and pains which seemed to come mysteriously into being. but she heard a familiar voice at her ear and saw the anxious face of aunt tillie, who rose from the chair at her bedside. "aunt tillie!" she whispered. "it's all right, dearie," said the old woman. "you're to lie quite still until the doctor sees you----" "the doctor----? oh, i--i remember----" and then with a sudden awakening to full consciousness--"peter!" she gasped. "he's better, dearie." "but what does the doctor say?" "he's doin' as well as possible----" "will he get well?" "yes, yes. the doctor is very hopeful." "you're sure?" "yes. he's sleepin' now--quiet--ye'd better just lie back again." "but i want to go to him, aunt tillie. i want to." "no. ye can't, dearie--not now." and so by dint of reassurance and persuasion, aunt tillie prevailed upon the girl to lie back upon her pillows and after a while she slept again. but beth was no weakling and when the doctor came into her room some time later, the effects of her potion wearing away, she awoke to full consciousness. he saw the imploring question in her eyes, before he took her pulse and answered it with a quick smile. "he's all right. heart coming on nicely----" "will h-he live?" she gasped. "he'll be a fool if he doesn't." "what----?" "i'd be, if i knew there was a girl like you in the next room with that kind of look in her eyes asking for me." but his remark went over beth's head. "he's better?" "yes. conscious too. but he'll have to be kept quiet." "d-did he speak of me?" the doctor was taking her pulse and put on a professional air which hid his inward smiles and provoked a repetition of her question. "d-did he?" she repeated softly. "oh, yes," he said with a laugh. "he won't talk of anything else. i had to give him a hypodermic to make him stop." beth was silent for a moment. and then timidly---- "what did he say?" "oh, just that you saved his life, that's all." "nothing else?" "oh, yes. now that i come to think of it, he did." "what?" "that he wanted to see you." "oh! and can i----?" the doctor snapped his watch and relinquished her wrist with a smile. "if everything goes well--to-morrow--for two minutes--just two minutes, you understand." "not until to-morrow?" she asked ruefully. "you ought to be glad to see him alive at all. he had a narrow shave of it. an inch or two lower----" and then with a smile, "but he's going to get well, i promise you that." "oh, thanks," said beth gratefully. "don't worry. and if you behave yourself i'll let you get up after lunch." he gave some directions to mrs. bergen as to the treatment of beth's blistered arms, and went out. so in spite of the pain that she still suffered, beth was content. at least she was content until aunt tillie brought her miss peggy mcguire's silver hand-mirror and she saw the reflection of her once beautiful self. "aunt tillie!" she gasped. "i'm a sight." "maybe--but that's a sight better than bein' burned to death," said the old lady, soberly. "my hair----!" "it's only frizzled. they say that's good for the hair," she said cheerfully. "oh, well," sighed beth as she laid the mirror down beside her. "i guess i ought to be glad i'm alive after----" and then with an uncontrollable shudder, she asked, "and--and--_him_?" "dead," said aunt tillie with unction. "burned to a crisp." beth gasped but said nothing more. she didn't want to think of yesterday, but she couldn't help it--the horrors that she had passed through--the fate that might have been in store for her, if--peter hadn't found her in time! beth relaxed in comfort while aunt tillie bathed and anointed her, brushed out the hair that was "frizzled," refreshing and restoring her patient, so that after lunch she got up and put on the clothing that had been brought from her home. her arms were swathed in bandages from wrists to shoulders but the pain was much less, so, when mcguire knocked at the door and asked if he might see her, she was sitting in a chair by the window and greeted him with a smile. he entered timidly and awkwardly, rubbing his fingers uncomfortably against the palms of his hands. "they tell me you're feelin' better, miss cameron," he said soberly. "i--i'd like to talk to you for a moment," and with a glance at aunt tillie, "alone if you don't mind." aunt tillie gathered up some bandages and grudgingly departed. mcguire came forward slowly and sank into a chair beside beth's, laying his hand timidly on hers. "i thank god nothing happened to you, child, and i hope you believe me when i say it," he began in an uncertain voice. "oh, yes, sir, i do." "because the only thing that matters to me now is setting myself straight with you and mr. nichols." he paused in a difficulty of speech and then went on. "he--mr. nichols has told you everything----?" beth wagged her head like a solemn child and then laid her other hand on his. "oh, i'm so sorry for you," she said. "you mustn't say that," he muttered. "i--i've done you a great wrong--not trying to find out about ben cameron--not trying to find _you_. but i've suffered for it, miss----" and then eagerly----"you don't mind my calling you beth, do you?" "no, mr. mcguire." "i ought to have told what happened. i ought to have tried to find out if ben cameron had any kin. i did wrong. but i've paid for it. i've never had a happy hour since i claimed that mine that didn't belong to me. i've made a lot of money but what i did has been hanging over me for years making an old man of me before my time----" "oh, please don't be unhappy any more----" "let me talk miss--beth. i've got to tell you. it'll make me feel a lot easier." beth smoothed his hand reassuringly and he clasped hers eagerly as though in gratitude. "i never was much good when i was a lad, beth, and i never could get along even after i got married. it wasn't in me somehow. i was pretty straight as young fellows go but nothing went right for me. i was a failure. and then----" he paused a moment with bent head but beth didn't speak. it was all very painful to her. "hawk kennedy killed your father. but i was a crook too. i left hawk there without water to die. it was a horrible thing to do--even after what he'd done to me. my god! maybe i didn't suffer for that! i was glad when i learned hawk didn't die, even though i knew from that time that he'd be hanging over me like a curse. he did for years and years. i knew he'd turn up some day, i tried to forget, but i couldn't. the sight of him was always with me." "how terrible!" whispered beth. "but from that moment everything i did went well. money came fast. i wasn't a bad business man, but even a bad business man could have put _that_ deal through. i sold out the mine. i've got the figures and i'm going to show them to you, because they're yours to see. with the money i made some good investments. that money made more money and more besides. making money got to be my passion. it was the only thing i cared for--except my girls--and it was the only thing that made me forget." "please don't think you've got to tell me any more." "yes, i want to. i don't know how much i'm worth to-day." and then in a confidential whisper--"i couldn't tell within half a million or so, but i guess it ain't far short of ten millions, beth. you're the only person in the world outside the treasury department that knows how much i'm worth. i'm telling you. i've never told anybody--not even peggy. and the reason i'm telling you is because, you've got to know, because i can't sleep sound yet, until i straighten this thing out with you. it didn't take much persuading for mr. nichols to show me what i had to do when he'd found out, because everything i've got comes from money i took from you. and i'm going to give you what belongs to you, the full amount i got for that mine with interest to date. it's not mine. it's yours and you're a rich girl, beth----" "i won't know what to do with all that money, mr. mcguire," said beth in an awed voice. "oh, yes, you will. i've been thinking it all out. it's a deed by gift. we'll have to have a consideration to make it binding. we may have to put in the facts that i've been--er--only a sort of trustee of the proceeds of the 'tarantula' mine. i've got a good lawyer. he'll know what to do--how to fix it." "i--i'm sure i'm very grateful." "you needn't be." he paused and laid his hand over hers again. "but if it's all the same to you, i'd rather not have much talk about it--just what's said in the deed--to explain." "i'll say nothin' you don't want said." "i knew you wouldn't. until the papers are drawn i'd rather you wouldn't speak of it." "i won't." "you're a good girl. i--i'd like to see you happy. if money will make you happy, i'm glad i can help." "you've been very kind, mr. mcguire--and generous. i can't seem to think about all that money. it's just like a fairy tale." "and you forgive me--for what i did----? you forgive me, beth?" "yes, i do, mr. mcguire. don't say anythin' more about it--please!" the old man bent his head and kissed her hand and then with a great sigh of relief straightened and rose. "thank god!" he said quietly. and bidding her good-by he walked from the room. chapter xxiii a visitor the two minutes permitted by the doctor had come and gone. there had been much to say with too little time to say it in. for beth, admonished that the patient must be kept quiet, and torn between joy at peter's promised recovery and pity for his pale face, could only look at him and murmur soothing phrases, while peter merely smiled and held her hand. but that, it seemed, was enough, for beth read in his eyes that what had happened had merely set an enduring seal upon the affection of both of them. with the promise that she could see him again on the morrow, beth went back to her room. she had wanted to return to the village, but mcguire had insisted upon her staying where she was under the care of the doctor until what they were pleased to call the shock to her system had yielded to medical treatment. beth said nothing. she was already herself and quite able to take up her life just where she had left it, but she agreed to stay in mcguire's house. it seemed to make him happier when she acquiesced in his wishes. besides, it was nice to be waited on and to be next to the room where the convalescent was. but the revelation as to peter's identity could not be long delayed. brierly had brought the tale back from the lumber camp, and the village was all agog with excitement. but beth had seen no one but mr. mcguire and aunt tillie, and peter had requested that no one should tell her but himself. and so in a day or so when beth went into peter's room she found him with a color in his cheeks, and wearing a quizzical smile. "i thought you were never coming, beth," he said. "i came as soon as they'd let me, peter. do you feel stronger?" "every hour. better when you're here. and you?" "oh, i'm all right." he looked at her with his head on one side. "do you think you could stand hearing something very terrible about me, beth?" she glanced at him anxiously and then a smile of perfect faith responded to his. she knew that he was getting well now, because this was a touch of his old humor. "h-m. i guess so. i don't believe it can be so _very_ terrible, peter." "it is--_very_ terrible, beth." but the pressure of his fingers was reassuring. "i'm listenin'," she said. "well, you know, you told me once that you'd marry me no matter what i'd been----" "yes. i meant that, peter. i mean it now. it's what you are----" peter nichols chuckled. it was his last chuckle as peter nichols. "well, i'm not what you thought i was. i've been acting under false colors--under false pretenses. my name isn't peter nichols. it's peter nicholaevitch----" "then you _are_ all russian!" she said. peter shook his head. "no. only half of me. but i used to live in russia--at a place called zukovo. the thing i wanted to tell you was that they fired me out because they didn't want me there." "you! how dared they! i'd like to give them a piece of my mind," said beth indignantly. "it wouldn't have done any good. i tried to do that." "and wouldn't they listen?" "no. they burned my--my house and tried to shoot me." "oh! how could they!" and then, gently, "oh, peter. you _have_ had troubles, haven't you?" "i don't mind. if i hadn't had them, i wouldn't have come here and i wouldn't have found you." "so after all, i ought to be glad they did fire you out," she said gently. "but aren't you curious to know _why_ they did?" "i am, if you want to tell me, but even if it was bad, i don't care _what_ you did, peter." he took her fingers to his lips. "it wasn't so very bad after all, beth. it wasn't so much what i did as what my--er--my family had done that made them angry." "well, _you_ weren't responsible for what your kin-folks did." peter laughed softly. "_they_ seemed to think so. my--er--my kin-folks were mixed up in politics in russia and one of my cousins had a pretty big job--too big a job for _him_ and that's the truth." a cloud passed for a moment over peter's face and he looked away. "but what did _his_ job have to do with _you_?" she asked. "well, you see, we were all mixed up with him, just by being related--at least that's what the people thought. and so when my cousin did a lot of things the people thought he oughtn't to do and didn't do a lot of other things that they thought he _ought_ to have done, they believed that i was just the same sort of man that he was." "how unjust, peter!" he smiled at the ceiling. "i thought so. i told them what i thought. i did what i could to straighten things out and to help them, but they wouldn't listen. instead they burned my--my house down and i had to run away." "how terrible for you!" and then, after a pause, "was it a pretty house, peter?" "yes," he replied slowly, "it was. a very pretty house--in the midst of a forest, with great pines all about it. i wish they hadn't burned that house, beth, because i loved it." "poor dear! i'm _so_ sorry." "i thought you would be, because it was a big house, with pictures, books, music----" "all burned! land's sakes alive!" "and a wonderful grand piano." "oh, peter!" and then with a flash of joy, "but you're goin' to have another grand piano just like it soon." "am i? who's going to give it to me?" "_i_ am," said beth quietly. "and another house and pictures and books and music." he read her expression eagerly. "mr. mcguire has told you?" he asked. she nodded. "you knew?" "yes," he replied. "he told me yesterday." "isn't it wonderful?" she whispered. and then went on rapidly, "so you see, peter, maybe i can be some good to you after all." he pressed her fingers, enjoying her happiness. "i can hardly believe it's true," she gasped, "but it must be, because mr. mcguire had his lawyer here yesterday talkin' about it----" "yes. it's true. i think he's pretty happy to get all that off his conscience. you're a rich girl, beth." and then, with a slow smile, "that was one of the reasons why i wanted to talk with you about who _i_ was. you see, i thought that now that you're going to have all this money, you might want to change your mind about marrying a forester chap who--who just wants to try to show the trees how to grow." "peter! don't make fun of me. _please._ and you hurt me so!" she reproached him. "you know i'll never want to change my mind ever, _ever_--even if i had all the money in the world." he laughed, drew her face down to his and whispered, "beth, dear. i knew you wouldn't want to--but i just wanted to hear you say it." "well, i _have_ said it. and i don't want you ever to say such a thing again. as if i cared for anythin'--anythin' but _you_." he kissed her on the lips and she straightened. "i wanted to hear you say _that_ too," he said with a laugh. and then, after a silence which they both improved by gazing at each other mutely, "but you don't seem very curious about who i am." beth pressed his fingers confidently. what he was to _her_ mattered a great deal--and she realized that nothing else did. but she knew that something was required of her. and so, "oh, yes. indeed i am, peter,--awfully curious," she said politely. "well, you know, beth, i'm not really so poor as i seem to be. i've got a lot of securities in a bank in russia, because nobody knew where they were and so they couldn't take them." "and they would have taken your money too?" "yes. when this cousin of mine--his name was nicholas--when nicholas was killed----" "they killed him! who?" "the bolsheviki--they killed nicholas and his whole family--his wife, son and four daughters----" "peter!" beth started up and stared at him in startled bewilderment, as she remembered the talks she had had with him about the russian revolution. "nicholas----!" she gasped. "his wife--son--daughters. he had the same name as--as the czar--!" and as her gaze met his again she seemed to guess.... "peter!" she gasped. "what--what do you mean?" "i mean that it was the little father--the czar--who was my cousin, beth." she stared at peter in awe and a kind of fear of this new element in their relations. "and--and you----? you're----?" "i'm just peter nichols----," he said with a laugh. "but over there----" "i'm nothing. they chucked us all out, the bolsheviki--every last one of us that had a handle to his name." "a handle----?" "yes. i used to be grand duke peter nicholaevitch of zukovo and galitzin----" "g-grand duke peter!" she whispered in a daze. and then, "oh--how--how _could_ you?" she gasped. peter laughed. "i couldn't help it, beth. i was born that--way. but you _will_ forgive me, won't you?" "forgive----? oh--it--it makes such a difference to find--you're not _you_--but somebody else----" "no. i _am_--_me_. i'm not anybody else. but i had to tell you--sometime. you don't think any the less of me, do you, beth?" "i--i don't know _what_ to think. i'm so--you're so----" "what?" "grand--and i'm----" peter caught her hands and made her look at him. "you're the only woman in the world i've ever wanted--the only one--and you've promised me you'd marry me--you've promised, beth." her fingers moved gently in his and her gaze, wide-eyed, sought his. "and it won't make any difference----?" "no, beth. why should you think that?" "i--i was afraid--it might," she gasped. and then for a while peter held her hands, whispering, while beth, still abashed, answered in monosyllables, nodding from time to time. later the nurse entered, her glance on her wrist-watch. "time's up," she said. and beth rose as one in a dream and moved slowly around the foot of the bed to the door. * * * * * jonathan k. mcguire had been as much astonished as beth at the revelation of peter's identity, and the service that peter had rendered him made him more than anxious to show his appreciation by doing everything he could for the wounded man's comfort and happiness. he visited the bedside daily and told peter of his conversation with beth, and of the plans that he was making for her future--which now, it seemed, was peter's future also. peter told him something of his own history and how he had met jim coast on the _bermudian_. then mcguire related the story of the suppression of the outbreak at the lumber camp by the sheriff and men from may's landing, and the arrest of flynn and jacobi on charges of assault and incendiarism. some of the men were to be deported as dangerous "reds." brierly had been temporarily put in charge at the mills and jesse brown, now much chastened, was helping mcguire to restore order. shad wells was technically under arrest, for the coroner had "viewed" the body of the russian committeeman before it had been removed by his friends and buried, and taken the testimony. but mcguire had given bail and arranged for a hearing both as to the shooting of and the death of hawk kennedy, when peter was well enough to go to may's landing. the death of hawk had produced a remarkable change in the character and personality of the owner of the black rock reserve. his back was straighter, his look more direct, and he entered with avidity into the business of bringing order out of the chaos that had resulted from the riot. his word carried some weight, his money more, and with the completion of his arrangements with beth cameron, he drew again the breath of a free man. but of all this he had said nothing to peggy, his daughter. he had neither written to her nor telephoned, for he had no desire that she should know more than the obvious facts as to the death of hawk kennedy, for conflicting reports would lead to questions. since she had suspected nothing, it was needless to bring that horror to her notice, now that the threat had passed. mcguire was a little afraid of his colorful daughter. she talked too much and it had been decided that nobody, except the lawyer, peter, beth and mrs. bergen should know the source of beth's sudden and unexpected inheritance. the girl had merely fallen heir to the estate of her father, who had died many years before, not leaving any record of this daughter, who had at last been found. all of which was the truth, so far as it went, and was enough of a story to tell peggy when he should see her. but jonathan mcguire found himself somewhat disturbed when he learned one morning over the telephone that peggy mcguire and a guest were on their way to black rock house for the week-end. the message came from the clerk of the hotel, and since peggy and her friend had already started from new york, he knew of no way to intercept them. there was nothing to do but make the best of the situation. peter had the best guest room, but beth had decided the day before to return to the cottage, which was greatly in need of her attention. and so mcguire informed mrs. bergen of the impending visit and gave orders that miss peggy's room and a room in the wing should be prepared for the newcomers. beth had no wish to meet peggy mcguire in this house after the scene with peter in the cabin, when the young lady had last visited black rock, for that encounter had given beth glimpses of the kind of thoughts beneath the pretty toques and _cerise_ veils that had once been the apple of her admiring eyes. but as luck would have it, as beth finished her afternoon's visit to peter's bedside and hurried down to get away to the village before the visitors arrived, miss peggy's low runabout roared up to the portico. beth's first impulse was to draw back and go out through the kitchen, but the glances of the two girls met, peggy's in instant recognition. and so beth tilted her chin and walked down the steps just beside the machine, aware of an elegantly attired lady with a doll-like prettiness who sat beside peggy, oblivious of the sharp invisible daggers which shot from eye to eye. "_you_ here!" said peggy, with an insulting shrug. beth merely went her way. but no feminine adept of the art of give and take could have showed a more perfect example of studied indifference than beth did. it was quite true that her cheeks burned as she went down the drive and that she wished that peter were well out of the house so long as peggy was in it. but peggy mcguire could know nothing of beth's feelings and cared not at all what she thought or felt. peggy mcguire was too much concerned with the importance of the visitor that she had brought with her, the first live princess that she had succeeded in bringing into captivity. but anastasie galitzin had not missed the little by-play and inquired with some amusement as to the very pretty girl who had come out of the house. "oh--the housekeeper's niece," replied peggy, in her boarding school french. "i don't like her. i thought she'd gone. she's been having a _petite affaire_ with our new forester and superintendent." anastasie galitzin, who was in the act of descending from the machine, remained poised for a moment, as it were, in midair, staring at her hostess. "ah!" she said. "_vraiment!_" by this time the noise of the motor had brought stryker and the downstairs maid from the house, and in the confusion of carrying the luggage indoors, the conversation terminated. it was not until peggy's noisy greetings to her father in the hallway were concluded and the introduction of her new guest accomplished that jonathan mcguire was permitted to tell her in a few words the history of the past week, and of the injury to the superintendent, who lay upstairs in the room of the guest of honor. "h-m," sniffed peggy, "i don't see why you had to bring him _here_!" "it's a long story, peg," said mcguire calmly. "i'll tell you presently. of course the princess is very welcome, but i couldn't let him be taken anywhere but here, after he'd behaved so fine all through the rioting." "well, it seems to me," peggy began, when the voice of her guest cut in rather sharply. "_pierre!_" gasped anastasie sharply, and then, in her pretty broken english, "you say, monsieur, it is he--pe-ter nichols--who 'as been badly 'urt?" "yes, ma'am, pretty bad--shot through the breast----" "_sainte vierge!_" "but he's getting on all right now. he'll be sitting up in a day or so, the doctor says. did you know him, ma'am?" anastasie galitzin made no reply, and only stared at her host, breathing with some difficulty. peggy, who had been watching her startled face, found herself intensely curious. but as she would have questioned, the princess recovered herself with an effort. "no--yes, monsieur. it--it is nothing. but if you please--i should like to go at once to my room." and peggy and her father, both of them much mystified, led the way up the stairs and to the room that had been prepared in the wing of the house, stryker following with the bag and dressing case. at the door of the room the princess begged peggy to excuse her, pleading weariness, and so the astonished and curious hostess was forced to relinquish her latest social conquest and seek her own room, there to meditate upon the extraordinary thing that had happened. why was anastasie galitzin so perturbed at learning of the wounds of peter nichols? what did it all mean? had she known him somewhere in the past--in england--in russia? what was he to her? but in a moment jonathan mcguire joined her and revealed the identity of his mysterious forester and superintendent. at first peggy was incredulous, then listened while her father told a story, half true, half fictitious, which had been carefully planned to answer all the requirements of the situation. and unaware of the cyclonic disturbances he was causing in the breast of his only child, he told her of beth and peter, and of the evidences of their devotion each to the other in spite of their difference in station. peggy's small soul squirmed during the recital, but she only listened and said nothing. she realized that in a situation such as this mere words on her part would be superfluous. the grand duke peter nicholaevitch! here at black rock! her pop's superintendent! and she had not known. she had even insulted him. it was hideous! and the princess? the deep emotion that she had shown on hearing of the dangerous wound of the convalescent was now explained. but only partly so. the look that peggy had surprised in anastasie galitzin's face meant something more than mere solicitude for the safety of one of russia's banished grand dukes. it was the princess who had been shocked at the information, but it was the woman who had showed pain. was there--had there ever been--anything between anastasie galitzin and this--this peter nichols? facts about the early stages of her acquaintanceship with anastasie galitzin now loomed up with an unpleasant definiteness. she had been much flattered that so important a personage had shown her such distinguished marks of favor and had rejoiced in the celerity with which the intimacy had been established. the thought that the princess galitzin had known all the while that the grand duke was living incognito at black rock and had merely used peggy as a means to bring about this visit was not a pleasant one to peggy. but the fact was now quite obvious. she had been making a convenience of her. and what was now to be the result of this visit? the princess did not yet know of the engagement of his highness to the scullery maid. who was to tell her? the snobbish little heart of peggy mcguire later gained some consolation, for anastasie galitzin emerged from her room refreshed and invigorated, and lent much grace to the dinner table, telling father and daughter something of the early life of the convalescent, exhibiting a warm friendship which could be satisfied with nothing less than a visit on the morrow to the sick-room. and his highness now very much on the mend, sent word, with the doctor's permission, that he would be charmed to receive the princess galitzin at ten in the morning. what happened in the room of the convalescent was never related to peggy mcguire. but anastasie emerged with her head erect, her pretty face wearing the fixed smile of the eternally bored. and then she told peggy that she had decided to return to new york. so after packing her belongings, she got into peggy's car and was driven much against the will of her hostess to the bergen cottage. peggy wouldn't get out of the car but anastasie went to the door and knocked. beth came out with her sleeves rolled above her elbows, her fingers covered with flour. the princess galitzin vanished inside and the door was closed. her call lasted ten minutes while peggy cooled her heels. but whether the visit had been prompted by goodness of heart or whether by a curiosity to study the lady of peter's choice at close range, no one will ever know. beth was very polite to her and though she identified her without difficulty as the heliotrope-envelope lady, she offered her some of the "cookies" that she had made for peter, and expressed the warmest thanks for her kind wishes. she saw anastasie galitzin to the door, marking her heightened color and wondering what her fur coat had cost. beth couldn't help thinking, whatever her motive in coming, that the princess galitzin was a very beautiful lady and that her manners had been lovely. but it was with a sigh of relief that she saw the red car vanish down the road in a cloud of dust. * * * * * his convalescence begun, peter recovered rapidly and in three weeks more he was himself again. in those three weeks many interesting things had happened. jonathan k. mcguire had held a series of important conferences with peter and mrs. bergen who seemed to have grown ten years younger. and one fine day after a protracted visit to new york with mrs. bergen, he returned laden with mysterious packages and boxes, and stopped at the door of the cottage, where peter was taking a lunch of beth's cooking. it was a beautiful surprise. mrs. bergen whispered in beth's ear and beth followed her into the kitchen, where the contents of one or two of the boxes were exposed to beth's astonished gaze. peter, of course, being in the secret, kept aloof, awaiting the result of mrs. bergen's disclosures. but when beth came back into the plush-covered parlor, he revealed his share in the conspiracy by producing, with the skill of a conjurer taking a rabbit from a silk hat, a minister and a marriage license, the former having been hidden in the house of a neighbor. and jonathan k. mcguire, with something of an air, fully justified by the difficulties he had been at to secure it, produced a pasteboard box, which contained another box of beautiful white velvet, which he opened with pride, exhibiting its contents. on the soft satin lining was a brooch, containing a ruby as large as beth's thumbnail. with a gasp of joy, she gazed at it, for she knew just what it was, the family jewel that had been sold to the purser of the _bermudian_. and then she threw her arms around mcguire's neck and kissed him. * * * * * some weeks later beth and peter sat at dusk in the drawing-room of black rock house, for mcguire had turned the whole place over to them for the honeymoon. the night was chilly, a few flakes of snow had fallen during the afternoon, so a log fire burned in the fireplace. peter sat at the piano playing the "romance" of sibelius, for which beth had asked, but when it was finished, his fingers, impelled by a thought beyond his own control, began the opening rumble of the "revolutionary Étude." the music was familiar to beth and it stirred her always because it was this gorgeous plaint of hope and despair that had at the very first sounded depths in her own self the existence of which she had never even dreamed. but to-night peter played it as she had never heard him play it before, with all his soul at his finger tips. and she watched his downcast profile as he stared at vacancy while he played. it was in moments like these that beth felt herself groping in the dark after him, he was so far away. and yet she was not afraid, for she knew that out of the dreams and mysticism of the half of him that was russian he would come back to her,--just peter nichols. he did presently, when his hands fell upon the last chords and he sat with head still bowed until the last tremor had died. then he rose and turned to her. she smiled at him and he joined her on the divan. their fingers intertwined and they sat for a long moment looking into the fire. but beth knew of what he was thinking and peter knew that she knew. their honeymoon was over. there was work to do in the world. +-------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | page nicolaevitch changed to nicholaevitch | | page vasil changed to vasili | | page reassuring changed to reassuring | | page rigidily changaed to rigidly | | page seee changed to see | | page andy should read jesse | | page the changed to he | | page well's changed to wells's | | page musn't changed to mustn't | | page its changed to it's | | page lukovo changed to zukovo | +-------------------------------------------------+ the price of power being chapters from the secret history of the imperial court of russia by william le queux published by hurst and blackett, ltd. this edition dated . the price of power, by william le queux. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ the price of power, by william le queux. chapter one. the madcap. "m'sieur colin trewinnard?" "that is my name, captain stoyanovitch," i replied in surprise. "you know it quite well." "the usual formality, _mon cher ami_!" and the tall, handsome equerry in the white uniform of the imperial guard laughed lightly, clicked his heels together, and handed me a letter which i saw bore the imperial cipher upon its black seal. "from his imperial majesty the emperor," he added in russian. i held my breath. had the blow fallen? with eager, trembling fingers i tore open the envelope and found therein a note in french, merely the words: "_his imperial majesty the emperor commands mr colin trewinnard to private audience to-day at : p.m_. "_st petersburg, june th_." "very well," i managed to reply. "tell colonel polivanoff that--that i shall be there. have a cigarette?" and i handed him the silver box of bogdanoffs which were the common property of the staff of the embassy. having flung himself into a big easy chair, he stretched out his long legs and lit up. "well," i said, leaning against the edge of the writing-table, "i suppose the emperor returned from odessa early this morning--eh?" "yes," replied the elegant officer, in english. "thank heaven, the journey is at last over. ah! what a tour of the empire! at orel we held the great review, then on to saratov, where there were more manoeuvres and a review. afterwards we went down the volga to astrakhan to unveil the new statue to peter the great; then kertch, more manoeuvres, and into the crimea for a week's rest. afterwards across to odessa, and then, by a three nights' journey, back here to petersburg. faugh! how we all hate that armoured train!" "but it is surely highly necessary, my dear stoyanovitch," i said. "with this abominable wave of anarchism which has spread over europe, it behoves the secret police to take every precaution for his majesty's safety!" "ah! my dear friend," laughed the equerry. "i tell you it is not at all pleasant to travel when one expects every moment that the train will be blown up. one's sleeping-berth, though covered with a down quilt, is but a bed of torture in such conditions." "yes," i said. "but his majesty--how does he bear it?" "the emperor has nerves of iron. he is the least concerned of any of us. but, _mon dieu_! i would not be in his shoes for the wealth of all the russias." "what--more conspiracies?" i exclaimed. "conspiracies!" sighed the captain. "_mon dieu_! a fresh one is discovered by the political police every week. only the day before the emperor left for the country he found among the ministers' daily reports upon the table in his private cabinet an anonymous letter telling him that he will meet with a tragic end on the sixth of the present month. how this letter got there nobody knows. his majesty is seldom out of temper, but i never saw him so furiously angry before." "it is unfortunate," i said. "apparently he cannot trust even his immediate _entourage_." "exactly," answered the dark-haired handsome man. "the constant reports of general markoff regarding the revolutionists must be most alarming. and yet he preserves an outward calm that is truly remarkable. but, by the way," he added, "his majesty, before i left the palace with that letter, summoned me and gave me a message for you--a verbal one." "oh! what was that?" "he told me to say that he sent to you a word--let me see, i wrote it down lest i should forget," and pulling down his left shirt cuff, he spelt: "b-a-t-h-i-l-d-i-s." "thank you," i replied briefly. "what does it mean? is it some password?" ivan stoyanovitch asked with considerable curiosity. "that's scarcely a fair question," i said in rebuke. "ah! of course," he replied, with a touch of sarcasm. "i ought not to have asked you. pardon me, my friend. i forgot that you enjoy his majesty's confidence--that--" "not at all," i protested. "i am but a humble attache of a foreign embassy. it is not likely that i am entrusted with the secrets of russia." "not with those of russia, but those of the emperor personally. dachkoff was discussing you at the turf club one night not long ago." "that's interesting," i laughed. "and what had the old man to say?" "oh, nothing of a very friendly nature. but, you know, he never has a good word to say for anybody." "gamblers seldom have. i hear he lost ten thousand roubles to prince savinski at the union the night before last." "i heard it was more," and the long-legged equerry leaned back his head and watched the blue rings of cigarette smoke slowly ascend to the ceiling of the room, through the long window of which was a view across the neva, with the grim fortress of peter and paul opposite. "but," he went on, "we were speaking of these constant conspiracies. though we have been back in petersburg only a few hours, markoff has already reported a desperate plot. the conspirators, it seems, had bored a tunnel and placed a mine under the nevski, close to the corner of the pushkinskaya, and it was arranged to explode it as the emperor's carriage passed early this morning on the way from the nicholas station. but markoff--the ever-watchful markoff--discovered the projected attempt only at eleven o'clock last night--two hours before we passed. there have been thirty-three arrests up to the present, including a number of girl students." "markoff is really a marvel," i declared. "he scents a conspiracy anywhere." "and his spies are everywhere. markoff takes a good deal of the credit, but it is his agents who do the real work. he has saved the emperor's life on at least a dozen occasions." i said nothing. i was thinking over the word--a very significant word-- which the emperor had sent me by his equerry. to me, that word meant a very great deal. our ambassador, sir harding lowe, being at home in england on leave, the honourable claude saunderson, our councillor of embassy, was acting as charge d'affaires. as far as we knew the political horizon was calm enough, save the dark little war cloud which perpetually hovers over the balkans and grows darker each winter. the german negotiations with russia had been concluded, and the foreign outlook appeared more serene than it had been for many months. yet within the great winter palace there was unrest and trouble. jealousy, hatred and all uncharitableness were rife amid the tzar's immediate _entourage_, while the spirit of revolution was spreading daily with greater significance. within the past twelve months the two prime ministers, semenoff and mouravieff, had been assassinated by bombs, five governors of provinces had met with violent deaths, and eight chiefs of police of various cities had fallen victims of the revolutionists, who had frankly and openly vowed to take the life of the tzar himself. was it any wonder, then, that the emperor lived in bomb-proof rooms both in petersburg and tzarskoie-selo, as well as at gatchina; that he never slept in the same bed twice, that all food served to him was previously tasted, that he never gave audience without a loaded revolver lying upon the table before him, and that he surrounded himself by hordes of police-agents and spies? surely none could envy him such a life of constant apprehension and daily terror; for twice in a month had bombs been thrown at his carriage, while five weeks before he had had both horses killed by an explosion in moscow and only escaped death by a sheer miracle. true, the revolutionists were unusually active at that moment, and the throne of russia had become seriously menaced. any other but a man of iron constitution and nerves of steel would surely have been driven to lunacy by the constant terror in which he was forced to exist. yet, though he took ample precaution, he never betrayed the slightest anxiety, a fact which held everyone amazed. he was a true russian, an autocrat of dogged courage, quick decision, always forceful and impelling, a faithful friend, but a bitter and revengeful enemy; a born ruler and a manly emperor in every sense of the word. "the grand duchess natalia has been with the emperor. did she return with you this morning?" i inquired. "yes," drawled the equerry. "she's been admired everywhere, as usual, and half our staff are over head and ears in love with her. she's been flirting outrageously." "then half your staff are fools," i exclaimed bluntly. "ah, my dear trewinnard, she is so sweet, so very charming, so exquisite, so entirely unlike the other girls at court--so delightfully unconventional." "a little too unconventional to suit some--if all i hear be true," i remarked with a smile. "you know her, of course. she's an intimate friend of yours. i overheard her one day telling the emperor what an excellent tennis player you were." "well, i don't fancy his majesty interests himself very much in tennis," i laughed. "he has other, and far more important, matters to occupy his time--the affairs of his great nation." "natalia, or tattie, as they call her in the imperial circle, is his favourite niece. nowadays she goes everywhere with him, and does quite a lot of his most private correspondence--that which he does not even trust to calitzine." "then the emperor is more friendly towards her imperial highness than before--eh?" i asked, for truth to tell i was very anxious to satisfy myself upon this point. "yes. she has been forgiven for that little escapade in moscow." "what escapade?" i asked, feigning surprise. "what escapade?" my friend echoed. "why, you know well enough! i've heard it whispered that it was owing to your cleverness as a diplomat that the matter was so successfully hushed up--and an ugly affair it was, too. the suicide of her lover." "that's a confounded lie!" i said quickly. "he did not commit suicide at all. at most, he left russia with a broken heart, and that is not usually a fatal malady." "well, you needn't get angry about it, my dear fellow," complained my friend. "the affair is successfully hushed up, and i fancy she's got a lot to thank you for." "not at all," i declared. "i know that you fellows have coupled my name with hers, just because i've danced with her a few times at the court balls, and i've been shooting at her father's castle away in samara. but i assure you my reputation as the little grand duchess's intimate friend is entirely a mythical one." captain stoyanovitch only smiled incredulously, stretched out his long legs and shrugged his shoulders. "well," i went on, "has she been very terrified about all these reports of conspiracies?" "frightened out of her life, poor child! and who would not be?" he asked. "we didn't know from one hour to another that we might not all be blown into the air. everywhere the railway was lined by cossacks, of course. such a demonstration is apt to lend an air of security, but, alas! there is no security with the very ministry undermined by revolution, as it is." i sighed. what he said was, alas! too true. russia, at that moment, was in very evil case, and none knew it better than we, the impartial onlookers at the british embassy. the warm june sun fell across the rather faded carpet of that sombre old-fashioned room with its heavy furniture, which was my own sanctum, and as the smart captain of the imperial guard lolled back picturesquely in the big armchair i looked at him reflectively. they were strange thoughts which flooded my brain at that moment-- thoughts concerning that pretty, high-born young lady whom we had just been discussing, the girl to whom, he declared, his majesty entrusted the greatest secrets of the throne. stoyanovitch was an extremely elegant and somewhat irresponsible person, and the fact that the emperor had allowed the grand duchess natalia to write his private letters did not strike me as the actual truth. the tzar was far too cautious to entrust the secrets of a nation to a mere girl who was certainly known to be greatly addicted to the gentle pastime of flirtation. whatever the equerry told us, we at the embassy usually added the proverbial grain of salt. indeed, the diplomat at any post abroad learns to believe nothing which he hears, and only half he actually sees. but the emperor had sent me, by the mouth of that smart young officer, the word "bathildis"--which was an ancient woman's christian name--and to me it conveyed a secret message, an announcement which held me in surprise and apprehension. what could have happened? i dreaded to think. chapter two. an audience of the emperor. "you understand, trewinnard. there must be no scandal. what i have just revealed to you is in strictest confidence--an inviolable secret--a personal secret of my own." "i understand your majesty's commands perfectly." "there is already a lot of uncharitable chatter in the court circle regarding the other matter, i hear. has anything reached you at the embassy?" "not a whisper, as far as i am aware. indeed, your majesty's words have greatly surprised me. i did not believe the affair to be so very serious." "serious!" echoed the emperor alexander, speaking in english, his dark, deep-set eyes fixed upon me. "i tell you it is all too serious, now that i find myself completely isolated--oh! yes, trewinnard, isolated-- with scarce one single friend. god knows! i have done my best for the nation, but, alas! everyone's hand is raised against me." and his firm mouth hardened behind his full, dark beard, and he drew his hand wearily across his broad, white brow. the room in the winter palace in which we sat was cosy and luxuriantly furnished, the two windows looking forth upon a grey, cheerless quadrangle whence came the tramp of soldiers at drill. where we sat we could hear the sharp words of command in russian, and the clang of the rifle-butts striking the stones. the room was essentially english in its aspect, with its rich china-blue axminster carpet, and silk upholstery with curtains to match, while the panelling from floor to ceiling was enamelled dead white, against which the fine water-colour drawings of naval scenes stood out in vivid relief. upon a buhl table was a great silver bowl filled with marshal niel roses--for his majesty was passionately fond of flowers--and beside it, large framed panel photographs of the tzarina and his children. and yet those dead white walls and the shape of those square windows struck a curious incongruous note, for if the actual truth be told, those walls were of steel, and that private cabinet of the emperor had been constructed by the admiralty department with armour-plates which were bomb-proof. that apartment in the west angle of the palace quadrangle was well-known to me, for in it his majesty had given me private audience many times. that long white door which had been so silently closed upon me by the cossack sentry when i entered was, i knew, of armour-plate, four inches in thickness, while beside the windows were revolving shutters of chilled steel. there, at that great littered roll-top writing-table, upon which was the reading-lamp with its shade of salmon-pink silk with the loaded revolver beside it, the emperor worked, attending to affairs of state. and in his padded chair, leaning back easily as he spoke to me, was his majesty himself, a broad-shouldered, handsome man just past middle-age, dressed in a suit of navy blue serge. he was a big-faced, big-limbed, big-handed man of colossal physique and marvellous intelligence. though haunted by the terror of violent death, he was yet an autocrat to the finger-tips, whose bearing was ever that of a sovereign; yet his eyes had a calm, sympathetic, kindly look, and those who knew him intimately were well aware that he was not the monster of oppression which his traducers had made him out to be before the eyes of europe. true, with a stroke of that grey quill pen lying there upon his blotting-pad he had sent many a man and woman without trial to their unrecorded doom, either in the frozen wastes of northern siberia, to the terrible mines of nerchinsk, to the horrors of the penal island of sakhalin, or to those fearful subterranean _oubliettes_ at schusselburg, whence no prisoner has ever returned. but, as an autocrat, he dealt with his revolutionary enemies as they would deal with him. they conspired to kill him, and he retaliated by consigning them to a lingering death. on the other hand, i myself knew how constant was his endeavour to ferret out abuses of administration, to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, to give the peasantry education and all the benefits of modern civilisation as we in england know them, and how desperate, alas! were his constant struggles with that unscrupulous camarilla which ever surrounded him, constantly preventing him from learning the truth concerning any particular matter. thus, though striving to do his best for his subjects and for his nation, yet, surrounded as he was by a corrupt ministry and a more corrupt court, this big, striking man in blue serge was, perhaps, next to the sultan of turkey, the best-hated man in all europe. my own position was a somewhat singular one. a few months after my appointment to petersburg from brussels i had been able to render his majesty a slight personal service. in fact, i had, when out one evening with two other attaches of the german embassy, learned by mere accident of a desperate plot which was to be put into execution on the following day. my informant was a dancer at the opera, who had taken too much champagne at supper. i sought audience of the emperor early next day, and was fortunately just in time to prevent him from passing a certain spot near the michailovski palace, where six men were stationed with bombs of picric acid, ready to hurl. for that service his majesty had been graciously pleased to take me into his confidence--a confidence which, i hope, i never abused. from me he was always eager to ascertain what was really happening beyond that high wall of untruth which the camarilla had so cleverly built up and preserved, and more than once had he entrusted me with certain secret missions. i was not in uniform, as that audience was a private one; but as his majesty, ruler of one hundred and thirty millions of people, passed me his finely-chased golden box full of cigarettes--and we both lit one, as was our habit--his brow clouded, and with a sigh he said: "to tell the truth, trewinnard, i am also very anxious indeed concerning the second matter--concerning the little rebel." "i know that your majesty must be," i replied. "but, after all, her imperial highness is a girl of exceptional beauty and highest spirits; and even if she indulges in--well, in a little harmless flirtation, she surely may be forgiven." "other girls may be forgiven, but not those of the blood-royal," he said in mild rebuke. "the empress is quite as concerned about her as i am. why, even upon this last journey of ours i found her more than once flirting with stoyanovitch, my equerry. true, he's a good-looking young fellow, and of excellent family, yet she ought to know that such a thing is quite unwarrantable; she ought to know that to those of the blood-royal love is, alas! forbidden." i was surprised at this. i had no idea that she and ivan stoyanovitch had become friends. he had never hinted at it. "the fact is, trewinnard," the emperor went on, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his lips, "if this continues i shall be reluctantly compelled to banish her to the caucasus, or somewhere where she will be kept out of mischief." "but permit me, sire, to query whether flirting is really mischief," i exclaimed with a smile. "every girl of her age--and she is hardly nineteen--fancies herself in love, mostly with men much older than herself." "our women, trewinnard, are, alas! not like women of the people," was the sovereign's calm reply, his deep, earnest eyes upon mine. "it is their misfortune that they are not. they can never enjoy the same freedom as those fortunate ones of the middle-class; they seldom are permitted to marry the man they love, and though they may live in palaces and move amid the gay society of court, yet their ideas are warped from birth, and broken hearts, alas! beat beneath their diamonds." "yes, i suppose what your majesty says is, alas! too true. ladies of the blood-royal are forbidden freedom, love and happiness. and when one of them happens to break the iron bonds of conventionality, then scandal quickly results; the press overflows with it." "in this case scandal would already have resulted had you not acted as promptly as you did," his majesty said. "where is that lad geoffrey hamborough now?" asked the autocrat suddenly. "living on his father's estate in yorkshire," i replied. "i hope i have been able to put an end to that fatal folly; but with a girl of the grand duchess's type one can never be too certain." "ah! the mischievous little minx!" exclaimed the emperor with a kindly smile. "i've watched, and seen how cunning she is--and how she has cleverly misled even me. well, she must alter, trewinnard, she must alter--or she must be sent away to the caucasus." "where she would have her freedom, and probably flirt more outrageously than ever," i ventured to remark. "you seem to regard her as hopeless," he said, looking sharply into my eyes as he leaned back in his chair. "not entirely hopeless, sire, only as a most interesting character study." "i have been speaking to her father this morning, and i have suggested sending her to paris, or, perhaps, to london; there to live _incognito_ under the guardianship of some responsible middle-aged person, until she can settle down. at present she flirts with every man she meets, and i am greatly concerned about her." "every man is ready to flirt with her imperial highness--first, because of her position, and, secondly, because of her remarkable beauty," i assured him. "you think her beautiful--eh, trewinnard?" "i merely echo the popular judgment," i replied. "it is said she is one of the most beautiful girls in all russia." "ah!" he laughed. "next we shall have her flirting with you, trewinnard. you are a bachelor. do beware of the little dark-eyed witch, i beg of you!" "no fear of such _contretemps_, sire," i assured him with a smile. "i am double her age, and, moreover, a confirmed bachelor. the embassy is expensive, and i cannot afford the luxury of a wife--and especially an imperial grand duchess." "who knows--eh, trewinnard? who knows?" exclaimed the sovereign good-naturedly. "but let's return to the point. am i to understand that you are ready and willing to execute this secret commission for me? you are well aware how highly i value the confidential services you have already rendered to me. but for you, remember, i should to-day have been a dead man." "no, sire," i protested. "please do not speak of that. it was the intervention of providence for your protection." "ah, yes!" he said in a low, fervent tone, his brows contracting. "i thank god constantly for sparing me for yet another day from the hands of my unscrupulous enemies, so that i may work for the good of the beloved nation over which i am called to rule." there, in that room, wherein i had so often listened to his words of wisdom, i sat fully recognising that though an emperor and an autocrat, he was, above all, a man. with all the heavy burden of affairs of state--and not even a road could be made anywhere in the russian empire, or a bridge built, or a gas-pipe laid, without his signature--with all the onus of the autocratic sovereign-power upon his shoulders, and with that constant wariness which he was compelled to exercise against that cunning camarilla of ministers, yet one of his chief concerns was with that pretty little madcap natalia, daughter of his brother, the grand duke nicholas. he wished to suppress her superabundance of high spirits and stamp out her tomboy instincts. "i am reading your thoughts, trewinnard," the emperor remarked at last, pressing his cigarette-end slowly into the silver ashtray to extinguish it. "my request has placed you in a rather awkward position--eh?" "what your majesty has revealed to me this afternoon has utterly amazed me. i feel bewildered, for i see how dire must be the result if the truth were ever betrayed." "it will never be. you are the only person who has suspicion of it besides myself." "and i shall never speak--never!" i assured him gravely. "i know that you are entirely loyal to me. i am emperor, it is true, but i am, nevertheless, a man of my word, just as you are," he replied, his intelligent face dark and grave. "yes. i thought you would realise the seriousness of the present situation, and i know that you alone i can trust. i have not even told the empress." "why not?" "for obvious reasons." i was silent. i only then realised the motive of his hesitation. "i admit that your majesty's request has placed me in a somewhat awkward position," i said at last, bending forward in my chair. "truth to tell, i--well, i'm hardly hopeful of success, for the mission with which i am entrusted is so extremely difficult, and so--" "i am fully aware of that," he interrupted. "yet i feel confident that you, who have saved my life on one occasion, will not hesitate to undertake this service to the best of your ability. use the utmost discretion, and you may get at the truth. i do not disguise from you the fact that upon certain contingencies, dependent on the success of your mission, depends the throne of russia--the dynasty. do you follow?" and he looked me straight in the face with those big, round brown eyes, an open, straight, honest look, as became a man who was fearless--an emperor. "i regret that i do not exactly understand," i ventured to exclaim, whereat he rose, tall, handsome and muscular, and strode to the window. the band of the imperial guard was playing below in the great paved quadrangle, as it always did each day at four o'clock when the emperor was in residence. for a few seconds he stood peering forth critically at the long lines of soldiers drawn up across the square. then the man whose word was law turned back to me with a sigh, saying: "no, trewinnard, i suppose you do not follow me. it is all a mystery to you, of course,"--and he paused--"as mysterious as the sudden disappearance of madame de rosen and her daughter luba from petersburg." "disappearance?" i echoed, amazed. "they are still in petersburg. i dined with them only last night!" "they are not now in petersburg," replied the emperor very quietly. "they left at nine o'clock this morning on a long journey--to siberia." my heart gave a great bound. "to siberia!" i gasped, staring at him. "are they exiled? who has done this?" "i have done it," was his hard reply. "they are revolutionists-- implicated in the attempt that was to be made upon me early this morning as i drove up the nevski." "markoff has denounced them?" "he has. see, here is a full list of names of the conspirators," and he took a slip of paper from his desk. "and general markoff told your majesty of my friendliness with madame and her daughter?" "certainly." "markoff lied when he denounced them as revolutionists!" i cried angrily. "they were my friends, and i know them very intimately. let me here declare, sire, that no subject of your majesty was more loyal than those two ladies. surely the _agent-provocateur_ has been at work again." "unfortunately i am bound to believe the word of the head of my political police," he said rather briefly. i knew, alas! how fierce and bitter was the emperor's hatred of those who plotted against his life. a single word against man or woman was sufficient to cause them to be arrested and sent to the other side of asia, never again to return. "and where have the ladies been sent?" i inquired. the emperor consulted a slip of paper, and then replied: "to parotovsk." "the most far-distant and dreaded of all the arctic penal settlements!" i cried. "it is cruel and unjust! it is death to send a woman there, where it is winter for nine months in the year, and where darkness reigns five months out of the twelve." "i regret," replied the emperor, with a slight gesture of the hand. "but they were conspirators." "with all respect to your majesty, i beg to express an entirely different opinion. markoff has long been madame de rosen's enemy." his majesty made a quick imperious gesture of impatience and said: "please do not let us discuss the matter further--at least, until you are in a position to prove your allegation." "i will," i cried. "i know that your majesty will never allow such injustice to be done to two innocent, delicate ladies." "if injustice has really been done, then those responsible shall suffer. discover the truth, and report to me later," he said. "i will do my very utmost," was my reply. "and at the same time, trewinnard, i trust you will endeavour to carry out the confidential mission which i have entrusted to you," he said. "recollect that i treat you, not as a foreign diplomat, but as a loyal and true personal friend of myself and my house. ah!" he sighed again; "heaven knows, i have but few trustworthy ones about me." "i am profoundly honoured by your majesty's confidence," i assured him, bowing low. "i certainly shall respect it, and act exactly as you desire." "the court dislikes confidence being placed in any foreigner, even though he be an englishman," the emperor said in a changed voice; "therefore, remain discreet always, and disclaim that i have ever treated you other than with the formal courtesy which is expected by all diplomats." "i quite understand," i said. "you will see natalia at the court ball to-night, and you can speak to her diplomatically, if opportunity occurs. but recollect that she must know nothing of what i have said. i believe you know hartwig, chief of the criminal detective force." "quite well," was my reply. "then i will give him orders. use him as you wish, but tell him nothing." "i shall remain silent." "and you are entitled to leave of absence--eh? you can return to england without arousing suspicion?" "yes. i have eight weeks due to me." "excellent. i can do nothing more--except to thank you, trewinnard, to thank you most sincerely for assisting me, and to await word from you. sign it with `bathildis,' and i shall know." and the great burly, bearded man held out his big, strong hand--the iron hand--as sign that my audience was at an end. i bowed low over it, and next moment the heavy white door of enamelled steel swung open and i backed out of the imperial presence, the bearer of a secret as strange and grim as it has ever been the lot of any man to lock within his breast. what the emperor had revealed to me was undreamed of by that gay, reckless and intriguing circle which comprised the russian court-- undreamed of by the chancelleries of europe. the merest whisper of it would, i knew, stagger the world. and yet he had, in sheer desperation, confided in me a most amazing truth. as i descended that broad, handsome flight of thickly-carpeted marble steps, where flunkeys in brilliant grey and purple livery bowed at every turn, and equerries and officials in smart uniforms came and went, my brain was awhirl at the magnitude of the affair, and the terrible scandal which must result if ever the secret were betrayed--the secret of a throne. a thought flashed across my mind--the knowledge of my own personal peril. i had enemies--bitter enemies. my heart sank within me as i stepped into the great gilded hall, for i had given a promise which i much feared i would never be permitted to live and fulfil. chapter three. contains certain confidences. six hours later, accompanied by saunderson, our tall, thin charge d'affaires, and the embassy staff, all in our uniforms and decorations, i entered the huge white-and-gold ballroom of the winter palace, where the russian court, the representatives of exclusive society, the bureaucracy of the empire and the _corps diplomatique_ had assembled. the scene was perhaps the most brilliant and picturesque that could be witnessed anywhere in the world. beneath the myriad lights of those huge cut-glass chandeliers, and reflected by the gigantic mirrors upon the walls, were hundreds of gold-laced uniforms of every shade and every style. across the breasts of many of the men were gay-coloured scarves of the various orders, with diamond stars, while others wore around their necks parti-coloured ribbons with enamelled crosses at their throat, or rows of decorations across their breasts. and to this phantasmagoria of colour, as all stood in little groups chattering and awaiting their majesties, was added that of the splendid long-trained dresses of the women, nearly all of whom wore their diamond tiaras, or diamond ornaments in their corsage. it was indeed, a cosmopolitan gathering, half of russians and half of the diplomatic set, and around me, as i bowed over the hand of a well-known baroness, wife of the minister of war, i heard animated chatter in half a dozen tongues. the emperor had returned, and there would now be a month of gaiety before he retired for the summer to gatchina. the spring season in petersburg had been cut short--first by the indisposition of the empress, and afterwards by reason of the emperor's tour to the distant shore of the caspian. therefore at this, the delayed court ball, everybody who was anybody in russia was present. in one end of the huge renaissance salon, with its wonderful painted ceiling and gilded cupids, was a great semicircular alcove, with a slightly raised dais, whereon sat the dowager-empress, the grand duchesses and those of the blood-royal, with their attendant ladies, while the male members of the court lounged behind. the opposite end of the great ballroom led to another salon with parquet floor, decorated in similar style, and with many mirrors, and almost as large, while beyond was a somewhat smaller room, the whole effect being one of gorgeous grandeur and immensity. i had paused to chat with a stout lady in cream, who wore a beautiful tiara. princess lovovski, wife of the governor-general of finland, and she had commenced to tell me the latest tit-bit of scandal concerning the wife of a certain war office official, a matter which did not interest me in the least, when suddenly there came three loud taps--the taps of the grand chamberlain--announcing the entrance of his majesty. as by enchantment a wide door in the side of the ballroom flew open, and the glittering throng, bejewelled and perfumed, flashing colours amid plumes, aigrettes and flowers, laughing and murmuring to the clink of gala swords and sabres, was struck to silence. his majesty passed--a tall, commanding figure in a white uniform covered with the stars, crosses and many-coloured ribbons of the various european orders. beneath the thousand lights the bare shoulders of the beautiful women inclined profoundly. then again the loud chatter recommenced. the emperor's presence, tall, erect, muscular, was indeed a regal one. he looked every inch a ruler and an autocrat as he advanced to the alcove, where the whole court had risen to receive him, and with a quick gesture he gave the signal for dancing to commence. i retreated to the wall, being in no humour to dance, and stood gazing at him. he seemed, indeed, a different person to that deep-eyed, earnest man in dark-blue serge who had sat chatting with me so affably six hours ago. he was in that hour a man, but now the centre of that gay patrician throng, he was ruler, the autocrat who by a stroke of the grey quill could banish to the mines or the _oubliettes_ any of those of his subjects who bowed before him--sweep them out of existence as completely as though the grave had claimed them; for every exile lost his identity and became a mere number; his estate was administered as though he were dead, and apportioned, with the usual forfeiture to the state, among his heirs. so that it was impossible for an exile to be traced. i thought of madame marya de rosen and of poor little luba. ah! i wondered how many delicate women and handsome, intelligent men who had danced over that polished floor were now dragging out their weary lives in those squalid, filthy yakut yaurtas of eastern siberia. how many, alas! had, in innocence, fallen victims to that corrupt bureaucracy which always concealed the truth from his majesty. to the camarilla, a dozen or so men who were present there in brilliant uniforms and wearing the cross of st andrew, with the pale-blue ribbon, the highest order of the empire, bestowed upon them for their "fidelity," that present reign of terror was solely due. it was to the interests of those men that the emperor should be perpetually terrorised. half those so-called conspiracies were the work of the secret police themselves and their _agents-provocateurs_; and hundreds of innocent persons were being spirited away without trial to the frozen wastes of northern and eastern siberia, upon no other charge than the trivial one that they were "dangerous" persons! madame de rosen and her pretty daughter had fallen victims of the bitter unscrupulousness of that short, stout, grey-moustached man, who at that moment was bowing so obsequiously before his sovereign, the man who was one of the greatest powers in the empire, general serge markoff, chief of secret police. the first dance was in progress. pretty women, with their smart, good-looking cavaliers, were whirling about me to the slow, tuneful strains of one of the latest of strauss's waltzes, when colonel mellini, the italian military attache, halted before me to chat. he had just returned from leave, and had much embassy gossip to relate to me from the eternal city, where i had served for two years. "i hear," he remarked at last, "that another plot was discovered early this morning--a desperate one in the nevski. markoff really seems ubiquitous." i looked into his dark eyes and smiled. "ah! i see, _caro mio_," he laughed. "your thoughts are similar to mine--eh? these plots are a little too frequent to be genuine," and, lowering his voice to a whisper, he added: "i can't understand how his majesty does not see through the transparency of it. they are terrorising him every day--every hour. a man of less robust physique or mental balance would surely be driven out of his mind." "i agree with you entirely, my dear friend. but," i added, "this is not the place to discuss affairs of state. ah, madame!" and turning, i bent over the gloved hand of old madame neilidoff, one of the leaders of society in moscow, with whom i stood chatting for a long time, and who kindly invited me for a week out at her great country estate at sukova in tver. captain stoyanovitch, gay with decorations, hurried past me on some errand for the emperor, and gave me a nod as he went on, while young bertram tucker, our third secretary, came up and began to chat with the yellow-toothed old lady, who was such a power in the russian social circle. i suppose it must have been nearly two o'clock, when, after wandering through the _salons_, greeting many men and women i knew, i suddenly heard a voice behind me exclaim in english: "hulloa, old uncle colin! am i too small to be recognised?" i turned quickly and confronted the pretty laughing girl of nineteen of whom i had been in search all the night--her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia olga nicolaievna. tall, slim, with a perfect figure, she was dressed in cream, a light simple gown which suited her youth and extreme beauty admirably. across her dark, well-dressed hair she wore a narrow band of forget-me-nots; at her throat was a large single emerald of great value, suspended by a fine chain of platinum, a present from his majesty, while on the edge of her low-cut corsage she wore a bow of pale-blue ribbon embroidered in silver with a russian motto, and from it was suspended a medallion set with diamonds and bearing in the centre the enamelled figure of saint catherine--the exclusive order of saint catherine bestowed upon the grand duchesses. "how miserable you look, uncle colin!" exclaimed the dark-eyed girl before i could reply. "whatever is the matter? is the british lion sick--or what?" "i really must apologise to your imperial highness," i said, bowing. "i was quite unaware that i looked miserable. i surely could never look miserable in your presence." we both laughed, while standing erect and defiant, before me she held up a little ivory fan, threatening to chastise me with it. "well," i said, "and so you are safely back again in petersburg, after all your travels! why, it's surely eight weeks since we were at the ball at the palace of your uncle, the grand duke serge." "where you danced with me. do you remember how we laughed? you said some nasty sarcastic things, so i punished you. i told captain stoyanovitch and some of the others that you had flirted with me and kissed me. so there!" i looked at her in stern reproach. "ah!" i said. "so that is the source of all those rumours--eh? you're a very wicked girl," i added, "even though you are a grand duchess." "well, i suppose grand duchesses are in no way different to other girls--eh?" she pouted. "sometimes i wish i were back again at school at eastbourne. ah! what grand times i used to have in those days-- hockey and tennis and gym, and i was not compelled to perform all sorts of horrible, irksome etiquette, and be surrounded by this crowd of silly dressed-up apes. why, uncle colin, these are not men--all these tight-uniformed popinjays at court." "hush, my child!" i said. "hush! you will be overheard." "and i don't care if i am. surely a girl can speak out what she thinks!" "in england, yes, in certain circumstances, but in russia--and especially at court--never!" "oh, you are so horribly old-fashioned, uncle colin. when shall i bring you up-to-date?" cried the petted and spoiled young lady, whose two distinctions were that she was one of the most beautiful girls in all russia, and the favourite niece of the tzar alexander. she had nicknamed me "uncle," on account of my superior age, long ago. "and you are utterly incorrigible," i said, trying to assume an angry look. "ah! you're going to lecture me!" she exclaimed with another pout. "i suppose i ought never to dance at all--eh? it's wicked in your eyes, isn't it? you are perhaps, one of those exemplary people that i heard so much of when in england--such an expressive name--the kill-joys!" "no, your highness," i protested. "i really don't think i'm a killjoy. if i were, i couldn't very well be a diplomat. i--" "but all diplomats are trained liars," she asserted with abrupt frankness. "the emperor told me so only the other day. he said they were men one should never trust." "i admit that, without the lie _artistique_, diplomacy would really be non-existent," i said, with a laugh. "but is not the whole political world everywhere in europe a world of vain promise, intrigue and shame?" "just as our social world seems to me," she admitted. "ah! then you are beginning to realise the hollow unreality of the world about you--eh?" i said. "dear me!" she exclaimed, "you talk just like a bishop! i really don't know what has come to my dear old uncle colin. you must be ill, or something. you never used to be like this," she added, with a sigh and a well-feigned look of regret that was really most amusing, while at the same time she made eyes at me. truly, she was a most charming little madcap, this imperial grand duchess--the most charming in all europe, as the diplomatic circle had long ago agreed. so she had taken revenge upon me for uttering words of wisdom by telling people that i had flirted with and kissed her! she herself was responsible for the chatter which had gone round, with many embellishments, concerning myself, and how deeply i was in love with her. i wondered if it had reached the emperor's ears? i felt annoyed, i here confess. and yet so sweet and irresponsible was she, so intelligent and quick at repartee, that next moment i had forgiven her. and i frankly told her so. "my dear uncle colin, it would have been all the same," she declared airily. "you shouldn't have lectured me. i assure you i have had enough of that at home. ever since i came back from england everybody seems to have conspired to tell me that i'm the most terrible girl in russia. father holds up his hands; why, i really don't know." "because you are so extremely unconventional," i said. "a girl of the people can act just as she likes; but you are a grand duchess--and you can't." "bother my birth. that's my misfortune. i wish i were a shopgirl, or a typist, or something. then i should be free!" she exclaimed impatiently. "as it is, i can't utter a word or move a little finger without the whole of russia lifting up their hands in pious horror. i tell you, uncle colin," she added, her fine, big, dark eyes fixed upon me, "i'm sick of it all. it is simply unbearable. ah! how i wish i were back at dear old southdene college. i hate russia and all her works!" "hush!" i cried again. "you really must not say that. remember your position--the niece of his majesty." "i repeat it!" she cried in desperation, her well-formed little mouth set firmly. "and i don't care who hears me--even if it's uncle alexander himself!" chapter four. concerns madame de rosen. at her highness's side i had strolled through the smaller salon and along the several great corridors to the splendid winter garden, on the opposite side of the palace. it was one of the smaller courtyards which had been covered in with glass and filled with high palms and tropical flowers ablaze with bloom. there, in that northern latitude, asiatic and african plants flourished and flowered, with little electric lights cunningly concealed amid the leaves. several other couples were seated there, away from the whirl and glitter of the court; but taking no notice, we halted at two wicker chairs set invitingly in a corner. into one of these she flung herself with a little sigh, and, bowing, i took the other. i sat and watched her. her beauty was, indeed, exquisite. she had the long, tender, fluent lines of body and limb, the round waist, the deep chest and small bust, the sturdy throat of those ancient virgins that the greatest sculptors of the world worshipped and wrought into imperishable stone. she was not very tall, though she appeared so. it was something in pose and movement that did it. a beautiful soul looked from her highness's beautiful eyes whenever she smiled upon me. i found myself examining every line and turn and contour of the prettily-poised head. she was dark, with that lovely complexion like pure alabaster tinted with rose sometimes seen in russian women. her eyes, under the sweeping lashes, seemed capable of untold depths of tenderness. hers was the perfect oval of a young face across whose innocent girlishness experience had written no line, passion cast no shadow. "one thing i've heard to-day has greatly pained me," i said presently to my dainty little companion. "you'll forgive me for speaking quite frankly--won't you?" "certainly, uncle colin," she replied, opening her big eyes in surprise. "but i thought you had brought me here to flirt with me--not to talk seriously." "i must talk seriously for a moment," i said apologetically. "it is in your highness's interests. listen. i heard something to-day at which i know that you yourself will be greatly annoyed. i heard it whispered that geoffrey hamborough had killed himself because of you." "geoffrey dead!" she gasped, starting up and staring at me, her face blanched in an instant. "no. he is not dead," i replied calmly, "for as soon as i heard the report i sent him a wire to yorkshire and to the travellers', in london. he replied from the club half an hour before i came here." "but who could have spread such a report?" the girl asked. "it could only be done to cast opprobrium upon me--to show that because--because we parted--he had taken his life. it's really too cruel," she declared, and i saw hot tears welling in her beautiful eyes. "i agree. but you must deny the report." "who told you?" "i regret that i must not say. it was, however, a friend of yours." "a man?" i nodded in the affirmative. "ah!" she cried impatiently. "you diplomats are always so full of secrets. really you must tell me. uncle colin." "i can't," was my brief reply. "i only ask you to refute the untruth." "i will--at once. poor geoffrey." "have you heard from him lately?" i asked. "you're very inquisitive. i have not." "i'm very glad of that," i answered her. "you know how greatly the affair annoyed the emperor. you were awfully injudicious. it's a good job that i chanced to meet you both at the station in moscow." "well," she laughed, "i was going to england with him, and we had arranged to be married at a registrar's office in london. only you stopped us--you nasty old thing!" "and you ought to be very glad that i recognised you just in the nick of time. ten minutes later and you would have left moscow. think of the scandal--the elopement of a young imperial grand duchess of russia with an english commoner." "well, and isn't an english commoner as good, and perhaps better, than one of these uniformed and decorated russian aristocrats? i am russian," she added frankly, "but i have no love for the muscovite man." "it was a foolish escapade," i declared; "but it's all over now. the one consolation is that nobody knows the actual truth." "except his majesty. i told him everything; how i had met geoffrey in hampshire when i went to stay with lady hexworthy; how we used to meet in secret, and all that," she said. "well now," i exclaimed, looking straight into her face, "i want to ask you a plain open question. i have a motive in doing so--one which i will explain to you after you have answered me honestly and truthfully. i--" "at it again!" cried the pretty madcap. "you're really not yourself to-night, uncle colin. what is the matter with you?" "simply i want to know the truth--whether there is still any love between geoffrey and yourself?" "ah! no," she sighed, pulling a grimace. "it's all over between us. it broke his heart, poor fellow, but some kind friend, at your embassy, i think, wrote and told him about paul urusoff and--well, he wrote me a hasty letter. then i replied, a couple of telegrams, and we agreed to be strangers for ever. and so ends the story. like a novel, isn't it?" she laughed merrily. my eyes were fixed upon her. i was wondering if she were really telling me the truth. as the emperor had most justly said, she was an artful little minx where her love-affairs were concerned. colonel polivanoff, the grand chamberlain of the court, crossed the great palm-garden at that moment, and bowed to my pretty companion. "but," she added, turning back to me, "people ought not to say that he's been foolish enough to do away with himself on my account. it only shows that i must have made some enemies of whom i'm quite unaware." "everyone has enemies," i answered her. "you are no exception. but, is it really true that geoffrey is no longer in your thoughts?" i asked her very seriously. "truth and honour," she declared, with equal gravity. "then who is the fortunate young man at present--eh?" "that's my own secret. uncle colin," she declared, drawing herself up. "i'll ask you the same question. who is the lady you are in love with at the present moment?" "shall i tell you?" "yes. it would be interesting." "i'm in love with you." "ah?" she cried, nodding her head and laughing. "i thought as much. you've brought me out here to flirt with me. i wonder if you'll kiss me--eh?" she asked mischievously. "i will, if you tempt me too much," i said threateningly. "and then the report you've spread about will be the truth." she laughed merrily and tapped my hand with her fan. "i never can get the better of you, dear old uncle," she declared. "you always have the last word, and you're such a delightfully old-fashioned person. now let's try and be serious." and she settled herself and, turning to me, added: "why do you wish to know about geoffrey hamborough?" "for several reasons," i said. "first, i think your highness knows me quite well enough to be aware that i am your very sincere friend." "my best friend," she declared quickly; her manner changed in an instant from merry irresponsibility to deep earnestness. "that night on the railway platform at moscow you saved me making a silly fool of myself. it was most generous of the emperor to forgive me. i know how you pleaded for me. he told me so." "i am your friend," i replied. "now, as to the future. you tell me that you find all the court etiquette irksome, and that you are antagonistic to this host of young men about you. you are, in brief, sorry that you are back in russia. is that so?" "it is so exactly." "and how about prince urusoff--eh?" "i haven't seen him for fully three months, and i don't even know where he is. i believe he's with his regiment, the st dragoons of white russia, somewhere away in the urals. i heard that the emperor sent him there. but he certainly need not have done so. i found him only a foolish young boy." her imperial highness was a young lady of very keen intelligence. after several governesses at home, she had been sent to paris, and afterwards to a college at eastbourne--where she was known as miss natalia gottorp, the latter being one of the family names of the imperial romanoffs--and there she had completed her education. from her childhood she had always had an english governess, miss west, consequently, with a russian's adaptability, she spoke english almost without a trace of accent. though so full of fun and frolic, and so ready to carry on a violent flirtation, yet she was, on the other hand, very thoughtful and level-headed, with a keen sense of humour, and a nature extremely sympathetic with any person in distress, no matter whom they might be. hers was a bright, pleasant nature, a smiling face, and ever-twinkling eye full of mischief and merriment. "well," i said, looking into her face, "i've been thinking about you a good deal since you've been away--and wondering." "wondering what?" "whether, as you have no love for russia, you might not like to go back to england?" i said slowly. "to england!" she cried in delight. "ah! if i only could! i love england, and especially eastbourne, with the sea and the promenade, the golf, and the concerts at the devonshire park, and all that. ah! i only wish i could go." "but if you went you'd fall in love with some young fellow, and then we should have another scandal at court," i said. "i wouldn't. believe me, i wouldn't, really, uncle colin," she pleaded, looking up into my face with almost childish simplicity. i shook my head dubiously. "all i've told you is the real truth," she assured me. "i've only amused myself. every girl likes men to make love to her. why should i be so bitterly condemned?" "because you are not a commoner." "that's just it. but if i went to england and lived again as miss natalia gottorp, nobody would know who i am, and i could have a really splendid time. here," she cried, "all the glitter and etiquette of court life stifle me. i've been bored to death on the tour round the empire, but couldn't you try and induce the emperor to let me go back to england? do, uncle colin, there's a dear. a word from the emperor, and father would let me go in a moment. i wish poor mother were alive. she would soon let me go, i know." "and what would you do in england if you went back?" "why, i'd have my old governess, miss west--the one i had at strelna--to live with me, and i'd be ever so happy. i'd take a house on the sea-front at eastbourne, so as to be near the old college, and see the girls. try what you can do with uncle alexander, won't you? there's a dear old uncle," she added, in her most persuasive tones. "well," i said, with some show of reluctance, "if i succeed, you will be responsible to me, remember. no flirtations." "i promise," she said. "here's my hand," and she put her tiny white-gloved hand into mine. "and if i heard of any affectionate meetings i should put down my foot at once." "yes, that's agreed," she exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "at once." "and i should, perhaps, want you to help me in england," i added slowly, looking into her pretty face the while. "help you, in what way?" she asked. "at present, i hardly know. but if i wanted assistance might i count on you?" "count on me, uncle colin!" she echoed. "why, of course, you can! look at my indebtedness to you, and it will be increased if you can secure me permission to go back to england." "well," i said, "i'll do what i can. but you have told me no untruths to-night, not one--?" i asked very seriously. "if so, admit it." "not one. i swear i haven't." "very well," i said. "then i'll do my best." "ah! you are a real dear!" cried the girl enthusiastically. "i almost feel as though i could hug and kiss you!" "better not," i laughed. "there are some people sitting over there, and they would talk--" "yes," she said slowly. "i suppose really one ought to be a bit careful, after all. when will you see the emperor?" "perhaps to-morrow--if he gives me audience." then i related to her the story of the attempt in the nevski on the previous morning, and the intention of assassinating the emperor as he drove from the nicholas station to the palace. "ah, yes!" she cried. "it is all too dreadful. for seven weeks we have lived in constant terror of explosions. i could not go through it again for all the world. those days in that stuffy armoured train were simply awful. his majesty only undertook the journey in order to defy those who declared that some terrible catastrophe would happen. the empress knew nothing of the danger until we had started." "and yet the only danger lay within half a mile of the palace on your return," i said. "there have, i hear, been thirty-three arrested to-day, including my friends madame de rosen and luba. you knew them." "marya de rosen!" gasped the grand duchess, staring at me. "she is not under arrest?" "alas! she is already on her way, with her daughter, to eastern siberia." "but that is impossible. she was no revolutionist. i knew them both very intimately." "general markoff was her enemy," i said in a whisper. "ah, yes! i hate that man!" cried her highness. "he is a clever liar who has wormed himself completely into the emperor's confidence, and now, in order to sustain a reputation as a discoverer of plots, he is compelled to first manufacture them. hundreds of innocent men and women have been exiled by administrative order during the past twelve months for complicity in conspiracies which have never had any existence save in the wicked imagination of that brutal official. i know it--_i can prove it_!" "hush!" i said. "you may be overheard. you surely do not wish the man to become your enemy. remember, he is all-powerful here--in russia." "i will speak the truth when the time comes," she said vehemently. "i will show the emperor certain papers which have come into my own hands which will prove how his majesty has been misled, tricked and terrorised by this markoff, and certain of his bosom friends in the cabinet." "it is really most unwise to speak so loudly," i declared. "somebody may overhear." "let them overhear!" cried the girl angrily. "i do not fear markoff in the least. i will, before long, open the emperor's eyes, never fear-- and justice shall be done. these poor wretches shall not be sent to the dungeons beneath the lake at schusselburg, or to the frozen wastes of yakutsk, in order that markoff shall remain in power. ah! he little dreams how much i know!" she laughed harshly. "it would hardly be wise of you to take any such action. you might fail--and--then--" "i cannot fail to establish at least the innocence of madame de rosen and of luba. the reason why they have been sent to siberia is simple. into madame de rosen's possession there recently came certain compromising letters concerning general markoff. he discovered this, and hence her swift exile without trial. but, uncle colin," she added, "those letters are in my possession! madame de rosen gave them to me the night before i went south with the emperor, because she feared they might be stolen by some police-spy. and i have kept them in a place of safety until such convenient time when i can place them before his majesty. the latter will surely see that justice is done, and then the disgraceful career of this arch-enemy of russian peace and liberty will be at an end." "hush!" i cried anxiously, for at that moment a tall man, in the bright green uniform of the lithuanian hussars, whose face i could not see, passed close by us, with a handsome middle-aged woman upon his arm. "hush! do, for heaven's sake, be careful, i beg of you!" i exclaimed. "such intention should not even be whispered. these palace walls have ears, for spies are everywhere!" chapter five. the man in pince-nez. next day was wednesday. at half-past five in the afternoon i was seated in my room at the embassy, busy copying out the last of my despatches which were to be sent that week by foreign office messenger to london. the messenger himself, in the person of my friend captain hubert taylor, a thin, long-limbed, dark-haired cosmopolitan, was stretched lazily in my chair smoking a cigarette, impatient for me to finish, so that the white canvas bag could be sealed and he could get away. the homeward nord express to ostend was due to leave at six o'clock; therefore he had not much time to spare. "do hurry up, old man," he urged, glancing at his watch. "if it isn't important, keep it over until wednesday week. despatches are like wine, they improve with keeping." "shut up!" i exclaimed, for i saw i had a good deal yet to copy--the result of an important inquiry regarding affairs south of the caspian, which was urgently required at downing street. our consul in baku had been travelling for three months in order to supply the information. "well, if i miss the train i really don't mind, my dear colin. i can do quite well with a few days' rest. i was down in rome ten days ago; and, besides, i only got here the night before last." "i do wish you'd be quiet, taylor," i cried. "i can't write while you chatter." so he lit a fresh cigarette and repossessed himself in patience until at last i had finished my work, stuck down the long envelope with the printed address, and placed it with thirty or forty other letters into the canvas bag; this i carefully sealed with wax with the embassy seal. "there you are!" i exclaimed at last. "you've plenty of time for the train--and to spare." "i shouldn't have had if i hadn't hurried you up, my dear boy. everyone seems asleep here. it shows your chief's away on leave. you should put in a day in paris. they're active there. it would be an eye-opener for you." "paris isn't petersburg," i laughed. "and an attache isn't a foreign service messenger," he declared. "government pays you fellows to look ornamental, while we messengers have to travel in hot haste and live in those rocking sleeping-cars of the wagon-lits." "horribly hard work to spend one's days travelling from capital to capital," i said, well knowing that this remark to a foreign service messenger is as a red rag to a bull. "work, my dear fellow. you try it for a month and see," taylor snapped. "well," i asked with a laugh, "any particular news in london?" for the messengers are bearers of all the diplomatic gossip from embassy to embassy. "oh, well--old petheridge, in the treaty department, is retiring this month, and jack scrutton is going to be transferred from rome to lima. some old fool in the commons has, i hear, got wind of that bit of scandal in madrid--you know the story, councillor of embassy and spanish countess--and threatens to put down a question concerning it. i hear there's a dickens of a row over it. the chief is furious. oh!--and i saw your chief in the st james's club the day i left london. he'd just come from windsor--been kissing hands, or something. well," he added, "i suppose i may as well have some cigarettes before i go, even though you don't ask me. but they are always _pro bono_, i know. the embassy at petersburg is always noted for its hospitality and its cigarettes!" and he emptied the contents of my cigarette-box into the capacious case he took from his pocket. "here you are," i said, taking from my table another sealed despatch bearing a large blue cross upon it, showing that it was a confidential document in cipher upon affairs of state. "oh, hang!" he cried. "i didn't know you had one of those." and then, unbuttoning his waistcoat, he fumbled about his waist, and at last placed it carefully in the narrow pocket of the belt he wore beneath his clothes, buttoning the flap over the pocket. "well," he said at last, putting on his overcoat, "so long, old man. i'll just have time. i wonder what old ivanoff, in the restaurant-car, will have for dinner to-night? borstch, of course, and caviare." "you fellows have nothing else to think about but your food," i laughed. "food--yes, it's railway-food with a vengeance in this god-forgotten country. lots to drink, but nothing decent to eat." and taking the little canvas bag he shook my hand heartily and strode out. i stood for some time gazing through the open window out upon the sunlit neva across to the grim fortress on the opposite bank--the prison of many terrible tales. my thoughts were running, just as they had run all day, upon that strange suspicion which the emperor had confided to me. it seemed too remarkable, too strange, too amazing to be true. and again before my vision there arose the faces of those two refined and innocent ladies, madame de rosen and her daughter, who had been so suddenly hurried away to a living tomb in that far-off arctic region. i remembered what the little grand duchess had told me, and wondered whether her allegations were really true. i was wondering if she would permit me to see those incriminating letters which madame had given to her for safe-keeping, for at all costs i felt that, for the safety of the emperor and the peace and prosperity of russia, the country should be rid of general serge markoff. and yet the difficulties were, i knew, insurmountable. his majesty, hearing of these constant plots being discovered and ever listening to highly-coloured stories of the desperate attempts of revolutionists, naturally believed his personal safety to be due to this man whom he had appointed as head of the police of the empire. to any word said against serge markoff he turned a deaf ear, and put it down to jealousy, or to some ingenious plot to withdraw from his person the constant vigilance which his beloved markoff had established. more than once i had been bold enough to venture to hint that all those plots might not be genuine ones; but i had quickly understood that such suggestion was regarded by the emperor as a slur cast upon his favourite official and personal friend. the more i reflected, the more unwise seemed that sudden outburst of my pretty little companion in the winter garden on the night before. if anyone had overheard her threat, then no doubt it would reach the ears of that man who daily swept so many innocent persons into the prisons and _etapes_ beyond the urals. i knew, too well, of those lists of names which he placed before the emperor, and to which he asked the imperial signature, without even giving his majesty an opportunity to glance at them. truly, those were dark days. life in russia at that moment was a most uncertain existence, for anyone incurring the displeasure of general markoff, or any of his friends, was as quickly and effectively removed as though death's sword had struck them. much perturbed, and not knowing how to act in face of what the emperor had revealed to me, i was turning from the window back to my writing-table, when one of the english footmen entered with a card. "oh, show him up, green. and bring some cigarettes," i said. my visitor was ivan hartwig, the famous chief of the russian criminal detective service--an entirely distinct department from the secret police. a few moments later he was ushered in by green, and, bowing, took the hand i offered him. a lean, bony-faced man, of average height, alert, clean-shaven, and aged about forty-five. his hair was slightly streaked with grey, and his eyes, small and shrewd, beamed behind a pair of round gold-rimmed pince-nez. i had never seen him in glasses before, but i only supposed that he had suddenly developed myopia for some specific purpose. as he smiled in greeting me, his narrow jaws widened, displaying an even row of white teeth, while the english he spoke was as perfect as my own. at that moment, in his glasses, his black morning-coat and grey trousers, he looked more like a grave family physician than a police officer whose career was world-famous. and yet he was a man of striking appearance. his broad white forehead, his deep-set eyes so full of fire and expression, his high, protruding cheek-bones, and his narrowing chin were all characteristics of a man of remarkable power and intelligence. his, indeed, was a face that would arrest attention anywhere; hence the hundred and one disguises which he so constantly adopted. "i have had private audience of his majesty this afternoon, mr trewinnard," he said, as he took the chair i offered him. "he has sent me to you. you wish to see me." "yes," i said. "i need your assistance." "so his majesty has told me, but he explained nothing of the affair. he commanded me to place myself entirely at your disposal," replied the man, who, in himself, was a man of mystery. his nationality was obscure to most people, yet we at the embassy knew that he was in reality a british subject, and that ivan hartwig was merely the russian equivalent of evan hardwicke. i handed him the box of cigarettes which green had replenished, and took one myself. as he slowly lit his, i recollected what a strange career he had had. graduating from scotland yard, where on account of his knowledge of german and russian he had been mainly employed in the arrest of alien criminals in england, he had for several years served under monsieur goron, prefet of police of paris, and after being attached to the tzar on one of his visits to the french capital, had been personally invited by the emperor to become head of the criminal investigation department of russia. he was a quiet-spoken, alert, elusive, but very conscientious man, who had made a study of crime from a psychological standpoint, his many successes being no doubt due to his marvellously minute examination of motives and his methodical reasoning upon the most abstruse clues. there was nothing of the ordinary blunt official detective about him. he was a man of extreme refinement, an omnivorous reader and a diligent student of men. he was a passionate collector of coins, a bachelor, and an amateur player of the violin. i believe that he had never experienced what fear was, and certainly within my own knowledge, he had had a dozen narrow escapes from the vengeance of the terrorists. once a bomb was purposely exploded in a room into which he and his men went to arrest two students in moscow, and not one present escaped death except hartwig himself. and as he now sat there before me, so quiet and attentive, blinking at me through those gold-rimmed pince-nez, none would certainly take him for the man whose hairbreadth escapes, constant disguises, exciting adventures and marvellous successes in the tracking of criminals all over europe had so often amazed the readers of newspapers the world over. "well, mr hartwig," i said in a low voice, after i had risen and satisfied myself that green had closed the door, "the matter is one of strictest confidence--a suspicion which i may at once tell you is the emperor's own personal affair. to myself alone he has confided it, and i requested that you might be allowed to assist me in finding a solution of the problem." "i'm much gratified," he said. "as an englishman, you know, i believe, that i am ever ready to serve an englishman, especially if i am serving the emperor at the same time." "the inquiry will take us far afield, i expect--first to england." "to england!" he exclaimed. "for how long do you anticipate?" "who knows?" i asked. "i can only say that it will be a very difficult and perhaps a long inquiry." "and how will the department proceed here?" "your next in command will be appointed in your place until your return. the emperor arranged for this with me yesterday. therefore, from to-morrow you will be free to place yourself at my service." "i quite understand," he said. "and now, perhaps, you will in confidence explain exactly the situation, and the problem which is presented," and he settled himself in his chair in an attitude of attention. "ah! that, i regret, is unfortunately impossible. the emperor has entrusted the affair to me, and to me alone. i must direct the inquiry, and you will, i fear, remain in ignorance--at least, for the present." "in other words, you will direct and i must act blindly--eh?" he said in a rather dubious voice. "that's hardly satisfactory to me, mr trewinnard, is it?--hardly fair, i mean." "i openly admit that such an attitude as i am compelled to adopt is not fair to you, hartwig. but i feel sure you will respect the emperor's confidence, and view the matter in its true light. the matter is a personal one of his majesty's, and may not be divulged. he has asked me to tell you this frankly and plainly, and also that he relies upon you to assist him." my words convinced the great detective, and he nodded at last in the affirmative. "the problem i alone know," i went on. "his majesty has compelled me to swear secrecy. therefore i am forbidden to tell you. you understand?" "but i am not forbidden to discover it for myself?" replied the keen, wary official. "if you do, i cannot help it," was my reply. "if i do," he said, "i promise you faithfully, mr trewinnard, that his majesty's secret, whatever it is, shall never pass my lips." chapter six. relates a sensation. ten days had gone by. i had applied to downing street for leave of absence, and was awaiting permission. one afternoon i had again been commanded to private audience at the palace, and in uniform, had spent nearly two hours with the emperor, listening to certain confidential instructions which he had given me-- instructions for the fulfilment of a somewhat difficult task. twice during our chat i had referred to the case of my friends madame and mademoiselle de rosen, hoping that he would extend to them the imperial clemency, and by a stroke of that well-worn quill upon the big writing-table recall them from that long and weary journey upon which they had been sent. but his majesty, who was wearing the undress uniform of a general with a single cross at his throat, uttered an expression of regret that i had been friendly with them. "in russia, in these days, a foreigner should exercise the greatest caution in choosing his friends," he said. "only the day before yesterday markoff reported it was to those two women that the attempt in the nevski was entirely due. the others, thirty or so, were merely tools of those clever women." "forgive me, your majesty, when i say that general markoff lies," i replied boldly. "enough! our opinions differ, trewinnard," he snapped, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. it was on the tip of my tongue to make a direct charge against his favourite official, but what was the use when i held no actual proof. twice recently i had seen natalia, but she refused to allow me sight of the letters, telling me that she intended herself to show up the general in her own way--and at her own time. so the subject had dropped, for i saw that mention of it only aroused the emperor's displeasure. and surely the other matter which we were discussing with closed doors was weighty enough. at last his majesty tossed his cigarette-end away, and, his jewelled cross glittering at his throat, rose with outstretched hand, as sign that my audience was at an end. that eternal military band was playing in the grey courtyard below, and the emperor had slammed-to the window impatiently to keep out the sound. he was in no mood for musical comedy that afternoon. indeed, i knew that the military music often irritated him, but court etiquette--those iron-bound, unwritten laws which even an emperor cannot break--demanded it. those same laws decreed that no emperor of russia may travel _incognito_, as do all other european sovereigns; that at dinner at the winter palace there must always be eight guests; and that the service of gold plate of catherine the great must always be used. at the russian court there are a thousand such laws, the breach of a single one being an unpardonable offence, even in the case of the autocratic ruler himself. "then you understand my wishes--eh, trewinnard?" his majesty said at last in english, gripping my hand warmly. "perfectly, sire." "i need not impress upon you the need for absolute and entire discretion. i trust you implicitly." "i hope your majesty's trust will never be betrayed," i answered fervently, bowing over the strong outstretched hand. and then, backing out of the door, i bowed and withdrew. through the long corridor with its soft red carpet i went, passing calitzine, a short, dark man in funereal black, the emperor's private secretary, to whom i passed the time of day. then, reaching the grand staircase with its wonderful marble and gold balustrades and great chandeliers of crystal, i descended to the huge hall, where the echoes were constantly aroused by hurrying footsteps of ministers, officials, chamberlains, courtiers and servants--all of them sycophants. the two gigantic sentries at the foot of the stairs held their rifles at the salute as i passed between them, when of a sudden i caught sight of the grand duchess natalia in a pretty summer gown of pale-blue, standing with a tall, full-bearded elderly man in the brilliant uniform of the th regiment of grenadiers of tiflis, of which he was chief, and wearing many decorations. it was her father, the grand duke nicholas. "why, here's old uncle colin!" cried my incorrigible little friend in pleased surprise. "have you been up with the emperor?" i replied in the affirmative, and, bowing, greeted his imperial highness, her father, with whom i had long been on friendly terms. "where are you going?" asked the vivacious young lady quickly as she rebuttoned her long white glove, for they had, it seemed, been on a visit to the empress. "i have to go to the opening of the new wing of the naval hospital," i said. "and i haven't much time to spare." "we are going there, too. i have to perform the opening ceremony in place of the emperor," replied the grand duke. "so drive with us." "that's it, uncle colin!" exclaimed his daughter. "come out for an airing. it's a beautiful afternoon." so we went forth into the great courtyard, where one of the imperial state carriages, an open one, was in waiting, drawn by four fine, long-tailed caucasian horses. behind it was a troop of mounted cossacks to act as escort. we entered, and the instant the bare-headed flunkeys had closed the door the horses started off, and we swung out of the handsome gateway into the wide place, in the centre of which stood the grey column of peter the great. turning to the left we went past the alexander gardens, now parched and dusty with summer heat, and skirted the long facade of the war office. "i wonder what tales you've been telling the emperor about me, uncle colin?" asked the impudent little lady, laughing as we drove along, i being seated opposite the grand duke and his daughter. "about you?" i echoed with a smile. "oh, nothing, i assure you--or, at least, nothing that was not nice." "you're a dear, i know," declared the girl, her father laughing amusedly the while. "but you are so dreadfully proper. you're worse about etiquette than father is--and he's simply horrid. he won't ever let me go out shopping alone, and i'm surely old enough to do that!" "you're quite old enough to get into mischief, tattie," replied her father, speaking in french. "i love mischief. that's the worst of it," and she pouted prettily. "yes, quite true--the worst of it, for me," declared his imperial highness. "i thought that when you went to school in england they would teach you manners." "ordinary manners are not court manners," the girl argued, trying to rebutton one of her gloves which had come unfastened. "let me do it," i suggested, and quickly fastened it. "thank you," she laughed with mock dignity. "how charming it is to have such a polished diplomat as mr colin trewinnard to do nice things for one. now, isn't that a pretty speech? i suppose i ought to study smart things to say, and practise them on the dog--as father does sometimes." "really, tattie, you forget yourself, my dear," exclaimed her father, with distinct disapproval. "well, that's nothing," declared my charming little companion. "don't parsons practise preaching their sermons, and lawyers and statesmen practise their clever untruths? you can't expect a woman's mouth to be full of sugar-plums of speech, can you?" my eyes met those of the grand duke, and we both burst out laughing at the girl's quaint philosophy. "why, even the emperor has his speeches composed and written for him by silly old calitzine," she went on. "and at astrakhan the other day i composed a most telling and patriotic speech for his majesty, which he delivered when addressing the officers of the army of the volga. i sat on my horse and listened. the old generals and colonels, and all the rest of them, applauded vociferously, and the men threw their caps in the air. i wonder if they would have done this had they known that i had written those well-turned patriotic sentences, i--a mere chit of a girl, as father sometimes tells me!" "and the terror of the imperial family," i ventured to add. "thank you for your compliment. uncle colin," she laughed. "i know father endorses your sentiments. i see it in his face." "oh, do try and be serious, tattie," he urged. "see all those people! salute them, and don't laugh so vulgarly." and he raised his white-gloved hand to his shining helmet in recognition of the shouts of welcome rising from those assembled along our route. whereat she bowed gracefully again with that slight and rather frigid smile which she had been taught to assume on public occasions. "if i put up my sunshade they won't see me, and it will avoid such a lot of trouble," she exclaimed suddenly, and she put up her pretty parasol, which matched her gown and softened the light upon her pretty face. "oh, no, uncle colin!" she exclaimed suddenly, as we turned the corner into the yosnesenskaya, a long, straight street where the throng, becoming greater, was kept back by lines of police in their grey coats, peaked caps and revolvers. "i know what you are thinking. but it isn't so. i'm not in the least afraid of spoiling my complexion." "then perhaps it is a pity you are not," i replied. "complexions, like all shining things, tarnish quickly." "just like reputations, i suppose," she remarked, whereupon her father could not restrain another laugh. then again, at word in an undertone from the grand duke, both he and his daughter saluted the crowd, our horses galloping, as they always do in russia, and our cossack-escort clattering behind. there were a good many people just at this point, for it was believed that the emperor would pass on his way to perform the opening ceremony, and his loyal subjects were waiting to cheer him. on every hand, the people, recognising the popular grand duke and his daughter, set up hurrahs, and while his imperial highness saluted, his pretty daughter, the most admired girl in russia, bowed, and i, in accordance with etiquette, made no sign of acknowledgment. as we came to the narrow bridge which spans the canal, the road was flanked on the left by the alexander market, and here was another huge crowd. loud shouts of welcome in russian broke forth from those assembled, for the grand duke and his daughter were everywhere greeted most warmly. but as we passed the market, the police keeping back the crowd, i saw a thin, middle-aged man in dark clothes lift his hand high above his head. something came in our direction, yet before i had time to realise his action a blood-red flash blinded me, my ears were deafened by a terrific report, a hot, scorching breath swept across my face, and i felt myself hurled far into space amid the mass of falling debris. it all occurred in a single instant, and i knew no more. i had a distinct feeling that some terrific explosion had knocked the breath clean out of my body. i recollect seeing the carriage rent into a thousand fragments just at the same instant that black unconsciousness fell upon me. chapter seven. tells tragic truths. when, with extreme difficulty, i slowly struggled back to a knowledge of things about me, i found myself, to my great surprise, in a narrow hospital-bed, with a holy _ikon_ upon the whitewashed wall before me, and a red cross sister bending tenderly over me. beside her stood two russian doctors regarding me very gravely, and at their side was saunderson, our councillor of embassy. "well, how are you feeling now, colin, old man?" the latter whispered cheerfully. "i--i don't know. where am i?" i asked. "what's happened?" "my dear fellow, you can thank your lucky stirs that you've escaped from the bomb," he said. "the bomb!" i gasped, and then in a flash all the horrors of that sudden explosion crowded upon me. "what happened?" i inquired, trying to raise myself, and finding my head entirely enveloped in surgical bandages. "what happened to the others?" "the grand duke was, alas! killed, but his daughter fortunately escaped only with a scratch on her arm," was his reply. "the carriage was blown to atoms, the two horses and their driver and footman were killed, while three cossacks of the escort were also killed and two injured." "then--then she--she is alive!" i managed to gasp, dazed at the tragic truth he had related to me. "yes--it was a desperate attempt. fifteen arrests have been made up to the present." and while he was speaking, captain stoyanovitch advanced to my bedside, and leaning over, asked in a low voice: "how are you, trewinnard? the emperor has sent me to inquire." "tell his majesty that i--i thank him. i'm getting round--i--i hope i'll soon be well. i--i--" "that's right. take great care of yourself, _mon cher_," he urged. and then the doctors ordered my visitors away, and i sank among my pillows into a state of semi-consciousness. how long i lay thus i do not know. i remember seeing soldiers come and go, and at length discovered that i was in the hospital attached to the artillery barracks on the road to warsaw station. beside me always sat a grave-eyed nursing sister, silent and watchful, while ever and anon one or other of the doctors would approach, bend over me, and inquire of her my condition. saunderson came again some hours later. it was then night. and from him, now that i was completely conscious, i learnt how, after the explosion, the police had in the confusion shot down two men, afterwards proved to be innocent spectators, and made wholesale indiscriminate arrests. it was believed, however, that the man i had seen, the perpetrator of the dastardly act, had escaped scot-free. dozens of windows in the market-hall opposite where the outrage was committed had been smashed, and many people besides the killed and injured had been thrown down by the terrific force of the explosion. "the poor grand duke nicholas has, alas! been shattered out of recognition," he told me. "his body was taken at once to his palace, where it now lies, while you were brought here together with the grand duchess natalia. but her wound being quite a slight one, was dressed, and she was driven at once to the winter palace, at the order of the emperor. poor child! i hear that she is utterly prostrated by the fearful sight which her father presented to her eyes." i drew a long breath. "i suppose i was struck on the head by some of the debris and knocked insensible--eh?" i asked. "yes, probably," he replied. "but the doctors say the wound is only a superficial one, and in a week's time you'll be quite right again. so cheer up, old chap. you'll get the long leave which you put in for the other day, and a bit more added to it, no doubt." "but this state of things is terrible," i declared, shifting myself upon my side so that i could better look into his face. "surely the revolutionists could have had no antagonism towards the grand duke nicholas! he was most popular everywhere." "my dear fellow, who can gauge the state of the russian mind at this moment? plots seem to be of daily occurrence." "if you believe the reports of the secret police. but i, for one, don't," i declared frankly. "no, no," he said reprovingly. "don't excite yourself. be thankful that you've escaped. you might have shared the same fate as those poor cossacks." "i know," i said. "i thank god that i was spared. but it will be in the london papers, no doubt. reuter's man will send it; therefore, will you wire to my mother at once. you know her address--hayford manor, near newquay, cornwall. wire in my name, and tell her that the affair is greatly exaggerated, and that i'm all right, will you?" he promised. i knew with what eagerness my aged mother always followed all my movements, for i made it a practice to write to her twice every week with a full report of my doings. i was as devoted to her as she was to me. and perhaps that accounted for the fact that i had never married. my father, the honourable colin trewinnard, had been one of the largest landowners in cornwall, and my family was probably one of the oldest in the county. but evil times had fallen upon the estate in the last years of my father's life; depreciation in the value of agricultural land, failing crops and foreign competition had ruined farming, and now the income was not one-half that it had been fifty years before. yet it was sufficient to keep my mother and myself in comfort; and this, in addition to my pay from the foreign office, rendered me better off than a great many other men in our service. through stoyanovitch, on the following morning, i received a message from natalia. he said: "her highness, whom i saw in the palace an hour ago, told me to say that she sent you her best wishes for a speedy recovery. she is greatly grieved over the death of her father, and, of course, the court has gone into mourning for sixty days. she told me to tell you that as soon as you are able to return to the embassy she wishes to see you on a very important matter." "tell her that i am equally anxious to see her, and that she has all my sympathy in her sad bereavement," i replied. "terrible, wasn't it?" the imperial equerry exclaimed. "the poor girl looks white, haggard and entirely changed." "no wonder--after such an awful experience." "there were, i hear, twenty more arrests to-day. markoff had audience with his majesty at ten o'clock this morning, and eight of the prisoners of yesterday have been sent to schusselburg." "from which they will never emerge," i said, with a shudder at the thought of that living tomb as full of horrors as was the bastille itself. "well, i don't see why they should, my dear friend," the captain replied. "if i had had such an experience as yours, i shouldn't feel very lenient towards them--as you apparently do." "i am not thinking of the culprit," i said. "he certainly deserves a death-sentence. it is the innocents who, here in russia, suffer for the guilty, with whom i deeply sympathise. every day unoffending men and women are arrested wholesale in this drastic, unrelenting sweeping away of prisoners to siberia. i tell you that half of them are loyal, law-abiding subjects of the tzar." the elegant equerry-in-waiting only grinned and shrugged his shoulders. he was too good a russian to adopt such an argument. as personal attendant upon his majesty, he, of course, supported the imperial autocracy. "this accursed system of police-spies and _agents-provocateurs_ manufactures criminals. can a man wrongly arrested and sent to the mines remain a loyal subject?" "the many have to suffer for the few. it is the same in all lands," was his reply. "but really the matter doesn't concern me, my dear trewinnard." "it will concern you one day when you are blown up as i have been," i exclaimed savagely. shortly afterwards he left, and for hours i lay thinking, my eyes upon that square gilt holy picture before me, the _ikon_ placed before the eyes of every patient in the hospital. nurses in grey and soldiers in white cotton tunics passed and repassed through the small ward of which i was the only occupant. the pains in my head were excruciating. i felt as though my skull had been filled with boiling water. sometimes my thoughts were perfectly normal, yet at others my mind seemed full of strange, almost ridiculous phantasies. my whole career, from the days when i had been a clerk in that sombre old-fashioned room at downing street, through my service at madrid, brussels, berlin and rome to petersburg--all went before me, like a cinema-picture. i looked upon myself as others saw me--as a man never sees himself in normal circumstances--a mere struggling entity upon the tide of that sea of life called to-day. we are so very apt to think ourselves indispensable to the world. yet we have only to think again, and remember that the unknown to-morrow may bring, us death, and with it everlasting oblivion, as far as this world is concerned. queen victoria and pope leo xiii were the two greatest figures of our time; yet a month after their deaths people had to recall who they were, and what they had actually done to earn distinction. these modern days of rush and hurry are forgetful, irresponsible days, when public opinion is manufactured by those who rule the halfpenny press, and when the worst and most baneful commodities may be foisted upon the public by means of efficient advertisement. the cleverest swindler may by payment become a baronet of england, even a peer of the realm, providing he subscribes sufficient to somebody's newspaper publicity agency; and any blackguard with money or influence may become a justice of the peace and sentence his fellows to fourteen days' imprisonment. but the reader will forgive me. perhaps remarks such as these ill become a diplomat--one who is supposed to hold no personal opinions. yet i assert that to-day there is no diplomat serving great britain in a foreign country who is not tired and disgusted with his country's antiquated methods and her transparent weaknesses. the papers speak vigorously of britain's power, but men in my service-- those who know real international truths--smile at the defiant and well-balanced sentences of the modern journalist, whose blissful ignorance of the truth is ofttimes so pathetic. yes, it is only the diplomat serving at a foreign court who can view great britain from afar, and accurately gauge her position among modern nations. for ten days i remained in that whitewashed ward, many of my friends visiting me, and stoyanovitch coming daily with a pleasant message from his majesty. then one bright morning the doctors declared me to be fit enough to drive back to the embassy. an hour later, with my head still bandaged, i was seated in my own room, in my own big leather armchair, with the july sun streaming in from across the neva. saunderson was sitting with me, describing the great pomp of the funeral of the grand duke nicholas, and the service at the isaac church, at which the tzar, the court, and all the _corps diplomatique_ had attended. "by the way," he added, "a note came for you this morning," and he handed me a black-edged letter, bearing on the envelope the imperial arms embossed in black. i tore it open and found it to be a neatly-written little letter from the grand duchess natalia, asking me to allow her to call and see me as soon as ever i returned to the embassy. "i must see you, uncle colin," she wrote. "it is most pressing. so do please let me come. send me word, and i will come instantly. i cannot write anything here. _i must see you at once_!" chapter eight. describes a mysterious incident. two days later, the ugly bandages having been removed from my head, natalia was seated in the afternoon in my den. exquisitely neat in her dead black, with the long crape veil, she presented an altogether different appearance to the radiant girl who had sat before me on that fatal drive. her sweet face was now pale and drawn, and by the dark rings about her eyes i saw how full of poignant grief her heart had lately been. she had taken off her long, black gloves and settled herself cosily in my big armchair, her tiny patent-leather shoe, encasing a shapely silk-clad ankle, set forth beneath the hem of her black skirt. "i was so terrified. uncle colin, that you were also dead!" the girl was saying in a low, sympathetic voice, after i had expressed my deepest regret regarding the unfortunate death of her father, to whom she had been so devoted. "i suppose i had a very narrow escape," i said cheerfully. "you came out best of all." "by an absolute miracle. the emperor is furious. twenty of those arrested have already been sent to schusselburg," she said. "only yesterday, he told me that he hoped you would be well enough in a day or two to go to the palace. i was to tell you how extremely anxious he is to see you as soon as possible." "i will obey the command at the earliest moment i am able," i replied. "but how horribly unfortunate all this is," i went on. "i fully expected that you would be in england by this time." "as soon as you are ready, uncle colin, i can go. the emperor has already told me that he has placed me under your guardianship. that you are to be my equerry. isn't it fun?" she cried, her pretty face suddenly brightening with pleasure. "fancy you! dear old uncle, being put in charge of me--your naughty niece!" "his majesty wished it," i said. "he thinks you will be better away from court for a time. therefore, i have promised to accept the responsibility. for one year you are to live _incognito_ in england, and i have been appointed your equerry and guardian--and," i added very seriously, "i hope that my naughty niece will really behave herself, and do nothing which will cause me either annoyance or distress." "i'll really try and be very good, uncle colin," declared the girl with mock demureness, and laughing mischievously. "believe me, i will." "it all remains with you," i said. "remember i do not wish it to be necessary that i should furnish any unfavourable report to the emperor. i want us to understand each other perfectly from the outset. recollect one point always. though you may be known in england as miss gottorp, yet remember that you are of the imperial family of russia, and niece of the emperor. hence, there must be no flirtations, no clandestine meetings or love-letters, and such-like, as in the case of young hamborough." "please don't bring up that affair," urged the little madcap. "it is all dead, buried and forgotten long ago." "very well," i said, looking straight into her big, velvety eyes so full of expression. "but remember that your affection is absolutely forbidden except towards a man of your own birth and station." "i know," she cried, with a quick impatience. "i'm unlike any other girl. i am forbidden to speak to a commoner." "not in england. preserve your _incognito_, and nobody will know. at his majesty's desire, i have obtained leave of absence from the service for twelve months, in order to become your guardian." "well, dear old uncle colin, you are the only person i would have chosen. isn't that nice of me to say so?" she asked, with a tantalising smile. "but i tell you i shall show you no leniency if you break any of the rules which must, of necessity, be laid down," i declared severely. "as soon as i find myself well enough, you will take miss west, your old governess, and davey, your english maid, to england, and i will come and render you assistance in settling down somewhere in comfort." "at eastbourne?" she cried in enthusiasm. "we'll go there. do let us go there?" "probably at brighton," i said quietly. "it would be gayer for you, and--well, i will be quite frank--i think there are one or two young men whom you know in eastbourne. hence it is not quite to your advantage to return there." she pouted prettily in displeasure. "brighton is within an hour of london, as you know," i went on, extolling the praises of the place. "oh, yes, i know it. we often went over from eastbourne, to concerts and things. there's an aquarium there, and a seaside railway, and lots of trippers. i remember the place perfectly. i love to see your english trippers. they are such fun, and they seem to enjoy themselves so much more than we ever do. i wonder how it is--they enjoy their freedom, i suppose, while we have no freedom." "well," i said cheerfully, "in a week or ten days i hope i shall be quite fit to travel, and then we will set out for england." "yes. let us go. the emperor leaves for peterhof on saturday. he will not return to petersburg until the winter, and the court moves to tzarskoie-selo on monday." "then i will see his majesty before saturday," i said. "but, tell me, why did your highness write to me so urgently three days ago? you said you wished to see me at once." the girl sprang from her chair, crossed to the door, and made certain it was closed. then, glancing around as though apprehensive of eavesdroppers, she said: "i wanted to tell you, uncle colin, of something very, very curious which happened the other evening. about ten o'clock at night i was with miss west in the blue boudoir--you know the room in our palace, you've been in it." "i remember it perfectly," i said. "well, i went upstairs to davey for my smelling-salts as miss west felt faint, and as i passed along the corridor i saw, in the moonlight, in my own room a dark figure moving by the window. it was a man. i saw him searching the drawers of my little writing-table, examining the contents by means of an electric-torch. i made no sound, but out of curiosity, drew back and watched him. he was reading all my letters--searching for something which he apparently could not find. my first impulse was to ring and give the alarm, for though i could not see the individual's face, i knew he must be a thief. still, i watched, perhaps rather amused at the methodical examination of my letters which he was making, all unconscious that he was being observed, until suddenly at a noise made by a servant approaching from the other end of the corridor, he started, flung back the letters into the drawer, and mounting to the open window, got out and disappeared. i shouted and rushed after him to the window, but he had gone. he must have dropped about twelve feet on to the roof of the ballroom and thus got away. "several servants rushed in, and the sentries were alarmed," she went on. "but when i told my story, it was apparent that i was not believed. the drawer in the writing-table had been reclosed, and as far as we could see all was in perfect order. so i believe they all put it down to my imagination." "but you are quite certain that you saw the man there?" i said, much interested in her story. "quite. he was of middle height, dressed in dark clothes, and wore a cloth peaked cap, like men wear when golfing in england," she replied. "he was evidently in search of something i had in my writing-table, but he did not find it. nevertheless, he read a quantity of my letters mostly from school-friends." "and your love-letters?" i asked, with a smile. "well, if the fellow read any of them," she laughed, "i hope he was very much edified. one point is quite plain. he knew english, for my letters were nearly all in english." "some spy or other, i suppose." "without a doubt," she said, clasping her white hands before her and raising her wonderful eyes to mine. "and do you know, uncle colin, the affair has since troubled me very considerably. i wanted to see you and hear your opinion regarding it." "my opinion is that your window ought not to have been left open." "it had not been. the maid whose duty it is to close the windows on that floor one hour before sunset every day has been closely questioned, and declares that she closed and fastened it at seven o'clock." "servants are not always truthful," i remarked dubiously. "but the intruder was there with some distinct purpose. don't you think so?" "without a doubt. he was endeavouring to learn some secret which your highness possesses. cannot you form any theory what it can be? try and reflect." "secret!" she echoed, opening her eyes wide. "i have no secrets. everybody tells me i am far too outspoken." "here, in russia, everyone seems to hold secrets of some character or other, social or political, and spies are everywhere," i said. "are you quite certain you have never before seen the intruder?" "i could only catch the silhouette of his figure against the moonlight, yet, to tell the truth, it struck me at that moment that i had seen him somewhere before. but where, i could not recollect. he read each letter through, so he must have known english very well, or he could not have read so quickly." "but did you not tell me in the winter garden of the palace, on the night of the last court ball, that marya de rosen had given you certain letters--letters which reflected upon general markoff?" i asked. she sat erect, staring at me open-mouthed in sudden recollection. "why, i never thought of that!" she gasped. "of course! it was for those letters the fellow must have been searching." "i certainly think so--without the shadow of a doubt." "madame de rosen feared lest they should be stolen from her, and she gave them over to me--three of them sealed up in an envelope," declared my dainty little companion. "she expressed apprehension lest a domiciliary visit be made to her house by the police, when the letters in question might be discovered and seized. so she asked me to hold them for her." "and what did you do with them?" "i hid them in a place where they will never be found," she said; "at a spot where nobody would even suspect. but somebody must be aware that she gave them to me for safe-keeping. how could they possibly know?" "i think your highness was--well, just a little indiscreet on the night of the court ball," i said. "don't you recollect that you spoke aloud when other people were in the winter garden, and that i queried the judiciousness of it?" "ah! i remember now!" she exclaimed, her face suddenly pale and serious. "i recollect what i said. somebody must have overheard me." "and that somebody told serge markoff himself--the man who was poor madame de rosen's enemy, and who has sent both her and luba to their graves far away in eastern siberia." "then you think that he is anxious to regain possession of those letters?" "i think that is most probable, in face of your statement that you intend placing them before the emperor. of course, i do not know their nature, but i feel that they must reflect very seriously upon his majesty's favourite official--the oppressor of russia. you still have them in your possession?" i asked. "yes, uncle colin. i feared lest some spy might find them, so i went up to my old nursery on the top floor of the palace--a room which has not been used for years. in it stands my old doll's house--a big, dusty affair as tall as myself. i opened it and placed the packet in the little wardrobe in one of the doll's bedrooms. it is still there. i saw it only yesterday." "be very careful that no spy watches you going to that disused room. you cannot exercise too much caution in this affair," i urged seriously. "i am always cautious," she assured me. "i distrust more than one of our servants, for i believe some of them to be in markoff's pay. all that we do at home is carried at once to the emperor, while i am watched at every turn." "true; only we foreign diplomats are exempt from this pestilential surveillance and the clever plots of the horde of _agents-provocateurs_ controlled by the all-powerful markoff." "but what shall i do, uncle colin?" asked the girl, her white hands clasped in her lap. "if you think it wise to place the letter before the emperor, i should certainly lose no time in doing so," i replied. "it may soon be too late. spies will leave no hole or corner in your father's palace unexamined." "you think there really is urgency?" she asked. i looked my charming companion straight in the face and replied: "i do. if you value your life, then i would urge you at once to get rid of the packet which poor madame de rosen entrusted to you." "but i cannot place it before the emperor just at present," the girl exclaimed. "i promised secrecy to marya de rosen." "then you knew something of the subject to which those letters refer-- eh?" "i know something of it." "why not pass them on to me? they will be quite secure here in the embassy safe. russian spies dire not enter here--upon this bit of british soil." "a good idea," she said quickly. "i will. i'll go home and bring them back to you." and in a few minutes she rose and with a merry laugh left me to descend to her carriage, which was waiting out upon the quay. i stood looking out of the window as she drove away. i was thinking-- thinking seriously over the emperor's strange apprehension. two visitors followed her, the french naval attache, and afterwards old madame neilidoff, the society leader of moscow, who called to congratulate me upon my escape, and to invite me to spend my convalescence at her country estate at sukova. with the stout, ugly old lady, who spake french with a dreadfully nasal intonation and possessed a distinct moustache, i chatted for nearly an hour, as we sipped our tea with lemon, when almost as soon as she had taken her departure the door was flung open unceremoniously and the grand duchess natalia burst in, her beautiful face blanched to the lips. "uncle colin! something horrible has happened; those letters have gone!" she gasped in a hoarse whisper, staring at me. "gone!" i echoed, starting to my feet in dismay. "yes. _they've been stolen--stolen_!" chapter nine. the little grand duchess. in the golden september sunset, the long, wide promenade stretching beside the blue sea from brighton towards the fashionable suburb of hove was agog with visitors. a cloudless sky, a glassy sea flecked by the white sails of pleasure yachts, and ashore a crowd of well-dressed promenaders, the majority of whom were londoners who, stifled in the dusty streets, were now seeking the fresh sea air of the channel. i had dressed leisurely for dinner in the hotel metropole, where i had taken up my abode, and about seven o'clock descended the steps, and, crossing the king's road to the asphalted promenade, set out to walk westward towards hove. many things had happened since that well-remembered afternoon in july when natalia had discovered the clever theft of madame de rosen's letters, and i had, an hour later, ill though i was, sent to his majesty that single word "bathildis" and was granted immediate audience. when i told him the facts he appeared interested, paced the room, and then snapped his fingers with a careless gesture. the little madcap had certainly annoyed him greatly, and though feigning indifference, he nevertheless appeared perplexed. natalia was called at once and questioned closely; she was the soul of honour and would reveal nothing of the secret. afterwards i returned to the embassy and summoned hartwig, to inform him of the grand duchess's loss. the renowned police official had since made diligent inquiry; indeed, the whole complicated machinery of the russian criminal police had been put into motion, but all to no avail. the theft was still an entire mystery. as i approached the lawns at hove, those wide, grassy promenades beside the sea, i saw that many people were still lingering, enjoying the warm sunset, although the fashionable hour when women exercise their pet dogs, and idle men lounge and watch the crowd, had passed and the band had finished its performance. my mind was filled by many serious apprehensions, as turning suddenly from the lawns, i recrossed the road and entered brunswick square, that wide quadrangle of big, old-fashioned houses around a large railed-in garden filled with high oaks and beeches. before a drab, newly-painted house with a basement and art-green blinds, i halted, ascended the steps and rang. a white-whiskered old manservant in funereal black bowed as i entered, and, casting off my overcoat, i followed the old fellow past a man who was seated demurely in the hall, to whom i nodded, and up thickly-carpeted stairs to the big white-enamelled drawing-room, where natalia sprang up from a couch of daffodil silk and came forward to meet me with glad welcome and outstretched hand. "well, uncle colin!" she cried, "wherever have you been? i called for you at the `metropole' the day before yesterday, and your superb hall-porter told me that you were in london!" "yes. i had to go up there on some urgent business," i said. "i only returned to-day at five o'clock and received your kind invitation to dine," and then, turning, i greeted miss west, the rather thin, elderly woman who for years had acted as english governess to her imperial highness--or miss gottorp, as she was now known at hove. miss west had been governess in the emperor's family for six years before she had entered the service of the grand duchess nicholas, so life at court, with all its stiff etiquette, had perhaps imparted to her a slightly unnatural hauteur. natalia looked inexpressibly sweet in an evening gown of fine black spotted net, the transparency of which about the chest heightened the almost alabaster whiteness of her skin. she wore a black aigrette in her hair, but no jewellery save a single diamond bangle upon her wrist, an ornament which she always wore. "sit down and tell me all the news," she urged, throwing herself into an armchair and patting a cushion near by as indication where i should sit. "there is no news," i said. "this morning i was at the embassy, and they were naturally filled with curiosity regarding you--a curiosity which i did not satisfy." "young isvolski is there, isn't he?" she asked. "he used to be attached to my poor father's suite." "yes," i replied. "he's third secretary. he wanted to know whether you had police protection, and i told him they had sent you another agent from petersburg. i suppose it is that melancholy man i've just seen sitting in the hall?" "yes. isn't it horrid? he sits there all day long and never moves," miss west exclaimed. "it is as though the bailiffs are in the house." "bailiffs?" repeated the girl. "what are they?" i explained to her, whereupon she laughed heartily. "hartwig is due in brighton to-night or to-morrow morning," i said. "i have received a telegram from him, despatched from berlin early yesterday morning. but," i added, "i trust that you are finding benefit from the change." "i am," she assured me. "i love this place. i feel so free and so happy here. miss west and i go for walks and drives every day, and though a lot of people stare at me very hard, i don't think they know who i am. i hope not." "they admire your highness's good looks," i ventured to remark. but she made a quick gesture of impatience, and declared that i only intended sarcasm. "i suppose miss west, that all the men turn to look at her highness?" i said. "englishmen at the seaside during the summer are always impressionable, so they must be forgiven." "you are quite right, mr trewinnard. it is really something dreadful. only to-day a young man--quite a respectable young fellow, who was probably a clerk in the city--followed us the whole length of the promenade to the west pier and kept looking into her highness's face." "he was really a very nice-looking boy," the girl declared mischievously. "if i'd been alone he would have spoken to me. and, oh, i'd have had such ripping fun." "no doubt you would," i said. "but you know the rule. you are never upon any pretext to go out alone. besides, you are always under the observation of a police-agent. you would scarcely care to do any love-making before him, would you?" "why not? those persons are not men--they're only machines," she declared. "the emperor told me that long ago." "well, take my advice," i urged with a laugh, "and don't attempt it." "oh, of course, uncle colin; you're simply dreadful. you're a perfect saint anthony. it's too jolly bad," she declared. "yes. perhaps i might be a saint anthony where you are concerned. still, you must not become a temptress," i laughed, when at that moment, old igor, the butler, entered to announce that dinner was served. so we descended the stairs to the big dining-room, where the table at which she took the head was prettily decorated with marshal neil roses, and, a merry trio, we ate our meal amid much good-humoured banter and general laughter. as she sat beneath the pink-shaded electric lamp suspended over the table, i thought i had never seen her looking so inexpressibly charming. little wonder, indeed, that young city men down for a fortnight's leisure at the seaside, the annual relaxation from their weary work-a-day world of office and suburban railway, looked upon her in admiration and followed her in order to feast their eyes upon her marvellous beauty. what would they have thought, had they but known that the girl so quietly and well-dressed in black was of the bluest blood of europe, a daughter of the imperial romanoffs. that big, old-fashioned house which i had arranged for her six weeks ago belonged to the widow of a brewery baronet, a man who had made a great fortune out of mild dinner-ale. the somewhat beefy lady--once a domestic servant--had gone on a voyage around the world and had been pleased to let it furnished for a year. with her consent i had had the whole place repainted and decorated, had caused new carpets to be provided, and in some instances the rooms had been refurnished in modern style, while four of the servants, including igor, the butler, and davey, her highness's maid, had been brought from her father's palace beside the neva. for a girl not yet nineteen it was, indeed, quite a unique establishment. miss west acting as chaperone, companion and housekeeper. seated at the head of the table, the little grand duchess did the honours as, indeed, she had so often done them at the great table in that magnificent salon in petersburg, for being the only child, it had very often fallen to her lot to help her father to entertain, her mother having died a month after her birth. dinner over, the ladies rose and left, while i sat to smoke my cigarette alone. outside in the hall the undersized, insignificant little man in black sat upon a chair reading the evening paper, and as old igor poured out my glass of port i asked him in french how he liked england. "ah! m'sieur," he exclaimed in his thin, squeaky voice. "truly it is most beautiful. we are all so well here--so much better than in petersburg. years ago i went to london with my poor master, the grand duke. we stayed at claridge's. m'sieur knows the place--eh?" "of course," i said. "but tell me, igor, since you've been in brighton--over a month now--have you ever met, or seen, anybody you know? i mean anyone you have seen before in petersburg?" i was anxious to learn whether young hamborough, paul urusoff, or any of the rest, had been in the vicinity. the old fellow reflected a few moments. then he replied: "of course i saw m'sieur hartwig three weeks ago. also his excellency the ambassador when he came down from london to pay his respects to her imperial highness." "nobody else?" i asked, looking seriously into his grey old face, my wine-glass poised in my hand. "ah, yes! one evening, three or four days ago, i was walking along king's road, towards ship street, when i passed a tall, thin, clean-shaven man in brown, whose face was quite familiar. i know that i've seen him many times in petersburg, but i cannot recall who or what he is. he looked inquisitively at me for a moment, and apparently recognising me, passed on and then hurriedly crossed the road." "was he a gentleman?" i asked with curiosity. "he was dressed like one, m'sieur. he had on a dark grey homburg hat and a fashionable dark brown suit." "you only saw him on that one occasion?" "only that once. when i returned home i told dmitri, the police-agent, and described him. you don't anticipate that he is here with any evil purpose, i suppose?" he added quickly. "i can't tell, igor. i don't know him. but if i were you i would not mention it to her highness. she's only a girl, remember, and her nerves have been greatly shaken by that terrible tragedy." "rely upon me. i shall say no word, m'sieur," he promised. then i rose and ascended to the drawing-room, where natalia was seated alone. "miss west will be here in a few minutes," she said. "tell me, uncle colin, what have you been doing while you've been away--eh?" "i had some business in london, and afterwards went on a flying visit to see my mother down in cornwall," i said. "ah! how is she? i hope you told her to come and see me. i would be so very delighted if she will come and stay a week or so." "i gave her your highness's kind message, and she is writing to thank you. she'll be most delighted to visit you," i said. "nothing has been discovered regarding madame de rosen's letters, i suppose?" she asked with a sigh, her face suddenly grown grave. "hartwig arrives to-night, or to-morrow," i replied. "we shall then know what has transpired. from his majesty he received explicit instructions to spare no effort to solve the mystery of the theft." "i know. he told me so when he was here three weeks ago. he has made every effort. of all the police administration i consider hartwig the most honest and straightforward." "yes," i agreed. "he is alert always, marvellously astute, and, above all, though he has had such an extraordinary career, he is an englishman." "so i have lately heard," replied my pretty companion. "i know he will do his best on my behalf, because i feel that i have lost the one piece of evidence which might have restored poor marya de rosen and her daughter to liberty." "you have lost the letters, it is true," i said, looking into her splendid eyes. "you have lost them because it was plainly in the interests of general markoff, the tzar's favourite, that they should be lost. madame de rosen herself feared lest they should be stolen, and yet a few days later she and luba were spirited away to the unknown. search was, no doubt, made at her house for that incriminating correspondence. it could not be found; but, alas! you let out the secret when sitting out with me at the court ball. somebody must have overheard. your father's palace was searched very thoroughly, and the packet at last found." "the emperor appeared to be most concerned about it before i left russia. when i last saw him at tzarskoie-selo he seemed very pale, agitated and upset." "yes," i said. then, very slowly, for i confess i was much perturbed, knowing how we were at that moment hemmed in by our enemies, i added: "this theft conveyed more to his majesty than at present appears to your highness. it is a startling coup of those opposed to the monarchy--the confirmation of a suspicion which the emperor believed to be his--and his alone." "a suspicion!" she exclaimed. "what suspicion? tell me." next moment miss west, thin-faced and rather angular, entered the room, and we dropped our confidences. then, at my invitation, my dainty little hostess went to the piano, and running her white fingers over the keys, commenced to sing in her clear, well-trained contralto "l'heure exquise" of paul verlaine: la lune blanche luit dans les bois; de chaque branche part une voix sous la ramee... o bien-aimee. chapter ten. reveals two facts. when i entered my bedroom at the hotel metropole it wanted half an hour to midnight. but scarce had i closed the door when a waiter tapped at it and handed me a card. "show the gentleman up," i said in eager anticipation, and a few minutes later there entered a tall, thin, clean-shaven, rather aristocratic-looking man in a dark brown suit--the same person whom old igor had evidently recognised walking along king's road. "well, tack? so you are here with your report--eh?" i asked. "yes, sir," was his reply, as i seated myself on the edge of the bed, and he took a chair near the dressing-table and settled himself to talk. edward tack was a man of many adventures. after a good many years at scotland yard, where he rose to be the chief of the extradition department on account of his knowledge of languages, he had been engaged by the foreign office as a member of our secret service abroad, mostly in germany and russia. during the past two years he had, as a blind to the police, carried on a small insurance agency business in petersburg; but the information he gathered from time to time and sent to the embassy was of the greatest assistance to us in our diplomatic dealings with russia and the powers. he never came to the embassy himself, nor did he ever hold any direct communication with any of the staff. he acted as our eyes and ears, exercising the utmost caution in transmitting to us the knowledge of men and matters which he so cleverly gained. he worked with the greatest secrecy, for though he had lived in petersburg two whole years, he had never once been suspected by that unscrupulous spy-department controlled by general markoff. "i've been in brighton several days," my visitor said. "the hotel porter told me here that you were away, so i went to the `old ship!' and waited for you." "well--what have you discovered?" i inquired, handing him my cigarette-case. "anything of interest?" "nothing very much, i regret to say," was his reply. "i've worked for a whole month, often night and day, but markoff's men are wary--very wary birds, sir, as you know." "have you discovered the real perpetrator of that bomb outrage?" "i believe so. he escaped." "no doubt he did." "there have been in all over forty persons arrested," my visitor said. "about two dozen have been immured in schusselburg, in those cells under the waters of lake ladoga. the rest have been sent by administrative process to the mines." "and all of them innocent?" "every one of them." "it's outrageous!" i cried. "to think that such things can happen every day in a country whose priests teach christianity." "remove a certain dozen or so of russia's statesmen and corrupt officials, put a stop to the exile system, and give every criminal or suspect a fair trial, and the country would become peaceful to-morrow," declared the secret agent. "i have already reported to the embassy the actual truth concerning the present unrest." "i know. and we have sent it on to downing street, together with the names of those who form the camarilla. the emperor is, alas! merely their catspaw. they are the real rulers of russia--they rule it by a reign of terror." "exactly, sir," replied the man tack. "i've always contended that. in the present case the outrage is not a mystery to the secret police." "you think they know all about it--eh?" i asked quickly. "well, sir. i will put to you certain facts which i have discovered. about two years ago a certain danilo danilovitch, an intelligent shoemaker in kazan, and a member of the revolutionary group in that city, turned police-spy, and gave evidence of a _coup_ which had been prepared to poison the emperor at a banquet given there after the military manoeuvres last year. as a result, there were over a hundred arrests, and as reprisal the chief of police of kazan was a week later shot while riding through one of the principal streets. next i know of danilovitch is that he was transferred to petersburg, where, though in the pay of the police, he was known to the party of the people's will as an ardent and daring reformer, and foremost in his fiery condemnation of the monarchy. he made many inflammatory speeches at the secret revolutionary meetings in various parts of the city, and was hailed as a strong and intrepid leader. yet frequently the police made raids upon these meeting-places and arrested all found there. after each attempted outrage they seemed to be provided with lists of everyone who had had the slightest connection with the affair, and hence they experienced no difficulty in securing them and packing them off to siberia. the police were all-ubiquitous, the emperor was greatly pleased, and general markoff was given the highest decorations, promotion and an appointment with rich emoluments. "but one day, about four months ago," tack went on, "a remarkable but unreported tragedy occurred. danilovitch, whose wife had long ago been arrested and died on her way to siberia, fell in love with a pretty young tailoress named marie garine, who was a very active member of the revolutionary party, her father and mother having been sent to the mines of nerchinsk, though entirely innocent. hence she naturally hated the secret police and all their detestable works. more than once she had remarked to her lover the extraordinary fact that the police were being secretly forewarned of every attempt which he suggested, for danilovitch had by this time become one of the chief leaders of the subterranean revolution, and instigator of all sorts of desperate plots against the emperor and members of the imperial family. one evening, however, she went to his rooms and found him out. some old shoes were upon a shelf ready for mending, for he still, as a subterfuge, practised his old trade. among the shoes was a pair of her own. she took them down, but she mistook another pair for hers, and from one of them there fell to her feet a yellow card--the card of identity issued to members of the secret police! she took it up. there was no mistake, for her lover's photograph was pasted upon it. her lover was a police-spy!" "well, what happened?" i asked, much interested in the facts. "the girl, in a frenzy of madness and anger, was about to rush out to betray the man to her fellow-conspirators, when danilovitch suddenly entered. she had, at that moment, his yellow card in her hand. in an instant he knew the truth and realised his own peril. she intended to betray him. it meant her life or his! not a dozen words passed between the pair, for the man, taking up his shoemaker's knife, plunged it deliberately into the girl's heart, snatched the card from her dying grasp, and strode out, locking the door behind him. then he went straight to the private bureau of general markoff and told him what he had done. needless to relate, the police inquiry was a very perfunctory one. it was a love tragedy, they said, and as danilo danilovitch was missing, they soon dropped the inquiry. they did not, of course, wish to arrest the assassin, for he was far too useful a person to them." "then you know the fellow?" "i have met him often. at first i had no idea of his connection with the revolutionists. it is only quite recently through a woman who is in the pay of the secret police, and whose son has been treated badly, that i learned the truth. and she also told me one very curious fact. she was present in the crowd when the bomb was thrown at the grand duke nicholas's carriage, and she declares that danilo danilovitch--who has not been seen in petersburg since the tragic death of marie garine--was there also." "then he may have thrown the bomb?" i said, amazed. "who knows?" "but i saw a man with his arm uplifted," i exclaimed. "he looked respectable, of middle-age, with a grey beard and wore dark clothes." "that does not tally with danilovitch's description," he replied. "but, of course, the assassin must have been disguised if he had dared to return to petersburg." "but i suppose his fellow-conspirators still entertain no suspicion that he is a police-spy?" "none whatever. the poor girl lost her life through her untoward discovery. the police themselves knew the truth, but on action being withdrawn, the fellow was perfectly free to continue his nefarious profession of _agent-provocateur_, for the great risk of which he had evidently been well paid." "but does not hartwig know all this?" i asked quickly, much surprised. "probably not. general markoff keeps his own secrets well. hartwig, being head of the criminal police, would not be informed." "but he might find out, just as you have found out," i suggested. "he might. but my success, sir, was due to the merest chance, remember," tack said. "hartwig's work lies in the detection of crime, and not in the frustration of political plots. markoff knows what an astute official he is, and would therefore strive to keep him apart from his catspaw danilovitch." "then, in your opinion, many of these so-called plots against the emperor are actually the work of the kazan shoemaker, who arranges the plot, calls the conspirators together and directs the arrangements." "yes. his brother is a chemist in moscow and it is he who manufactures picric acid, nitro-glycerine and other explosives for the use of the unfortunate conspirators. between them, and advised by markoff, they form a plot, the more desperate the better; and a dozen or so silly enthusiasts, ignorant of their leaders' true calling, swear solemnly to carry it out. they are secretly provided with the means, and their leader has in some cases actually secured facilities from the very police themselves for the _coup_ to be made. then, when all is quite ready, the astute danilovitch hands over to his employer, markoff, a full list of the names of those who have been cleverly enticed into the plot. at night a sudden raid is made. all who are there, or who are even in the vicinity are arrested, and next morning his excellency presents his report to the emperor, with danilovitch's list ready for the imperial signature which consigns those arrested to a living grave on the arctic wastes, or in the mines of eastern siberia." "and so progresses holy russia of to-day--eh, tack?" i remarked with a sigh. the secret agent of british diplomacy, shrugging his shoulders and with a grin, said: "the scoundrels are terrorising the emperor and the whole imperial family. the killing of the grand duke nicholas was evidence of that, and you, too, sir, had a very narrow escape." "do you suspect that, if the story of the woman who recognised danilovitch be true, it was actually he himself who threw the bomb?" "at present i can offer no opinion," he answered. "the woman might, of course, have been mistaken, and, again, i doubt whether danilovitch would dare to show himself so quickly in petersburg. to do so would be to defy the police in the eyes of his fellow-conspirators, and that might have aroused their suspicion. but, sir," tack added, "i feel certain of two facts--absolutely certain." "and what are they?" i inquired eagerly, for his information was always reliable. "well, the first is that the outrage was committed with the full connivance and knowledge of the police, and secondly, that it was not the grand duke whom they sought to kill, but his daughter, the grand duchess natalia, and you yourself!" "why do you think that?" i asked. "because it was known that the young lady held letters given her by madame de rosen, and intended to hand them over to the emperor. there was but one way to prevent her," he went on very slowly, "to kill her! and," he added, "be very careful yourself in the near future, mr trewinnard. another attempt of an entirely different nature may be made." "you mean that her highness is still in grave danger--even here--eh?" i exclaimed, looking straight at the clean-shaven man seated before me. "i mean, sir, that her highness may be aware of the contents of these letters handed to her by the lady who is now exiled. if so, then she is a source of constant danger to general markoff's interests. and you are fully well aware of the manner in which his excellency usually treats his enemies. only by a miracle was your life saved a few weeks ago. therefore," he added, "i beg of you, sir, to beware. there may be pitfalls and dangers--even here, in brighton!" "do you only suspect something, tack," i demanded very seriously, "or do you actually know?" he paused for a few seconds, then, his deep-set eyes fixed upon mine, he replied. "i do not suspect, sir, i _know_." chapter eleven. his excellency general markoff. what tack had told me naturally increased my apprehension. i informed the two agents of russian police who in turn guarded the house in brunswick square. a whole month went by, bright, delightful autumn days beside the sea, when i often strolled with my charming little companion across the lawns at hove, or sat upon the pier at brighton listening to the band. sometimes i would dine with her and miss west, or at others they would take tea with me in that overheated winter garden of the "metropole"-- where half of the hebrew portion of the city of london assembles on sunday afternoons--or they would dine with me in the big restaurant. so frequently was she in and out of the hotel that "miss gottorp" soon became known to all the servants, and by sight to most of the visitors on account of the neatness of her mourning and the attractiveness of her pale beauty. tack had returned to petersburg to resume his agency business, and hartwig's whereabouts was unknown. the last-named had been in brighton three weeks before, but as he had nothing to report he had disappeared as suddenly as he had come. he was ubiquitous--a man of a hundred disguises, and as many subterfuges. he never seemed to sleep, and his journeys backwards and forwards across the face of europe were amazingly swift and ever-constant. i was seated at tea with her highness and miss west in the winter garden--that place of palms and bird-cages at the back of the "metropole"--when a waiter handed me a telegram which i found was from the secretary of the russian embassy, at chesham house, in london, asking me to call there at the earliest possible moment. what, i wondered, had occurred? i said nothing to natalia, but, recollecting that there was an express just after six o'clock which would land me at victoria at half-past seven, i cut short her visit and duly arrived in london, unaware of the reason why i was so suddenly summoned. i crossed the big, walled-in courtyard of the embassy, and entering the great sombre hall, where an agent of secret police was idling as usual, the flunkey in green livery showed me along to the secretary's room, a big, gloomy, smoke-blackened apartment on the ground floor. the huge house was dark, sombre and ponderous, a house of grim, mysterious shadows, where officials and servants flitted up and down the great, wide staircase which led to his excellency's room. "his excellency left for paris to-day," the footman informed me, opening the door of the secretary's room, and telling me that he would send word at once of my arrival. it was the usual cold and austere embassy room--differing but little from my own den in petersburg. count kourloff, the secretary, was an old friend of mine. he had been secretary in rome when i had been stationed there, and i had also known him in vienna--a clever and intelligent diplomat, but a bureaucrat like all russians. the evening was a warm, oppressive one, and the windows being open, admitted the lively strains of a street piano, played somewhere in the vicinity. suddenly the door opened, and instead of the count, whom i had expected, a stout, broad-shouldered, elderly man in black frock-coat and grey trousers entered, and saluted me gaily in french with the words: "ah, my dear trewinnard! how are you, my friend--eh? how are you? and how is her imperial highness--eh?" i started as i recognised him. it was none other than serge markoff. "i am very well, general," i replied coldly. "i am awaiting count kourloff." "he's out. it was i who telegraphed to you. i want to have a chat with you now that you have entered the service of russia, my dear friend. pray be seated." "pardon me," i replied, annoyed, "i have not entered the service of russia, only the private service of her sovereign, the emperor." "the same thing! the same thing!" he declared fussily, stroking his long, grey moustache, and fixing his cunning steel-blue eyes upon mine. "i think not," i said. "but we need not discuss that point." "_bien_! i suppose her highness is perfectly comfortable and happy in her _incognito_ at brighton--eh? the emperor was speaking of her to me only the other day." "his majesty receives my report each week," i said briefly. "i know," replied the brutal remorseless man who was responsible for the great injustice and suffering of thousands of innocent ones throughout the russian empire. "i know. but i have asked you to london because i wish to speak to you in strictest confidence. i am here, m'sieur trewinnard, because of a certain discovery we have recently made--the discovery of a very desperate and ingenious plot!" "another plot!" i echoed; "here, in london!" "it is formed in london, but the _coup_ is to be made at brighton," he replied slowly and seriously, "a plot against her imperial highness!" i looked the man straight in the face, and then burst out laughing. "you certainly do not appear to have any regard for the personal safety of your charge," he exclaimed angrily. "i have warned you. therefore, take every precaution." i paused for a few seconds, then i said: "forgive me for laughing. general markoff. but it is really too humorous--all this transparency." "what transparency?" "the transparency of your attempt to terrify me," i said. "i know that the attempt made against the young lady and myself failed--and that his imperial highness the grand duke was unfortunately killed. but i do not think there will be any second attempt." "you don't think so!" he cried quickly. "why don't you think so?" "for the simple reason that danilo danilovitch--the man who is a police-spy and at the same time responsible for plots--is just now a little too well watched." the man's grey face dropped when i uttered the name of his catspaw. my statement, i saw, held him confounded and confused. "i--i do not understand you," he managed to exclaim. "what do you mean?" "well, you surely know danilovitch?" i said. "he is your most trusted and useful _agent-provocateur_. he is at this moment in england. i can take you now to where he is in hiding, if you wish," i added, with a smile of triumph. "danilovitch," he repeated, as though trying to recall the name. "yes," i said defiantly, standing with my hands in my trousers pockets and leaning against the table placed in the centre of the room. "danilovitch--the shoemaker of kazan and murderer of marie garine, the poor little tailoress in petersburg." his face dropped. he saw that i was aware of the man's identity. "he is now staying with a compatriot in blurton road, lower clapton," i went on. "i don't see why this person should interest me," he interrupted. "but he is a conspirator. general markoff; and i am giving you some valuable information," i said, with sarcasm. "you are not a police officer. what can you know?" "i know several facts which, when placed before the revolutionary committee--as they probably are by this time--will make matters exceedingly unpleasant for danilo danilovitch, and also for certain of those who have been employing him," was my quiet response. "if this man is a dangerous revolutionist, as you allege, he cannot be arrested while in england," remarked the general, his thick grey eyebrows contracting slightly, a sign of apprehension. "this country of yours gives asylum to all the most desperate characters, and half the revolutionary plots in europe are arranged in london." "i do not dispute that," i said. "but i was discussing the highly interesting career of this danilo danilovitch. if there is any attempt upon her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia, as you fear, it will be by that individual. general. therefore i would advise your department to keep close observation upon him. he is lodging at number b, blurton road. and," i added, "if you should require any further particulars concerning him, i daresay i shall be in a position to furnish them." "why do you suspect him?" "because of information which has reached me--information which shows that it was his hand which launched the fatal bomb which killed the grand duke nicholas. his imperial highness was actually killed by an agent of secret police! when that fact reaches the emperor's ears there will, i expect, be searching inquiry." "have you actual proof of this?" he asked in a thick, hoarse voice, his cheeks paler than before. "yes. or at least my informant has. the traitor was recognised among the crowd; he was seen to throw the bomb." general markoff remained silent. he saw himself checkmated. his secret was out. he had intended to raise a false scare of a probable attempt at brighton in order to terrify me, but, to his amazement, i had shown myself conversant with his methods and aware of the truth concerning the mysterious outrage in which the grand duke nicholas had lost his life. from his demeanour and the keen cunning look in his steely eyes i gathered that he was all eagerness to know the exact extent of my knowledge concerning danilo danilovitch. therefore, after some further conversation, i said boldly: "i expect that, ere this, the central committee of the people's will has learned the truth regarding their betrayer--this man to whose initiative more than half of the recent plots have been due--and how he was in the habit of furnishing your department with the lists of suspects and those chosen to carry out the outrage. but, of course, general," i added, with a bitter smile, "you would probably not know of this manufacture of plots by one in the pay of the police department." "of course not," the unscrupulous official assured me. "i surely cannot be held responsible for the action of underlings. i only act upon reports presented to me." i smiled again. "and yet you warn me of an outrage which is to be attempted with your connivance by this fellow danilovitch--the very man who killed the grand duke--eh?" "with my connivance!" he cried fiercely. "what do you insinuate?" "i mean this, general markoff," i said boldly; "that the yellow card of identity found in danilovitch's rooms by the girl to whom he was engaged bore your signature. that card is, i believe, already in the hands of the revolutionary committee!" "i have all their names. i shall telegraph to-night ordering their immediate arrest," he cried, white with anger. "but that will not save your _agent-provocateur_--the assassin of poor marie garine--from his fate. the arm of the revolutionist is a very long one, remember." "but the arm of the chief of secret police is longer--and stronger," he declared in a low, hard tone. "the emperor, when he learns the truth, will dispense full justice," i said very quietly. "his eyes will, ere long, be opened to the base frauds practised upon him, and the many false plots which have cost hundreds of innocent persons their lives or their liberty." "you speak as though you were censor of the police," he exclaimed with a quick, angry look. "i speak, general markoff, as the friend of russia and of her sovereign the emperor," i replied. "you warn me of a plot to assassinate the grand duchess natalia. well, i tell you frankly and openly i don't believe it. but if it be true, then i, in return, warn you that if any attempt be made by any of your dastardly hirelings, i will myself go to the emperor and place before him proofs of the interesting career of danilo danilovitch. your excellency may be all-powerful as chief of secret police," i added; "but as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow, justice will one day be done in russia!" and then i turned upon my heel and passed out of the room, leaving him biting his nether lip in silence at my open defiance. chapter twelve. watchers in the night. after her highness and miss west had dined with me at the "metropole" at brighton on the following evening, the trusted old companion complained of headache and drove home, leaving us alone together. therefore we strolled forth into the moonlit night and, crossing the road, walked out along the pier. there were many persons in the hall of the hotel, but though a good many heads were turned to see "miss gottorp" pass in her pretty _decollete_ gown of black, trimmed with narrow silver, over which was a black satin evening cloak, probably not one noticed the undersized, insignificant, but rather well-dressed man who rose from one of the easy chairs where he had been smoking to follow us out. who, indeed, of that crowd would have guessed that the pretty girl by whose side i walked was an imperial princess, or that the man who went out so aimlessly was oleg lobko, the trusty agent of the russian criminal police charged by the emperor with her personal protection? with the man following at a respectable distance, we strolled side by side upon the pier, looking back upon the fairy-like scene, the long lines of light along king's road, and the calm sea shimmering beneath the clear moon. there were many people enjoying the cool, refreshing breezes, as there always are upon an autumn night. a comedy was in progress in the theatre at the pierhead, and it being the _entr'acte_, many were promenading--mostly visitors taking their late vacation by the sea. my charming little companion had been bright and cheerful all the evening, but had more than once, by clever questions, endeavoured to learn what had taken me to the embassy on the previous night. i, however, did not deem it exactly advisable to alarm her unduly, either by telling her of my defiance of general markoff, of my discovery of danilo danilovitch, or of the attempt to terrify me by the declaration that another plot was in progress. truth to tell, tack, before his return to petersburg, had run danilovitch to earth in lower clapton, and two private detectives, engaged by me, were keeping the closest surveillance upon him. twice had we circled the theatre at the pierhead, and had twice strolled amid the seated audience around the bandstand where military music was being played in the moonlight, when we passed two young men in homburg hats, wearing overcoats over their evening clothes. one of them, a tall, slim, dark-haired, good-looking, athletic young fellow, of perhaps twenty-two, raised his hat and smiled at my companion. she nodded him a merry acknowledgment. then, as we passed on, i exclaimed quickly: "hulloa! is that some new friend--eh?" "oh, it's really all right, uncle colin," she assured me. "i've done nothing dreadful, now. you needn't start lecturing me, you know, or be horrified at all." "i'm not lecturing," i laughed. "i'm only consumed by curiosity. that's all." "ah! you're like all men," she declared. "and suppose i refuse to satisfy your curiosity--eh?" "you won't do that, i think," was my reply, as we halted upon one of the long benches which ran on either side of the pier. "remember, i am responsible to the emperor for you, and i'm entitled to know who your friend is." "he's an awfully nice boy," was all she replied. "he looks so. but who is he?" "somebody--well, somebody i knew at eastbourne." "and you've met him here? how long ago?" "oh! nearly a month." "and so it is he whom you've met several times of late--eh?" i said. "let's see--according to the report furnished to me, you were out for half an hour on the sea-front on tuesday night; five minutes on wednesday night; not at all on thursday night, and one whole hour on friday night--eh? and with a young man whose name is unknown." "oh, i'll tell you his name. he's dick drury." "and who, pray, is this mr richard drury?" "a friend of mine, i tell you. the man with him is his friend--lance ingram, a doctor." "and what is this mr drury's profession?" "he does nothing, i suppose," she laughed. "i can't well imagine dick doing much." "except flirting--eh?" i said with a smile. "that's a matter of opinion," she replied, as we again rose and circled the bandstand, for i was anxious to get another look at the pair. on the evenings i had referred to, it appeared that her highness, after dinner, had twisted a shawl over her head, and ran down to the sea-front--a distance of a hundred yards or so--to get a breath of air, as she had explained to miss west. but on each occasion the watchful police-agent had seen her meet by appointment this same young man. therefore some flirtation was certainly in progress--and flirtation had been most distinctly forbidden. my efforts were rewarded, for a few minutes later the two young men repassed us, and this time young drury did not raise his hat. he only smiled at her in recognition. "where are they staying?" i asked. "oh you are so horribly inquisitive, uncle colin," she said. "well, if you really must know, they're staying at the `royal york.'" "how came you to know this young fellow at eastbourne?" i asked. "i thought you were kept in strictest seclusion from the outside world. at least, you've always led me to believe that," i said. she laughed heartily. "well, dear old uncle, surely you don't think that any school could exactly keep a girl a prisoner. we used to get out sometimes alone for an hour of an evening--by judicious bribery. i've had many a pleasant hour's walk up the road towards beachy head. and, moreover, i wasn't alone, either. dick was usually with me." "really, this is too dreadful!" i exclaimed in pious horror. "suppose anyone had known who you really were!" "well, i suppose even if they had the heavens wouldn't have fallen," she laughed. "ah!" i said, "you are really incorrigible. here you are flirting with an unsuspected lover." "and why shouldn't i?" she asked in protest. "dick is better than some chance acquaintance." "if you are only amusing yourself," i said. "but if you love him, then it would be a serious matter." "oh, horribly serious, i know," she said impatiently. "if i were a typist, or a shopgirl, or a waitress, or any girl who worked for her living, i should be doing quite the correct thing; but for me--born of the great imperial family--to merely look at a boy is quite unpardonable." i was silent for a few moments. the little madcap whom the emperor had placed in my charge, because her presence at court was a menace to the imperial family, was surely unconventional and utterly incorrigible. "i fear your highness does not fully appreciate the heavy responsibilities of imperial birth," i said in a tone of dissatisfaction. "oh, bother! my birth be hanged!" she exclaimed, with more force than politeness. "in these days it really counts for nothing. i was reading it all in a german book last week. every class seems to have its own social laws, and what is forbidden to me is quite good form with my dressmaker. isn't it absurdly funny?" "you must study your position." "why should i, if i strictly preserve my _incognito_? that i do this, even you, uncle colin, will admit!" "are you quite certain that this mr drury is unaware who you really are?" i asked. "quite. he believes me to be miss natalia gottorp, my father german, my mother english, and i was born in germany. that is the story--does it suit?" "i trust you will take great care not to reveal your true identity," i said. "i have promised you, haven't i?" "you promised me that you would not flirt, and yet here you are, having clandestine meetings with this young man every evening!" "oh, that's very different. i can't help it if i meet an old friend accidentally, can i?" she protested with a pretty pout. at that moment we were strolling along the western side of the pierhead, where it was comparatively ill-lit, on one side being the theatre, while on the other the sea. the photographer's and other shops were closed at that late hour, and the light being dim at that spot, several flirting couples were passing up and down arm in arm. suddenly, as we turned the corner behind the theatre, we came face to face with a dark-featured, middle-aged man, with deeply-furrowed brow, narrowly set eyes and small black moustache. he wore a dark suit and a hard felt hat, and had something of the appearance of a middle-class paterfamilias out for his annual vacation. he glanced quickly in our direction, and, i thought, started, as though recognising one or other of us. then next moment he was lost in the darkness. "do you know that man?" asked my companion suddenly. "no. why?" "i don't know," she answered. "i fancy i've seen him somewhere or other before. he looked like a russian." that was just my own thought at that moment, and i wondered if oleg, who was lurking near, had noticed him. "yes," i said. "but i don't recollect ever having seen him before. i wonder who he is? let's turn back." we did so, but though we hastened our steps, we did not find him. he had, it seemed, already left the pier. apparently he believed that he had been recognised. once again we repassed drury and his friend just as the theatre disgorged its crowd of homeward-bound pleasure-seekers. we were walking in the same direction, oleg following at a respectable distance, and i was enabled to obtain a good look at him, for, as though in wonder as to whom i could be, he turned several times to eye me, with some little indignation, i thought. i judged him to be about twenty-five, over six feet in height, athletic and wiry, with handsome, clear-cut, clean-shaven features and a pair of sharp, dark, alert eyes, which told of an active outdoor life. his face was a refined one, his gait easy and swinging, and both in dress and manner he betrayed the gentleman. truth to tell, though i did not admit it to natalia, i became very favourably impressed by him. by his exterior he seemed to be a well-set-up, sportsmanlike young fellow, who might, perhaps, belong to one of the sussex county families. his friend the doctor was of quite a different type, a short, fair-haired man in gold-rimmed spectacles, whose face was somewhat unattractive, though it bore an expression of studiousness and professional knowledge. he certainly had the appearance of a doctor. but before i went farther i resolved to make searching inquiry unto the antecedents of this mysterious dick drury. the walk in the moonlight along the broad promenade towards hove was delightful. i begged her highness to drive, but she preferred to walk; the autumn night was so perfect, she said. as we strolled along, she suddenly exclaimed: "i can't help recalling that man we saw on the pier. i remember now! i met him about a week ago, when i was shopping in western road, and he followed me for quite a distance. he was then much better dressed." "you believe, then, he is a russian?" i asked quickly. "i feel certain he is." "but you were not alone--oleg was out with you, i suppose?" "oh, yes," she laughed. "he never leaves me. i only wish he would sometimes. i hate to be spied upon like this. either dmitri or oleg is always with me." "it is highly necessary," i declared. "recollect the fate of your poor father." "but why should the revolutionists wish to harm me--a girl?" she asked. "my own idea is that they're not half as black as they're painted." i did not reveal to her the serious facts which i had recently learnt. "did you make any mention to oleg of the man following you?" "no, it never occurred to me. but there, i suppose, he only followed me, just as other men seem sometimes to follow me--to look into my face." "you are used to admiration," i said, "and therefore take no notice of it. pretty women so soon become blase." "oh! so you denounce me as blase--eh, uncle colin?" she cried, just as we arrived before the door in brunswick square. "that is the latest! i really don't think it fair to criticise me so constantly," and she pouted. then she gave me her little gloved hand, and i bent over it as i wished her good-night. i wished to question oleg regarding the man we had seen, but i could not do so before her. i turned back along the promenade, and was walking leisurely towards the "metropole," when suddenly from out of the shadow of one of the glass-partitioned shelters the dark figure of a man emerged, and i heard my name pronounced. it was the ubiquitous hartwig, wearing his gold pince-nez. as was his habit, he sprang from nowhere. i had clapped my hand instinctively upon my revolver, but withdrew it instantly. "good evening, mr trewinnard," he said. "i've met you here as i don't want to be seen at the `metropole' to-night. i have travelled straight through from petersburg here. i landed at dover this afternoon, went up to victoria, and down here. i arrived at eight o'clock, but learning that her highness was dining with you, i waited until you left her. it is perhaps as well that i am here," he added. "why?" i asked. "because i've been on the pier with you to-night," was the reply of the chief of the detective department of russia, "and i have seen how closely you have been watched by a person whom even oleg lobko, usually so well-informed, does not suspect--a person who is extremely dangerous. i do not wish to alarm you, mr trewinnard," he added in a low voice, "but i heard in petersburg that something is intended here in brighton, and the emperor sent me post-haste to you." "who is this person who has been watching us?" i asked eagerly. "i noticed him." "oleg doesn't know him, but i do. i have had certain suspicions, and only five days ago i made a discovery in petersburg--an amazing discovery--which confirmed my apprehensions. the man who has been watching you with distinctly evil intent is a most notorious and evasive character named danilo danilovitch." "danilovitch!" i cried. "i know him, but i did not recognise him to-night. his appearance has so changed." "yes, it has. but i have been watching him all the evening. he returned by the midnight train to london." "i can tell you where he is in hiding," i said. "you can!" he cried. "excellent! then we will both go and pay him a surprise call to-morrow. there is danger--a grave and imminent danger-- for both her highness and yourself; therefore it must be removed. there is peril in the present situation--a distinct peril which i had never suspected. a disaster may happen at any moment if we are not wary and watchful. and there's another important point, mr trewinnard," added the great detective; "do you happen to know a tall, thin, sharp-featured young man called richard drury?" chapter thirteen. the catspaw. just as the dusk had deepened into grey on the following evening i alighted from a tram in the lower clapton road, and, accompanied by hartwig, we turned up a long thoroughfare of uniform houses, called powerscroft road, until we reached blurton road, where, nearly opposite the mission house, we found the house of which we were in search. hartwig had altered his appearance wonderfully, and looked more like a devonshire farmer up in london on holiday than the shrewd, astute head of the surete of the russian empire. as for myself, i had assumed a very old suit and wore a shabby hat. the drab, dismal house, which we passed casually in order to inspect, was dingy and forbidding, with curtains that were faded with smoke and dirt, holland blinds once yellow, but the ends of which were now dark and stained, and windows which had not been cleaned for years, while the front door was faded and blistered and some of the tops of the iron railings in front had been broken off. the steps leading to the front door had not been hearthstoned as were those of its neighbour, while in the area were bits of wastepaper, straw, and the flotsam and jetsam of the noisy, overcrowded street. unkempt children were romping or playing hopscotch on the pavement, while some were skipping and others playing football in the centre of the road--all pupils of the great county council schools in the vicinity. at both the basement window and that of the room above--the front parlour--were short blinds of dirty muslin, so that to see within while passing was impossible. in that particular it differed in no way from some of its neighbours; for in those parts front parlours are often turned into bedrooms, and a separate family occupies every floor. only one fact was apparent--that it was the dirtiest and most neglected house in the whole of that working-class road, bordering upon the hackney marsh. to me that district was as unfamiliar as were the wilds of the sahara. indeed, to the average londoner lower clapton is a mere legendary district, the existence of which is only recorded by the name written upon tramcars and omnibuses. together we strolled to the bottom of blurton road, to where glyn road crosses it at right angles, and then we stopped to discuss our plans. "i shall ascend the steps, knock, and ask for danilovitch," the great detective said. "the probability is that the door will be unceremoniously slammed in my face. but you will be behind me. i shall place my foot in the door to prevent premature closing, and at first sign of resistance you, being behind me, will help me to force the door, and so enter. at word from me don't hesitate--use all your might. i intend to give whoever lives there a sudden and sharp surprise." "but if they are refugees, they are desperate. what then?" "i expect they are," he laughed. "this is no doubt the hornets' nest. therefore it behoves us to be wary, and have our wits well about us. you're not afraid, mr trewinnard?" "not at all," i said. "where you dare go, there i will follow." "good. let's make the attempt then," he said, and together we strolled leisurely back until we came to the flight of unclean front steps, whereupon both of us turned and, ascending, hartwig gave a sharp postman's knock at the door. an old, grey-whiskered, ill-dressed man, palpably a polish jew, opened the door, whereupon hartwig asked in russian: "is our leader danilo danilovitch here?" the man looked from him to me inquiringly. "tell him that ivan arapoff, from petersburg, wishes to speak with him." "i do not know, gospodin, whether he is at home," replied the man with politeness. "but i will see, if you will wait," and he attempted to close the door in our faces. hartwig, however, was prepared for such manoeuvre, for he had placed his foot in the door, so that it could not be closed. the polish jew was instantly on the alert and shouted some sharp word of warning, evidently a preconcerted signal, to those within, whereat hartwig and myself made a sudden combined effort and next second were standing within the narrow evil-smelling little hall. i saw the dark figures of several men and women against the stairs, and heard whispered words of alarm in russian. but hartwig lost no time, for he shouted boldly: "i wish to see danilo danilovitch. let him come forward. if he does not do so, then it is at his own peril." "if you are police officers you cannot touch us here in england!" shouted a young woman with dark, tousled hair, a revolutionist of the female-student type. "we are here from petersburg as friends, but you apparently treat us as enemies," said hartwig. "if you are traitors you will, neither of you, leave this house alive," cried a thick-set man, advancing towards me threateningly. "so you shall see danilovitch--and he shall decide." i heard somebody bolting the front door heavily to prevent our escape, while a voice from somewhere above, in the gloom of the stairs, shouted: "comrades, they are police-spies!" a young, black-haired jewess of a type seen everywhere in poland, thin-featured and handsome, with a grey shawl over her shoulders, emerged from a door and peered into my face. there seemed fully fifteen persons in that dingy house, all instantly alarmed at our arrival. here was, no doubt, the london centre of revolutionary activity directed against the russian imperial family and danilo danilovitch was in hiding there. it was fortunate, indeed, that the ever-vigilant tack had succeeded in running him to earth. i had told hartwig of the allegation which tack had made against danilovitch, that, though in the service of the secret police, he had arranged certain attempts against members of the imperial family, and how he had deliberately killed his sweetheart, marie garine. but hartwig, being chief of the surete, had no connection with the political department, and was, therefore, unaware of any agent of secret police known as danilovitch. "i remember quite well the case of marie garine," he added. "i thoroughly investigated it and found that she had, no doubt, been killed by her lover. but i put it down to jealousy, and as the culprit had left russia i closed the inquiry." "then you could arrest him, even now," i said. "not without considerable delay. besides, in petersburg they are against applying for extradition in england. the newspapers always hint at the horrors of siberia in store for the person arrested. and," he added, "i agree that it is quite useless to unnecessarily wound the susceptibilities of my own countrymen, the english." it was those words he had spoken as we had come along blurton road. our position at that moment was not a very pleasant one, surrounded as we were by a crowd of desperate refugees. if any one of them recognised ivan hartwig, then i knew full well that we should never leave the house alive. men who were conspiring to kill his majesty the emperor would not hesitate to kill a police officer and an intruder in order to preserve their secret, "where is my good friend danilovitch?" demanded hartwig, in russian. "why does he not come forward?" "he has not been well, and is in bed," somebody replied. "he is coming in a moment. he lives on the top floor." "well, i'm in a hurry, comrades," exclaimed the great detective with a show of impatience. "do not keep me waiting. i am bearer of a message to you all--an important message from our great and beloved chief, the saviour of russia, whose real identity is a secret to all, but whom we know as `the one'!" "the one!" echoed two of the men in russian. "a message from him! what is it? tell us," they cried eagerly. "no. the message from our chief is to our comrade danilovitch. he will afterwards inform you," was hartwig's response. "who is it there who wants me?" cried an impatient voice in russian over the banisters. "i have a message for danilo danilovitch," my friend shouted back. "then come upstairs," he replied. "come--both of you." and we followed a dark figure up to a back room on the second floor--a shabby bed and sitting-room combined. he struck a match, lit the gas and pulled down the blind. then as he faced us, a middle-aged man with deeply-furrowed countenance and hair tinged with grey, i at once recognised him--though he no longer wore the small black moustache--as the man i had met on brighton pier on the previous night. "well," he asked roughly in russian, "what do you want with me?" i was gratified that he had not recognised ivan hartwig. for a moment he looked inquiringly at me, and no doubt recognised me as the grand duchess's companion of the previous night. his hair was unkempt, his neck was thick, and his unshaven face was broad and coarse. he had the heavy features of a russian of the lower class, yet his prominent, cunning eyes and high, deeply-furrowed forehead betokened great intelligence. though of the working-class, yet in his eyes there burned a bright magnetic fire, and one could well imagine how by his inflammatory speeches he led that crowd of ignorant aliens into a belief that by killing his imperial majesty they could free russia of the autocratic yoke. those men and women, specimens of whom were living in that house at clapton, never sought to aim at the root of the evil which had gripped the empire, that brutal camarilla who ruled russia, but in the madness of their blood-lust and ignorance that they were being betrayed by their leader, and their lives made catspaws by the camarilla itself, they plotted and conspired, and were proud to believe themselves martyrs to what they foolishly termed the cause! the face of the traitor before us was full of craft and cunning, the countenance of a shrewd and clever man who, it struck me, was haunted hourly by the dread of betrayal and an ignominious end. even though he might have been a shoemaker, yet from his perfect self-control, and the manner in which he greeted us, i saw that he was no ordinary man. indeed, few men could have done--would have dared to do--what he had done, if all tack had related were true. his personal appearance, his unkempt hair, his limp collar and loosely-tied cravat of black and greasy silk, and his rough suit of shabby dark tweed, his whole ensemble, indeed, was that of the political agitator, the revolutionary firebrand. "i am here, danilo danilovitch," hartwig said at last very seriously, looking straight at him, "in order to speak to you quite frankly, to put to you several questions." the man started, and i saw apprehension by the slight movement in the corners of his mouth. "for what reason?" he snapped quickly. "i thought you were here with a message from our chief in russia?" "i am here with a message, it is true," said the renowned chief of the russian surete. "you had, i think, better lock that door, and also make quite certain that nobody in this house overhears what i am about to say," he added very slowly and meaningly. "why?" inquired the other with some show of defiance. "if you do not want these comrades of yours to know all your private business, it will be best to lock that door and take care that nobody is listening outside. if they are--well, it will be you, danilo danilovitch, who will suffer, not myself," said hartwig very coolly, his eyes fixed upon the _agent-provocateur_. "i urge you to take precautions of secrecy," he added. "i urge you--for your own sake!" "for my own sake!" cried the other. "what do you mean?" hartwig paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower voice, said: "i mean this, danilo danilovitch. if a single word of what i am about to say is overheard by anyone in this house you will not go forth again alive. we have been threatened by your comrades down below. but upon you yourself will fall the punishment which is meted out by your comrades to all traitors--_death_!" the man's face changed in an instant. he stood open-mouthed, staring aghast at hartwig, haggard-eyed and pale to the lips. chapter fourteen. such is the law. "now," hartwig said, assuming a firm, determined attitude, "i hope you entirely understand me. i am well aware of the despicable double game you are playing, therefore if you refuse me the information i seek i shall go downstairs and tell them how you are employed by his excellency general markoff." the traitor's face was ashen grey. he was, i could see, in wonder at the identity of his visitor. of course he knew me, but apparently my companion was quite unknown to him. it was always one of hartwig's greatest precautions to remain unknown to any except perhaps a dozen or so of the detective police immediately under his direction. from the secret or political police he was always careful to hide his identity, knowing well that by so doing he would gain a free hand in his operations in the detection of serious crime. at his own house, a neat, modest little bachelor abode just outside petersburg, in the kulikovo quarter, he was known as herr otto schenk, a german teacher of languages, who, possessing a small income, devoted his leisure to his garden and his poultry. none, not even the agents of secret police in the kulikovo district, who reported upon him regularly each month, even suspected that he was the renowned head of the surete. standing there presenting such a bucolic appearance, so typically english, and yet speaking russian perfectly, he caused danilovitch much curiosity and apprehension. suddenly he asked of the spy: "you were at brighton last night? with what motive? tell me." the man hesitated a moment and replied: "i went there to visit a friend--a compatriot." "yes. quite true," exclaimed the great police official, leaning against the end of the narrow iron bedstead. "you went to brighton with an evil purpose. shall i tell you why? because you were sent there by your employer general markoff--sent there as a paid assassin!" the fellow started. "what do you mean?" he gasped. "just this. that you followed a certain lady who accompanied this gentleman here--followed and watched them for two hours." and then, fixing his big, expressive eyes upon the man he was interrogating, he added: "you followed them because your intention was to carry out the plot conceived by your master--the plot to kill them both!" "it's a lie!" cried the traitor. "there is no plot." "listen," exclaimed hartwig, in a low, firm voice. "it is your intention to commit an outrage, and having done so, you will denounce to the police certain persons living in this house. arrests will follow, if any return to russia, the general will be congratulated by the emperor upon his astuteness in laying hands so quickly upon the conspirators, and half-a-dozen innocent persons will be sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, if they dare ever go back to their own country. you see," he laughed, "that i am fully aware of the remarkably ingenious programme in progress." the man's face was pale as death. he saw that his secret was out. "and now," hartwig went on: "when i tell these people who live below-- your comrades and fellow-workers in the revolutionary cause--what will they say--eh? well, danilo danilovitch, i shall, when i've finished with you, leave you to their tender mercies. you remember, perhaps, the fate of boutakoff, the informer at kieff, how he was attached to a baulk of timber and placed upon a circular saw, how raspopoff died of slow starvation in the hands of those whom he had betrayed at moscow, and how mirski, in odessa, was horribly tortured and killed by the three brothers of the unfortunate girl he had given into the hands of the police. no," he laughed, "your friends show neither leniency nor humanity towards those who betray them." "but you will not do this!" gasped the man, his eyes dilated by fear, now that he had been brought to bay. "i have explained my intention," replied hartwig slowly and firmly. "but you will not!" he cried. "i--i implore you to spare me! you appear to know everything." "yes," was the reply. "i know how, by your perfidious actions, dozens, nay hundreds, of innocent persons have been sent into exile. to the revolutionists throughout the whole of russia there is one great leader known as `the one'--the leader whose identity is unknown, but whose word is law among a hundred thousand conspirators. you are that man! your mandates are obeyed to the letter, but you keep your identity profoundly secret. these poor misguided fools who follow you believe that the secrecy as to the identity of their fearless leader whom they only know as `the wonder worker,' or generally `the one,' is due to a fear of arrest. ah! danilo danilovitch," he laughed, "you who lead them so cleverly are a strong man, and a clever man. you hold the fate of all revolutionary russia in your hand. you form plots, you get your poor, ill-read puppets to carry them out, and afterwards you send them to siberia in batches of hundreds. a clever game this game of terrorism. but i tell you frankly it is at an end now. what will these comrades of yours say when they are made aware that `the one'--the man believed by so many to be sent providentially to sweep away the dynasty and kill the enemies of freedom--is identical with danilo danilovitch, the bootmaker of kazan and police-spy. rather a blow to the revolutionary organisation--eh?" "and a blow for you," i added, addressing the unkempt-looking fellow for the first time. though i confess that i did not recognise him as the man who threw the bomb in petersburg, i added: "it was you who committed the dastardly outrage upon the grand duke nicholas, and for which many innocent persons are now immured in those terrible cells below the water at schusselburg--you who intend that his imperial highness's daughter and myself shall die!" i cried. he made no reply. he saw that we were in possession of all the facts concerning his disgraceful past. i could see how intensely agitated he had become, and though he was striving to conceal his fear, yet his thin, sinewy hands were visibly trembling. "you admit, by your silence, that you were author of that brutal outrage!" exclaimed hartwig quickly. "in it, my friend here narrowly escaped with his life. now, answer me this question," he demanded imperiously. "with what motive did you launch that bomb at the grand duke's carriage?" "with the same motive that every attempt is made," was his bold reply. "you lie!" hartwig said bluntly. "that plot was not yours. confess it." "no plot is mine. the various revolutionary circles form plots, and i, as the unknown head, approve of them. but," asked the spy suddenly, "who are you that you should question me thus?" "i have already given you my name," he said. "ivan arapoff, of petersburg." "then, mr arapoff, i think we may change the topic of conversation," said the man, suddenly quite calm and collected. i detected that, though an unprincipled scoundrel and without either conscience or remorse, his was yet a strong and impelling personality--a man who, among the enthusiastic students and the younger generation of russia, which form the bulk of the revolutionists, would no doubt be listened to and obeyed as a leader. "good. if you wish me to leave you, i will do so. i will go and have a little chat with your interesting and enlightened friends downstairs," exclaimed hartwig with a triumphant laugh. then, turning to me, he added: "come, mr trewinnard, let's go." "no!" gasped the spy. "no, stop! i--i want to fully understand what your intentions are--now that you know the truth concerning the identity of `the one' and other recent matters." "intentions!" echoed the great detective. "i have none. i have merely forewarned you of what you must expect--the fate of the informer, unless--" "unless what?" he cried. "unless you confess the object of the outrage upon the grand duke." "i tell you i do not know." "but the plot was your own. none of your comrades knew of it." "it was not my own." "you carried it out?" "and if i admit anything you will hand me over to the police--eh?" "surely you know that is impossible in england. you cannot be arrested here for a political crime," hartwig said. "i saw you throw the bomb," i added. "you were dressed differently, but i now recognise you. come, admit it." "i admit nothing," he answered sullenly. "you are both of you entirely welcome to your opinions." "forty persons are now in prison for your crime," i said. "have you no remorse--no pity?" "i have nothing to say." "but you shall speak," i cried angrily. "once i nearly lost my life because of the outrage you committed, and last night you followed me in brighton with the distinct purpose of killing both her highness and myself. but you were frustrated--or perhaps you feared arrest. but i tell you plainly, if ever i catch you in our vicinity again i shall hand you over to the nearest policeman. and at the police-court the truth concerning `the one' will quickly be revealed and seized upon by the halfpenny press." "we need not wait for that, mr trewinnard," remarked hartwig. "we can deal with him this evening--once and for all. when we leave here we shall leave with the knowledge that `the one' no longer exists and the revolutionary party--terrorists, as they are pleased to call themselves on account of the false bogy which the secret police have raised in russia--will take their own steps towards punishing the man to whom they owe all the great disasters which have befallen their schemes during the past couple of years. truly, the vengeance of the terrorist against his betrayer is a terrible vengeance indeed." as he spoke the creak of a footstep was heard on the landing outside the locked door. i raised my finger to command silence, whereupon the man known throughout all revolutionary russia as "the one" crossed the room swiftly, and unlocking the door, looked out. but he found no one. yet i feel certain that someone had been lurking there. that slow creak of the bare boards showed that the pressure of a foot had been released. yet whoever had been listening had escaped swiftly down the stairs, now dark and unlighted. danilovitch reentered the bedroom, his face white as a sheet. "somebody has overheard!" he gasped in a low, hoarse voice. "they know the truth!" "yes," responded my companion in a hard, distinct tone. "they know the truth because of your own failure to be frank with us. i warned you. but you have not heeded." "your words were overheard," he whispered. "they no doubt suspected you to be officers of police who had found me here in my hiding-place, and were, therefore, listening. i was a fool!" he cried, throwing his hands above his head. "i was an accursed fool!" his lips were grey, his dark eyes seemed to be starting from his head. well did he know the terrible fate which awaited him as a betrayer and informer. "why did you throw that bomb?" i cried. "why did you last night follow the grand duchess natalia with such evil intent? tell me," i urged. "no!" cried "the one," springing at me fiercely. "i will tell you nothing--nothing!" he shrieked. "you have betrayed me--you have cast me into the hands of my enemies. but, by heaven! you shall neither of you leave this place alive," he shrieked. "my comrades shall deal with you as you justly deserve. i will see that you are not allowed to speak. neither of you shall utter a single word against me!" then with a harsh, triumphant laugh he called loudly for help to those below. in an instant hartwig and i both realised that the tables had been suddenly and unexpectedly turned upon us, and that we were now placed in most deadly and imminent peril. the object of the informer was to close our mouths at once, for only by so doing could he save himself from that terrible fate which must assuredly befall him. it was his own life--or ours! chapter fifteen. a statement by the informer. quick as lightning, hartwig drew a big browning revolver and thrust it into the informer's face, exclaiming firmly: "another word and it will be your last!" the fellow started back, unprepared for such defiance. he made a movement to cross the room, where no doubt he had his own weapon concealed, but the police officer was too quick for him and barred his passage. "look here!" he said firmly. "this is a matter to be settled between us, without any interference by your friends here. at word from me they would instantly turn upon you as an enemy. think! reflect well--before it is too late!" and he held the revolver steadily a foot from the man's hard, pale face. danilovitch hesitated. he controlled the so-called terrorist movement with amazing ingenuity, playing three _roles_ simultaneously. he was "the one," the mysterious but all-powerful head of the organisation; the ardent worker in the cause known as "the shoemaker of kazan"; and the base, unscrupulous informer, who manufactured plots, and afterwards consigned to prison all those men and women who became implicated in them. "if i withdraw my cry of alarm will you promise secrecy?" he asked in a low, cringing tone. from the landing outside came sounds of footsteps and fierce demands in russian from those he had summoned to his assistance. two of us against twenty desperate characters as they were, would, i well knew, stand but a poor chance. if he made any allegation against us, we should be caught like rats in a trap, and killed, as all police-spies are killed when denounced. the arm of the russian revolution is indeed a long one--longer than that of the secret police itself. "what has happened, danilo?" demanded a man's rough voice. "who are those strangers? let us in!" "speak!" commanded hartwig. "reassure them, and let them go away. i have still much to say to you in private." his arm with the revolver was upraised, his eyes unwavering. the informer saw determination in his gaze. a further word of alarm, and a bullet would pass through his brain. for a few seconds he stood in sullen silence. "all right!" he shouted to them at last. "it is nothing, comrades. i was mistaken. leave us in peace." we heard a murmuring of discontent outside, and then the footsteps commenced to descend the steep uncarpeted stairs. as they did so, hartwig dropped his weapon, saying: "now let us sit down and talk. i have several questions i wish to put to you. if you answer frankly, then i promise that i will not betray you to your comrades." "what do you mean by `frankly'?" "i mean that you must tell me the exact truth." the man's face grew dark; his brows contracted; he bit his finger-nails. "what was the motive of the attempt you made upon the grand duke nicholas and his daughter, and the gentleman here, mr trewinnard?" "i don't know," he replied. "but you yourself committed the outrage?" "at the orders of others." "whose orders?" he did not reply. he was standing against the small, cheap chest of drawers, his drawn face full in the light of the hissing gas-jet. "come," said hartwig firmly. "i wish to know this." "i cannot tell you." "then i will tell you," the detective said in a hard voice. "it was at the orders of your master, general markoff--the man who, finding that you were a revolutionist, is using you as his tool for the manufacture of bogus plots against the emperor." danilovitch shrugged his shoulders, but uttered no word. "and you went again to brighton last night at his orders. you--" "i went to brighton, i admit. but not at the general's orders," he interrupted quickly. "why did you go? why did you follow her imperial highness and mr trewinnard?" "i followed them because i had an object in so doing." "a sinister object?" "no. there you are mistaken. my object was not a sinister one. it was to watch and endeavour to make clear a certain point which is a mystery to me." "a point concerning what?" "concerning her imperial highness," was his reply. "how does her highness concern you?" i asked. "you tried to kill her once. therefore your intentions must be evil." "i deny that," he protested quickly. "i tell you that i went to brighton without thought of any evil intent, and without the orders, or even knowledge, of general markoff." "but he is her highness's enemy." "yes, excellency--and yours also." "tell me all that you know," i urged, adopting a more conciliatory tone. "it is outrageous that this oppressor of russia should conspire to kill an innocent member of the imperial family." "i know nothing of the circumstances. excellency," he said, feigning entire ignorance. "but he gave you orders to throw that bomb," i said. "what were your exact orders?" "i am not likely to betray my employer," he laughed. "if you do not answer these questions, then i shall carry out my threat of exposure," hartwig said in a hard, determined voice. "well," said the informer hesitatingly, "my orders were not to throw the bomb unless the grand duchess natalia was in the carriage." "then the plot was to kill her--but unfortunately her father fell the victim of the dastardly outrage!" i cried. "yes," the man replied. "it was to kill her--and you, excellency." "but why?" he shrugged his shoulders, and exhibited his palms in a gesture of complete ignorance. "and your present intention is to effect in brighton what you failed to do in petersburg--eh?" "i have no orders, and it certainly is not my intention," responded the man, whom i remembered at that moment had deliberately killed the girl garine in order to preserve his secret. i turned from him in loathing and disgust. "but you tell me that general markoff intends that we both shall come to an untimely end," i said a few moments later. "he does, excellency, and the ingenuity of the plot against you both is certainly one which betrays his devilish cunning," was the fellow's reply. "i have, i assure you, no love for a man who holds my life in the hollow of his hand, and whose word i am compelled to obey on pain of exposure and death." "you mean markoff," i exclaimed. "tell me something of this plot against me--so that i may be on my guard," i urged. "i know nothing concerning it. for that very reason i went to brighton yesterday, to try and discover something," he said. "and what did you discover?" "a very remarkable fact. at present it is only suspicion. i have yet to substantiate it." "cannot you tell me your suspicion?" "not until i have had an opportunity of proving it," was his quiet reply. "but i assure you that the observation i kept upon her imperial highness and yourself was with no evil intent." i smiled incredulously. it was hard indeed to believe a man of his subtle and unscrupulous character. all that tack had told me crowded through my brain. as the catspaw of markoff, it was not likely that he would tell me the truth. hartwig was leaning easily against the wooden mantelshelf, watching us keenly. of a sudden an idea occurred to me, and addressing the informer, i said: "i believe you are acquainted with my friend madame de rosen and her daughter. tell me what you know concerning them." "they were arrested and exiled to siberia for the attempt in the nevski on the return of the emperor from the south," he said promptly. hartwig interrupted, saying gravely: "and that attempt, danilo danilovitch, was conceived by you--conceived in order to strike terror into the emperor's heart. you formed the plot and handed over the list of the conspirators to your employer, markoff-- you, the person known to the party of the people's will as `the one.'" "i knew of the plot," he admitted. "and though i gave certain names to the police, i certainly did not include the names of madame de rosen or of mademoiselle." "why was she arrested?" he was silent for a few moments. "because her presence in petersburg was dangerous to the general," he said at last sullenly. "you know this--eh? you are certain of it--you have evidence, i mean?" asked hartwig. "you ask me for the truth," the informer said, "and i tell you. i was extremely sorry for madame and the young lady, for i knew them when i carried on my trade as bootmaker. an hour after their arrest, at about four o'clock in the morning, the general ordered me to go and search their house for certain letters which he described to me--letters which he was extremely anxious to obtain. i went alone, as he did not wish to alarm the neighbourhood by a domiciliary visit of the police. i searched the house for nearly nine hours, but failed to discover them. while still engaged in the investigation i was recalled to the house where it is my habit to meet the general in secret, when he told me that by a false promise of release he had extracted from madame a statement that the letters were no longer in her possession, and that her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia held them in safe-keeping. madame, perfectly innocent as she was of any connection with the conspirators, expected to be released after telling the truth; but the general said that he had only laughed in her face and ordered her and her daughter to be sent off with the next convoy of prisoners--who were leaving for siberia that same night. by this time the ladies are, i expect, already in the great forwarding-prison at tomsk." "and the letters?" i demanded, my blood boiling at hearing his story. "i was ordered to search for them." danilovitch replied. "the general gave me instructions how to enter the palace of the grand duke nicholas and there to investigate the apartments of the grand duchess natalia. i refused at first, knowing that if i were detected as an intruder i should be shot at sight by the sentries. but he insisted," the man added. "he told me that if i persisted in my refusal he would expose me as a spy. so i was compelled to make the attempt, well knowing that discovery meant certain death. the sentries have orders to shoot any intruder in the grand ducal palace. on four occasions i went there at imminent risk, and on the fourth i was successful. i found the letters concealed in a room which had once been used as her highness's nursery." "and what did you do with them?" "i met the general at our usual meeting-place and handed them to him. he was at first delighted. but a moment later, finding that the seal of the envelope in which were the letters had been broken, he charged me with reading them. i denied it, and--" "then you did not read them? you do not know what they contained, or who they were from?" "they were from general markoff himself. i looked at the signatures, but, alas! i had no time to read them. i drove straight to the meeting-place, where the general was awaiting me." "they were from the general!" i echoed. "to whom?" "they bore his signature--one a long letter, closely written," was the informer's reply. "seeing that the seal had been broken, the general flew into a sudden rage and declared that the grand duchess natalia had learned what they contained. the words he used to me were: `the girl must be silenced--silenced at once, danilovitch. and you must silence her. she knows the truth!'" "well?" i asked. "well," he said, his mouth drawn and hard, "under compulsion and more threats of exposure, i launched the bomb, which, alas! killed her father, while the young lady escaped unhurt." "then he still intends that her highness shall die? his warning the other day was no idle attempt to terrorise me?" "no, excellency. take every precaution. the general means mischief, for he is in hourly fear lest her highness should expose certain facts contained in those fateful letters which have already cost two ladies their liberty and a grand duke and several cossacks their lives." "is this the actual truth?" asked hartwig in a changed voice, looking the informer full in the face. "yes," he answered solemnly. "i have told you the truth; therefore i believe your solemn word that you will make no exposure to the party." "if you will disassociate yourself from these dastardly actions," he said. "ah!" sighed the other in despair, "that is impossible. the general holds me always to the compact i made with him. but i beg of you to be warned," he added. "her highness is daily in gravest peril!" chapter sixteen. incognita! shortly after eleven o'clock that same evening i was strolling with hartwig up and down the deserted platform at victoria station, my intention being to take the eleven-fifty p.m. train back to brighton. for a full hour we had pressed the informer to explain the real reason of his visit to brighton on the previous day. but beyond assuring us that it was not with any evil intent--which i confess we could scarcely believe--he declined to reveal anything. he only repeated his warning that natalia was in grave personal danger, and entreated me to be careful. the refugees in that house, all of them russians, seemed filled with intense curiosity regarding us, and especially so, perhaps, because of hartwig's declaration that he was bearer of a message from that mysterious leader who was believed to live somewhere in moscow, and was known throughout the russian empire as "the one." no doubt after our departure danilovitch had told them of some secret message he had received from the mysterious head of the organisation, who was none other than himself. but his confession had held both of us practically silent ever since we had left that dingy house in lower clapton. "markoff believes that her highness is aware of the contents of those letters," hartwig said as we strolled together in the great, well-lit station. few people were about just at that hour, for the suburban theatre-goers had not yet arrived. "for that reason it is intended that her mouth shall be closed." "but this is murder!" i cried in hot indignation. "i will go straight to the emperor, and tell him." "and what benefit would that be? his majesty would declare it to be an effort by some of the general's enemies to disgrace him," my companion said. "such damning statements have been made before, but, alas! no heed has been taken of them!" "but his majesty shall hear--and he shall take notice! i will demand in inquiry into the arrest and exile of madame de rosen." "i thought you told me that you had already mentioned her name to his majesty," hartwig said quietly. i had forgotten. yes. his words recalled to me my effort on her behalf, and the futility of my appeal. i sighed, and bit my lip. the two innocent ladies were on their way to that far-off dreaded penal settlement of yakutsk. from the time which had elapsed since their arrest i calculated that they were already in siberia, trudging that long, never-ending post road--that wide, deeply-rutted track which runs across those boundless plains between tobolsk and tomsk--on the first stage of their terrible journey of over six thousand miles on foot. a sudden suggestion flashed across my mind. should i follow, overtake them and hear the truth from marya de rosen's lips? yet before doing so i should be compelled to apply for a passport and permits at the ministry of the interior at petersburg. if i did this, markoff would at once suspect my intention, for travellers do not go to siberia for pleasure. and if he suspected my intention a way would quickly be found by which, when i arrived at my destination, neither of the ladies would be alive. in siberia, where there is neither law nor inquiry, it was, i knew, very easy to close the lips of any person whose existence might be prejudicial to the authorities. a word from general markoff, and an accident would certainly occur. no. i realised that to relax my vigilance over the safety of natalia at that moment would be most injudicious. besides, was not natalia herself aware of the contents of the letters? if not, why had her enemies made the firm determination that she should meet with a sudden and mysterious end? i mentioned to my companion my inclination to travel across siberia in search of the exiles; but he only shook his head gravely, saying: "you are, no doubt, under very close observation. even if you went, you might, by so doing, place yourself in grave personal peril. remember, markoff is desperate. the contents of those letters, whatever they may be, are evidently so damning that he cannot afford exposure. the pains he took to secure them, and to send madame de rosen into exile, plainly show this. no," he added, "the most judicious plan is to remain here, near her highness, and watch markoff's operations." "if her highness would only reveal to me the secret of those letters, then we should be in a position to defy markoff and reveal him before the emperor in his true light," i said. "she has refused--eh?" "yes. i have questioned her a dozen times, but always with the same result," was my answer. "but will she refuse, if she knows that her father's tragic end was due to the wild desire of markoff to close her lips?" "yes. i have already pointed that out to her. her reply is that what she learnt was in confidence. it is her friend's secret, and she cannot betray it. she is the very soul of honour. her word is her bond." "you will tell her now of danilovitch's confession; how the letters were stolen and handed back to the general by the man whom he holds so completely in his power?" hartwig said. "i shall. but i fear it will make no difference. she is, of course, eager to expose the general to the emperor and effect his downfall. she is fully aware of his corrupt and brutal maladministration of the department of political police, of the bogus plots, and the wholesale deportment of thousands of innocent persons. but it seems that she gave a pledge of secrecy to poor madame, and that pledge she refuses to break at any cost. `it is marya's secret,' she told me, `not mine.'" as we were speaking, a tall, straight, good-looking young man in crush-hat and black overcoat over his dinner-clothes had strolled along the platform awaiting the train. my eyes caught his features as he went, when suddenly i recognised in the young man richard drury, whom her highness had told me she had known in her school-days at eastbourne. i glanced after him and watched his figure retreating leisurely as he smoked a cigarette until he came beneath a lamp where he halted. then, producing an evening paper, he commenced to while away the time by reading. he was evidently returning to brighton by my train. apparently the young fellow had not recognised me as miss gottorp's companion of the previous night, therefore standing near, i had an opportunity of examining him well. he was certainly a typical specimen of the keen, clean-shaven young englishman, a man who showed good-breeding, and whose easy air was that of the gentleman. yet i confess that what her highness had revealed to me both alarmed and annoyed me. madcap that she was, i knew not what folly she might commit. nevertheless, after all, so long as she preserved her _incognito_ no great harm would be done. it was hard upon her to deny her the least suspicion of flirtation, especially with one whom she had known in the days before she had put up her hair and put on her ankle-frocks. hartwig and i were undecided what our next move should be, and we were discussing it. one fact was plain, that in view of the assertion of danilovitch, i would now be compelled to keep constant watch over the skittish young lady whom the emperor had given into my charge. my idea of following and overtaking madame de rosen in siberia was out of all question. "are you remaining long in london?" i asked the police official, just as i was about to step into the train. "who knows?" he laughed. "i am at the `savoy.' the embassy is unaware i am in england. but i move quickly, as you know. perhaps to-morrow i may have to return to petersburg. _au revoir_." and i wished him adieu, and got into an empty first-class compartment just as the train was moving from the platform. i sat in the corner of the carriage full of grave and apprehensive thoughts. that strange suspicion which the emperor had revealed to me on the afternoon before the last court ball recurred to me. i held my breath as a sudden idea flashed across my brain. had it any connection with this foul but cunningly-conceived plot to kill an innocent girl whose only offence was that she was in possession of certain information which, if revealed, would, i presumed, cause the downfall of that camarilla surrounding the emperor? the thought held me in wonder. ah! if only the emperor would listen to the truth--if only he would view markoff and his friends in their true character! but i knew, alas! that such development of the situation was impossible. russia, and with her the imperial court, was being terrorised by these desperate attempts to assassinate the emperor. hence his majesty relied upon markoff for the safety of the dynasty. he looked upon him as a marvel of astuteness and cunning, as indeed he was. but, alas! the burly, grave-eyed man who led a life haunted by the hourly fear of death--an existence in armoured rooms and armoured trains, and surrounded by guards whom he even grew to suspect--was in ignorance that the greater part of the evidence of conspiracies, incriminating correspondence and secret proclamations put before him had been actually manufactured by markoff himself! at last, after an hour, the express ran slowly into the brighton terminus, and as it did so, i caught sight of a figure waiting upon the platform, which caused me to quickly draw back. the figure was that of a young girl neatly dressed in black with a small black hat, and though she wore a veil of spotted net i recognised her at once as natalia! she was smiling and waving her tiny black-gloved hand to someone. in an instant i knew the truth. she was there, even though it were past one o'clock in the morning, to meet her lover, richard drury. i saw him spring out, raise his hat and shake her hand warmly, and then, taking care not to be seen, i followed them out as they walked side by side down the hill in the direction of king's road. this action of hers showed her recklessness and lack of discretion. apparently she had walked all the way from hove in order to meet him, and as they strolled together along the dark, deserted road he was evidently explaining something to her, while she listened very attentively. surely it was unsafe for her to go forth like that! i was surprised that miss west allowed it. but, in all probability that worthy lady was in bed, and asleep, all unconscious of her charge's escapade. i had not followed very far before i became aware of a footstep behind me, and, turning, i saw a small, insignificant-looking man in dark clothes, who came quickly up to me. it was one of the police-agents employed at the house in brunswick square. "well, dmitri!" i exclaimed in a low voice in french. "so you are looking after your young mistress--eh?" i asked, with a laugh, pausing to speak with him in order to allow the lovers to get further off. "yes, m'sieur," replied the man in a tone of distinct annoyance. "this is hardly wise of her highness," i said. "this is not the hour to go out for a stroll." "no, m'sieur," replied the shrewd agent of police, who had been for years employed at the palace of the late grand duke nicholas in petersburg. "i tell you i do not think it either safe or proper. these constant meetings must result in scandal." "who is that young man?" i asked quickly. "you have made inquiry, no doubt?" "yes, m'sieur, i have. but i can learn very little. he seems to be a complete mystery--an adventurer, perhaps," declared the suspicious police-agent in a low, hard voice; adding: "the fact is, that man who calls himself richard drury is, i feel sure, no fit companion for her imperial highness." "why not?" i demanded in eager surprise. "because he is not," was the man's enigmatical reply. "i do hope m'sieur will warn her imperial highness of the danger," he said reflectively, looking in the direction of the retreating figures. "danger!" i echoed. "what danger?" "there is a grave danger," he asserted firmly. "i have watched, as is my duty, and i know. her highness endeavours all she can to evade my vigilance, for naturally it is not pleasant to be watched while carrying on a flirtation. but she does not know what i have discovered concerning this stranger with whom she appears to have fallen so deeply in love. they must be parted, m'sieur--parted at once, before it is too late." "but what have you discovered?" i asked. "one astounding and most startling fact," was his slow, deliberate reply; "a fact which demands their immediate separation." chapter seventeen. her highness is outspoken. "now, uncle colin! it's really too horrid of you to spy upon me like that! i had no idea you were behind us! i knew old dmitri was there-- he watches me just as a cat watches a mouse. but i never thought you would be so nasty and mean!" and the girl in her fresh white gown stood at the window of the drawing-room drumming impatiently upon the pane with the tips of her long, white fingers, for it was raining outside. "my dear natalia," i said paternally, standing upon the white goat-skin hearthrug, and looking across at her; "i did not watch you intentionally. i travelled by the same train as your friend, and i saw you meet him. really," i laughed, "you looked a most interesting pair as you walked together down queen's road. i left you at the corner of western road and went on to the `metropole.'" "oh! you actually did have the decency to do that!" she exclaimed, turning to me her pretty face clouded by displeasure. "well, i say quite frankly that i think it was absolutely horrid of you. surely i may meet a friend without being spied upon at every turn!" she added resentfully. "dmitri only does his duty, remember," i ventured to remark. "oh, dmitri's a perfect plague. he shadows me everywhere. his crafty face irritates me whenever i see it." "this constant surveillance is only for your own protection," i said. "recollect that you are a member of the imperial family, and that already six of your uncles and cousins, as well as your poor father, have met with violent deaths at the hands of the revolutionists." "i know. but it is perfectly absurd ever to dream that they want to kill me--a girl whose only object is to live quietly and enjoy her life." "and her flirtations," i added, striving to make her laugh. i was successful, for a smile came to her pretty, pouting lips, and she said: "well, uncle colin, other girls may flirt and have men friends. therefore i can't see why it is so actually sinful for me to do the same." "but think for a moment of your position!" "position!" she echoed. "i'm only plain miss natalia gottorp here. why should i study my family?" "ah!" i sighed. "i know how wayward you are. no amount of argument will, i fear, ever convince you of your error." "oh, yes," she sighed, in imitation of the sadness of my tone, saying: "i know what a source of trouble and deep anxiety the wicked, wayward child is to you." then, next moment, she burst out into a merry, mischievous laugh, adding: "it's really too bad of me to tease you, poor old uncle colin, isn't it? but there, you're not really old. i looked you up in `who's who' only yesterday. you're only thirty-two next thursday week. and if you are a very good boy i'll give you a nice little present. shall i work you a pair of slippers--eh?" she asked, with sarcasm, "or a winter waistcoat?" "thanks. i hate girls' needlework," i replied frankly, amused at her sudden change of demeanour. "very well. you shall have a new cigarette-case, a solid gold one, with our grand imperial arms engraved on it and underneath the words `from tattie.' how will that do--eh?" she laughed. "ah! now you're only trying to tease me," i said. "i wonder if you tease mr drury like that?" "oh! dick knows me. he doesn't mind it in the least," she declared, looking at me with those wonderful eyes that were so much admired everywhere. "have a cigarette," and she handed me a box of petroffs, and taking one herself, lit it, and then threw herself negligently into an armchair, lazily displaying a pair of neat silk stockinged ankles and patent-leather shoes. "i certainly think that mr dick is a very lucky young fellow," i said, "though i tell you openly that i entirely disapprove of these constant meetings. remember your promise to me before we left petersburg." "well, i've been a very wayward child--even an incorrigible child, i suppose--and i've broken my promise. that's all," she said, blowing a cloud of smoke from her red lips. like all russian ladies, she enjoyed a cigarette. "i certainly think you ought to have kept your word," i said. "but dick, i tell you, is an old friend. i couldn't cut him, could i?" "you need not have cut him," i said. "but i consider it unnecessary to steal out of the house after miss west has gone to bed, and meet him at the station at one o'clock in the morning." "then upon that point we'll agree to differ. i'm old enough to be my own mistress, and if you continue to lecture me, i shall be very annoyed with you." "my dear natalia, i do not blame you in the least for falling in love. how can i?" i said in a changed tone, for i knew that the young lady so petted and spoiled by her earlier training must be treated with greatest caution and tact. "why, shall i confess a truth?" i asked, looking her straight in the face. "yes, do," she said. "well, if i were ten years younger i should most certainly fall in love with you myself," i laughed. "don't be so silly, uncle colin!" she exclaimed. "but would that be so very terrible? why, you're not an old man yet," she added, her cheeks having flushed slightly at my words. "now you're blushing," i said. "i'm not!" she cried stoutly. "you're simply horrid this morning," she declared vehemently, turning away from me. "is it horrid of me to pay you a compliment?" i asked. "i merely expressed a devout wish that i were standing in drury's shoes. every man likes to be kissed by a pretty girl, whether she be a shopgirl or a grand duchess." "oh, yes. you are quite right there. most men make fools of themselves over women." "especially when their beauty is so world-famed as that of the grand duchess natalia!" "now, there you are again!" she cried. "i do wish you'd change the topic of conversation. you're horrid, i say." and she gave a quick gesture of impatience, blew a great cloud of smoke from her lips and put down her half-consumed cigarette upon the little silver ashtray. "oh, my!" she exclaimed at last. "what a funny lover you would make, uncle colin! you fancy yourself as old as methuselah, and your hide-bound ideas of etiquette, your straitlaced morality, and your respect of _les convenances_ are those in vogue when your revered queen victoria ascended the throne of great britain. you're not living with the times, my dear uncle. you're an old-fashioned diplomat. to-day the world is very different to that in which your father was born." "i quite agree. and i regret that it is so," i replied. "these are surely very lax and degenerating days, when girls may go out unchaperoned, and the meeting of a man in the early hours of the morning passes unremarked." "it unfortunately hasn't passed unremarked," she said, with a pretty pout. "you take jolly good care to rub it in every moment! it really isn't fair," she declared. "i'm very fond of you, uncle colin, but you are really a little too old-fashioned." "you are comparing me with young drury, i suppose?" "oh, dick isn't a bit old-fashioned, i assure you," she declared. "he's been at oxford. he doesn't dream and let the world go by. but, uncle colin," she went on, "i wonder that you, a diplomat, are so stiff and proper. i suppose it's the approved british diplomatic training. i'm only a girl, and therefore am not supposed to know any of the tremendous secrets of diplomacy. but it always strikes me that, for the most part, you diplomats are exceptionally dull folk. in our court circle we always declare them to be inflated with a sense of their own importance, and fifty years behind the times." i laughed outright. her view was certainly a common-sense one. the whole training of british diplomacy is to continue the traditions of pitt and beaconsfield. diplomacy does not, alas! admit a new and modern _regime_ affecting the world; it ignores modern thought, modern conditions and modern methods. "up-to-date" is an expression unknown in the diplomat's vocabulary. the foreign office instil the lazy, do-nothing policy of the past, the traditions of palmerston, clarendon and dudley are still the traditions of to-day in every british embassy throughout the world; and, unfortunately for britain, the lesson has yet to be learned by our diplomacy that to be strong is to be acute and subtle, and to be dictatorial is to be entirely up-to-date. the german diplomacy is that of keen progress and anticipation; that of turkey craft and cunning; of france, tact, with exquisite politeness. but britain pursues her heavy, blundering "john bull" programme, which, though effective in the days of beaconsfield, now only results in the nation's isolation and derision, certain of her ambassadors to the powers being familiarly known at the courts to which they are accredited as "the man with the gun." "what you say is, in a sense, quite true," i admitted. "but i'm so sorry if i'm really very dull. i don't mean to be." "oh! you'll improve under my tuition--and dick's--no doubt," she exclaimed reassuringly. her highness was nothing if not outspoken. "the fact is, uncle colin," she went on seriously, "you're far too old-fashioned for your age. you are not old, but your ideas are so horribly antiquated. girls of to-day are allowed a freedom which our grandmothers would have held as perfectly sinful. girls have become independent. a young fellow takes a girl out to dinner and to the theatre, and even to supper nowadays, and nobody holds up their hands in pious horror--only you! it isn't fair," she declared. "girls of the people are allowed a great deal of latitude, i admit. and as far as i can see, the world is none the worse for it," i said. "but what other girls may do, you, an imperial highness, unfortunately may not." "that's just where we don't agree," she said in a tone meant to be impertinent, her straight nose slightly raised as she spoke. "i intend to do as other girls do--at least, while i'm plain miss gottorp. they call me the `little alien'--so miss west heard me called the other day." "no," i said very firmly, looking straight at her as she lolled easily in her chair, her chin resting on her white palm as she gazed at me from beneath her long, dark lashes. "you really must respect the _convenances_. if you take a stroll with young drury, do so at least in the daylight." "and with dmitri watching me all the time from across the road. not quite," she said. "i like the esplanade when it is quiet and everybody is in bed. it is so pleasant on these warm nights to sit upon a seat and enjoy the moonlight on the sea. sounds like an extract from a novel, doesn't it?" and she laughed merrily. "i fear you are becoming romantic," i said. "every girl becomes so at one period of her life." "do you think so?" she asked, smiling. "myself, i don't fancy i have any romance in me. the romanoffs are not a romantic lot as a rule. they are usually too mercenary. i love nice things." "because you are cultured and possess good taste. that is exactly what leads to romance." "i have the good taste to choose dick as a friend, i suppose you mean?" she asked, with an intention to irritate me. "ah, i did not exactly say that." "but you meant it, nevertheless. you know you did, uncle colin." i did not reply for a few moments. i was recalling what dmitri had told me--that strange allegation of his that this young man, richard drury, was an enigma, an adventurer. he had told me that he was no fit companion for her, and yet when pressed he apparently could give no plain reason. he had been unable to discover much concerning the young fellow--probably because of his failure it seemed he had become convinced that the object of his inquiry was an adventurer. suddenly rising, i stood before her, and placing my hand upon her shoulder, said: "i came here this morning to speak to you very seriously, natalia. can you really be serious for once?" "i'm always serious," she replied. "well--another lecture?" "no, not a lecture, you incorrigible little flirt. i want to ask you a plain question. please answer me, for a great deal--a very great deal-- depends upon it. are you aware of what was contained in those letters which madame de rosen gave you for safe-keeping?" "i have long ago assured you that i am. why do you ask again?" "because there is one point which i wish to clear up," i said. "i thought you told me that they were in a sealed envelope?" "so they were. but when i heard of marya's exile, and that luba had been sent with her, i broke open the seal and investigated the contents." "and what did you find?" "ah! that is my business, uncle colin. i have already told you that i absolutely refuse to betray the secrets of my poor dear friend. you surely ought not to ask me. you have no right to press me to commit such a breach of trust." "i ask you because so much depends upon the extent of your knowledge," i said. "i have already solved the secret of the disappearance of the letters from the place where you hid them in the palace." "then you know who stole them!" she gasped, starting to her feet. "tell me. who was the thief?" "a man whom you do not know. he has confessed to me. he was not a willing thief, but a wretched assassin, whom general markoff holds as his catspaw, and compels to perform his dirty work." "then the general has secured them! my suspicions are confirmed!" she gasped, all the colour dying from her beautiful face. "he has. the theft was committed under compulsion, and at imminent risk to the thief, who most certainly would have been shot by the sentries, if discovered. the letters were handed by him back to general markoff." my words held her dumbfounded for a few seconds. she did not speak. then she said in a hard, changed tone: "ah! markoff has destroyed them! the proof no longer exists, therefore i am powerless! how i wish i were permitted to speak--to reveal the truth!" her teeth were set, her face was white and hard, and the fingers of both hands had clenched themselves into the palms. "but you know the truth!" i cried. "will you not speak? will you never reveal it? it is surely your duty to do so," i urged. but she only shook her head sadly, saying: "i cannot betray her confidence." "remember," i said, "by exposing this secret which markoff has been at such infinite pains to keep, you can perhaps obtain the release of poor marya and her daughter! is it not your plain duty?" i urged in a low, earnest voice. but she only again shook her head resolutely. "no, i cannot expose the secrets of my lost friend. it was her secret which i swore to her i would never reveal," she responded in a harsh, strained voice. "markoff has secured the proofs and destroyed them. i suspected it from the first. that brute is my bitterest enemy, as he is also marya's. but, alas! he is all-powerful! he has played a clever double game--and he has won--_he has won_!" chapter eighteen. shows hartwig's anxiety. her highness's firm refusal to reveal to me the contents of those letters, the knowledge of which had caused madame de rosen and her daughter to be sent to siberia, while the grand duke nicholas, her father, hid lost his life, disappointed me. for a full hour i remained there, trying by all means in my power to persuade her to assist me in the overthrow of the feted chief of secret police. she would have done so, she declared, were it not for the fact that she had given her solemn word of honour to marya de rosen not to divulge anything she knew concerning the contents of those mysterious letters. that compact she held sacred. she had given her faithful promise to her friend. i pointed out to her the determination she had expressed to me in petersburg that she intended to reveal to the emperor his favourite in his true light, and thus avenge the lives of thousands of innocent persons who had died on their way to exile or in the foetid, overcrowded prisons of moscow, and tomsk, and the vermin-infested _etapes_ of the great post road. but in reply she sighed deeply, and, looking straight before her in desperation, declared that she had now no proof; and even if she had, she had not the permission of marya de rosen to make the exposure. "it is her secret--her own personal secret," she said. "i vowed not to reveal it." then for the first time i indicated her own peril. hitherto i had not wished to alarm her. but i now showed her how it would be to the advantage of the general, cunning, daring and unscrupulous as he was, that some untoward incident should occur by which her life would be sacrificed in his desperate attempt to conceal the truth. in silence she listened to me, her beautiful face pale and graver than i had ever before seen it. at last she realised the peril. "ah!" she sighed, and then, as though speaking to herself, said: "if only i could obtain marya's consent to speak--to tell the emperor the truth! but that is now quite impossible. no letter could ever reach her, and, indeed, we have no idea where she is. she is, alas! as dead to the world as though she were in her grave!" she added sadly. i reflected for a moment. "if it were not that i feared lest misfortune might befall you during my absence, highness, i would at once follow and overtake her." "oh, but the long journey to siberia! why, it would take you at least six months! that is quite impossible." "not impossible, highness," i responded very gravely. "i am prepared to undertake the journey for your sake--and hers--for the sake of the emperor." "ah! i know, uncle colin, how good you always are to me, but i couldn't ask you to undertake a winter journey such as that, in search of poor marya." "if i go, will you, on your part, promise me solemnly not to go out on these night escapades? indeed, it is not judicious of you to walk out at all, unless one or other of the police-agents is in close attendance upon you. one never knows, in these present circumstances, what may happen," i said. "and as soon as markoff knows that i have set out for siberia, he will guess the reason, and endeavour to bring disaster upon both of us, as well as upon the exile herself." for some minutes she did not reply. then she said: "you must not go. it is too dangerous for you--far too dangerous. i will not allow it." "if you refuse to reveal marya's secret, then i shall go," was my quiet response. "i shall ask the emperor to send you hartwig, to be near you. he will watch over your safety until my return." "ah! his alertness is simply marvellous," she declared. "did you read in the london papers last week how cleverly he ran to earth the three men who robbed the volga kama bank in moscow of a quarter of a million roubles?" "yes. i read the account of it. he was twice shot at by the men before they were arrested. but he seems always to lead a charmed life. while he is at your side, i shall certainly entertain no fear." "then you have really decided to go?" she said, looking at me with brows slightly knit. "i cannot tell--i cannot--what i read in those letters after giving my word of honour to marya." "i have decided," i said briefly. "i do not like the thought of your going. something dreadful may happen to you." "i shall be wary--never fear," i assured her with a laugh. "i intend to secure the release of madame and luba--to set right an unjust and outrageous wrong. i admire your firm devotion to your friend, but i will bring back to you, i hope, her written permission to speak and reveal the truth." five minutes later i rose, and we descended to the hall, where patient dmitri was idling over his french newspaper. then the weather being fine again, we passed out together into the autumn sunshine of the lawns, at that hour of the morning agog with well-dressed promenaders and hundreds of pet dogs. and a few moments later we came face to face with richard drury, to whom she introduced me as "mr colin trewinnard, my uncle, mr drury." we bowed mutually, and then all three of us strolled on together, though he seemed a little ill at ease in my presence. i had made a firm resolution. in order to learn the secret of those letters and to place her highness, who so honourably refused to break her word, in a position to expose the unscrupulous official who was the real oppressor of russia, i intended to set out on that long journey in search of the exile, now, alas! unknown by name, but only by number. drury struck me as a rather good fellow, and no doubt a gentleman. we halted together, and, when near the pier, he raised his hat and left us. before leaving brighton i had yet much to do. i was not altogether satisfied concerning the young man, my object being to try and learn for myself something more tangible regarding him. "well," she asked, when he had gone, "what is your verdict, uncle colin?" "favourable," i replied, whereat she smiled in gratification. an hour later i succeeded in obtaining a short confidential chat with the hall-porter of the royal york hotel, whom i found quite ready to assist me. as i had suspected, dmitri had failed and formed utterly wrong conclusions, because of his lack of fluent english. it is always extremely difficult for a foreigner to obtain confidential information in england. the hall-porter, however, told me that their visitor was well-known to them, and had frequently stayed there for several months at a time. he had, he believed, formerly lived with his invalid mother at eastbourne. but the lady had died, and he had then gone to live in bachelor chambers in london. from the bureau of the hotel he obtained the address, scribbled on a bit of paper--an address in albemarle street, piccadilly, to which letters were sometimes re-directed. "and he has a friend--a doctor--hasn't he?" i asked the man. "oh, yes, sir. you mean doctor ingram. he was down here with him the other day." having obtained all the information i could, i telegraphed to hartwig at the savoy hotel, asking him to make inquiries at albemarle street and then to come to brighton immediately, for i dared not leave until i could place my little madcap charge in safe hands. i knew not into what mischief she might get so soon as my back was turned. that afternoon we strolled together across the lawns, and presently sat down to listen to the military band. she looked extremely neat in her dead-black gown, which, by its cut and material, bore the unmistakable _cachet_ of the rue de la paix, and as we passed up and down i saw many a head turned in her direction in admiration of her remarkable beauty. little did that crowd of seaside idlers dream that this extremely pretty girl in black who was so much of a mystery to everybody was a member of the great imperial house of russia. she was believed to be miss gottorp, whose father had been german and her mother english, both of whom were recently dead. seeing her so often walking with me, everyone, of course, put me down as the lucky man to whom she was engaged to be married, and i have little doubt that many a young man envied me. how strange is the world! when in a tantalising mood she often referred to that popular belief, and that afternoon, while we rested upon two of the green chairs set apart from the others on the lawn, she said: "i'm quite sure that everybody in hove is convinced that i am to be mrs trewinnard;" and then, referring to her english maid, she added: "davey has heard it half a dozen times already." i laughed merrily, saying: "well, that's only to be expected, i suppose. but what about drury-- eh?" "they don't see very much of dick. we only meet at night," she laughed, poking the grass with her sunshade. "and that you really must not do in future," i said firmly. "then i can go about with him in the daytime--eh?" she asked, looking up imploringly into my face. "my dear child," i said, "though i do not approve of it, yet how can i debar you from any little flirtation, even though the emperor would, i know, be extremely angry if it came to his ears?" "but it won't. i'm sure it won't, uncle colin, through you. you are such a funny old dear." "well," i said reluctantly, "for my own part i would much prefer that you invited your gentleman friend to the house, where miss west could at least play propriety. but only now and then--for recollect one fact always, that you and he can never marry, however fond you may be of each other. it is that one single fact which causes me pain." her hard gaze was fixed upon the broad expanse of blue sea before her. i saw how grave she had suddenly become, and that in her great dark eyes stood unshed tears. her chest heaved slowly and fell. she was filled with emotion which she bravely repressed. "yes," she managed to murmur in a low whisper. "it is too cruel. because--" "because what?" i asked, in a sympathetic voice, bending towards her. "ah, don't ask me, uncle colin!" she said bitterly, her welling eyes still fixed blankly upon the sea. "it is cruel because--because i love dick," she whispered in open confession. "my little friend," i said, "i sympathise with you very deeply. it is, i admit, a very bitter truth which i have been compelled to point out. for that very reason i have been so much against your friendship with young men. drury is in ignorance of your true identity. he believes you to be plain miss gottorp. but when i tell him the truth--" "ah, no!" she cried. "you will not tell him--you won't--will you? promise me," she urged. "i must, i know, one day find a way of breaking the bond of love which exists between us. when--when--that--time-- comes--then we must part. but he must never know that i have deceived him--he must never know that the reason we cannot be more than mere friends is on account of my imperial birth. no," she added bitterly, "even though i love dick so dearly and he loves me devotedly, i shall be compelled to do something purposely in order that his love for me may die." then, sighing deeply, my dainty little companion implored: "you will therefore promise me, uncle colin, that you will never--never, under any circumstances, breathe a word to him of who i really am?" i took her trembling hand for a second and gave her my promise. i confess i felt the deepest sympathy for her, and told her so frankly and openly as i sat there taking leave of her, for that very evening i intended to leave brighton and catch the night mail from charing cross direct for moscow. she said but little, but when we had returned to brunswick square and i stood with her at the window of the big drawing-room, she was unable to control her emotions further and burst into a flood of bitter tears. in tenderness i placed my hand upon her shoulder, endeavouring to console her. alas! i fear my words were stilted and very unconvincing. what could i say, when all the world over royal birth is a bar to love and happiness, and marriages in imperial and royal circles are, for the most part, loveless, unholy unions. the grand duchess or the royal princess loves just as ardently and devotedly as does the free and flirting work-girl or the tea-and-tennis girl of the middle-classes. alas! however, the heart of the highness is not her own, but at the disposal of the family council, which discusses her marriage as a purely business proposition, and sells her, too frequently, to the highest bidder. the poor girl, crushed by the hopeless bitterness of the situation, declared with a sob: "to be born in the purple, as the outside world calls it, is, alas! to be born to unhappiness." i remained there a full half-hour, until she grew calm again. never in all the years i had known her--ever since she was a girl--had i seen her give way to such a paroxysm of despair. usually she was so bright, buoyant and light-hearted. but that afternoon she had utterly broken down and been overcome by blank despair. "you are young, natalia," i said, with deep sympathy. "enjoy your life to-day, and do not endeavour to meet the troubles of the future. as long as you remain here and are known as miss gottorp, so long may your friendship with young drury be maintained. live for the present--do not anticipate the future." i said this because i knew that time is the greatest healer of broken hearts. but she only shook her head very sadly, without replying. the black marble clock on the mantelshelf chimed six, and i recollected that hartwig had wired that he would meet me at the "metropole" at that hour. my train was due to leave for london at seven. i had already bidden miss west adieu. so i took natalia's hand, and pressing it warmly, wished her farewell, promising to regularly report by telegraph my progress across siberia, as far as possible. she struggled to her feet with an effort, and looking full into my face said in a voice choked by emotion: "good-bye, uncle colin, i am sorry i cannot betray marya's secret. you are doing this in order to save two innocent women from the horrors of a living tomb in the siberian snows--to demand that justice shall be done. go. and may god in his great mercy take you under his protection." what i replied i can scarcely tell. my heart was too full for words. all i know is that a few moments later i turned out of the great wide square, where the rooks were cawing in the high trees, and hurried along the wide promenade, where the red sun was setting behind me in the sea. hartwig i found at the "metropole" awaiting me. he related how he had called at the flat in albemarle street, and, by a judicious tip to the young valet he found there, had learnt that mr richard drury was the son of old sir richard drury, knight, the great ship-builder of greenock, who had built a number of cruisers for the navy. he was a self-made man, who commenced life as a fitter's labourer in a ship-builder's yard up at craigandoran on the clyde--a bluff, hearty man whose generosity was well-known throughout the kingdom. "young richard, it seems," hartwig went on, "after leaving oxford became a director of the company, and though apparently leading a life of leisure, yet he takes quite an active part in the direction of the london office of the firm in westminster." he expressed the strongest disapproval when i told him of my intention to leave for siberia and instructed him to remain there and to take the grand duchess under his protection until he received definite orders from the emperor. "i certainly don't like the idea of your going to siberia alone, mr trewinnard," he declared. "markoff will know the instant you start, and i fear that--well, that something may happen." "it is just as likely to happen here in brighton, hartwig, as in russia," i replied. "well," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "all i advise is that you exercise the very greatest care. why not take my assistant, petrakoff? i will give him secret orders to join you at the frontier at ekaterinburg--and nobody will know. it will be best for you to have company on that long sledge journey." "if i want him i will telegraph to you from petersburg," was my reply. "you will want him," he said, "depend upon it. if you go alone to siberia, mr trewinnard," he added very earnestly, "then depend upon it you will go to your grave!" chapter nineteen. orders in cipher. "and pray, trewinnard, why are you so extremely desirous of following this woman into exile and speaking with her?" inquired the emperor in french, as i sat with him, a week later, in a small, dismal, tapestried room in the old castle of berezov, the imperial hunting-box on the edge of the pinsk marshes, in the government of minsk. dressed in a rough shooting-suit of drab scotch tweed, he sat upon the edge of the table smoking a cigarette after a hard day after wild boar. i had driven since dawn from the wayside station of olevsk, three hundred miles south of moscow, where i had arrived tired and famished from my long night and day journey of a week from brighton. on arrival in moscow i had learnt that his majesty was hunting at berezov, and a telegram prefixed by the word "bathildis," had at once been replied to by a command to audience. hence i was there, and had placed my appeal before him. he was much puzzled. in his eyes madame de rosen was a dangerous revolutionist who had conspired to kill him, therefore he regarded with entire disfavour my petition to be allowed to see her. there was annoyance written upon his strong features, and by the expression in his eyes i saw that he was entirely averse to granting my request. "i am anxious, sire, to see her upon a purely private matter. she was a personal friend," i replied. "so you told me some time ago, i recollect," he remarked, twisting his cigarette between his fingers. "but markoff has reported that both she and her daughter are highly dangerous to the security of the state. he was speaking of them only the other day." i bit my lip fiercely. "perhaps he may be misinformed," i said coldly. "as far as i am aware-- and i know both the lady and her daughter luba intimately--they are most loyal subjects of your majesty." "tut," he laughed. "the evidence put before me was that they actually financed the attempt in the nevski. i had a narrow escape, trewinnard-- a very narrow one," he added. "and if you were in my place how would you, i wonder, treat those scoundrels who attempted to kill you--eh?" "i have no knowledge of the true facts, sire," i replied. "all i petition your majesty is that i may be granted an imperial permit for the post-horses, and a personal order from yourself to see and speak with the prisoners." he shrugged his shoulders, and thrust his hands deeply in his breeches pockets. "you do not tell me the reason you wish to see her," he said with a frown of displeasure. "upon a purely private matter," i said. "to ask her a question concerning a very dear friend. i beg that your majesty will not refuse me this request," i added, deeply in earnest. "it is a long journey, trewinnard. i believe she has been sent beyond yakutsk," he remarked. "but, tell me, were you a very intimate friend of this woman? what do you actually know of her?" "all i know of her," i replied, "is that she is suffering a great wrong, your majesty. she is in possession of certain information which closely concerns a friend. hence my determination to try, if possible, to amend matters." "what--you yourself desire to make amends--eh?" "not exactly that, sire," i replied. "i wish to learn the truth concerning--well, concerning a purely private matter. i think that your majesty is convinced of my loyalty." "of course i am, trewinnard," was his quick reply. "you have rendered me many important personal services, not the least being your kindness in looking after the welfare of that harebrained little flirt tattie. by the way, how is she? as much a tomboy as ever, i suppose?" and his big, strong face relaxed into a humorous smile at thought of the girl who, at her own request, had been banished from court. "she is greatly improving," i assured him, with a laugh. "she and miss west are quite comfortable, and i believe enjoying themselves immensely. her highness loves england." "and so do i," he sighed. "i only wish i could go to london oftener. it is to be regretted that my recent visits there have not exactly found favour with the council of ministers." then, after a long pause, he said: "well, i suppose i must not refuse this request of yours, trewinnard. but i fear you will find your winter journey an extremely uncomfortable one. when you are back, come direct to me. i would like to hear the result of your observations. let me see? besides the permit to use the post-horses, you will require an order to speak with the prisoner, marya de rosen, alone, and an order to the governor of tomsk, who has the register which will show to which settlement she has been deported." my heart leaped within me, for at first i had feared refusal. "as your majesty pleases," was my reply, and i added my warmest thanks. "i'll write them out now," he said; and, turning, he seated himself at the little escritoire in the corner of the small, old-world room and commenced to scribble those imperial decrees which no one within the russian empire would dare to disobey. while he did so i stood gazing out of the small, deep-set double windows across a flat dismal landscape, brown with the tints of autumn--the wide and weedy moat which surrounded the castle, the stretch of grazing-land and then a belt of dense forest on the skyline--the imperial game preserves. that silent old room, dull, faded and sombre, was just the same as it had been when catherine the great had feted her favourite potemkin, the man who for years ruled russia and who fought so valiantly against the turks. there, in that very room, the treaty of jassy, which gave russia the littoral between the bug and the dniester, had been signed by catherine in , and again in that room the tzar alexander the first had received the news of napoleon's retreat from moscow. at that small buhl table whereat the emperor was now writing out my permits the tzar nicholas had signed the decree taking away the polish constitution, and, years later, he had written the final orders to his ill-fated army fighting against the british in the crimea. somewhere in the stone corridor outside could be heard the measured tramp of the sentry, but that, and the rapid scratching of the emperor's pen, were the only sounds which broke the quiet. at last he rose and handed me three sheets of foolscap bearing the imperial arms--the orders which i sought. i took them with thanks, but after a moment's hesitation i ventured to add: "i wonder if i might request of your majesty a further favour?" "well," he asked with a smile, "what is it?" "that my journey to siberia should be kept a secret from the police?" "eh--what?" he asked quickly, looking at me strangely. "you do not wish the police to know. why? there is to be no attempted escape, surely?" "i give your majesty my word that madame de rosen will not attempt to escape," i said. "i will, indeed, make myself responsible for her. the fact is that i know i have enemies among the secret police; hence i wish them to remain in entire ignorance of my journey." "enemies!" he echoed. "who are they? tell me, and i will quickly turn them into your friends," he said. "alas, sire, i do not exactly know their identity," was my reply. "very well," he replied at last, selecting another cigarette from the big golden box upon the table, "i will say nothing--if you so desire. but, remember, you have made yourself responsible for the woman." "i willingly accept the responsibility," i replied. "but, your majesty, there is another matter. i would suggest that hartwig be detailed to remain with her highness the grand duchess natalia at brighton until my return. he is there at present, awaiting your majesty's orders." at my words he rang a bell, and calitzine, his private secretary, appeared, bowing. "send a telegram at once to hartwig. where is he?" he asked, turning to me. "at the hotel metropole, brighton," i said. "telegraph to him in cipher that i order him to remain with natalia until further orders." "very well, your majesty," replied the trusted official, bowing. "and another thing," exclaimed the emperor. "telegraph, also in cipher, to all governors of siberian provinces that mr colin trewinnard, of london, is our guest during his journey across siberia, and is to be treated as such by all authorities." "but pardon me, your majesty," i ventured to interrupt, "would not that make it plain to those persons in petersburg of whom i spoke a moment ago." "ah! i forgot," said the emperor. "write the telegram, and send a confidential courier with it to tiumen, across the siberian frontier. he will despatch it from there, and it will then only go over the asiatic wires." "i fear, your majesty, that a courier could not reach omsk under six or seven days, travelling incessantly," remarked the secretary. "in seven days will be sufficient time. both messages are confidential." and he dismissed calitzine with a wave of his hand, the secretary backing out of the presence of his imperial master. when the door had closed the tall, muscular man before me placed his hands behind his back and slowly paced the room, saying: "well, trewinnard, i must wish you a safe journey. if you find yourself in any difficulty, communicate direct with me. i must admit that i can't quite understand the object of this rather quixotic journey of yours--to see a female prisoner. i strongly suspect that you are in love with her--eh?" and he smiled knowingly. "no, sire," i replied, "i am not. on my return i hope to be able to show your majesty that i have been actuated by motives of humanity and justice--i hope, indeed, perhaps even to receive your majesty's commendation." "ah! you are too mysterious for me," he laughed. "are you leaving at once? or will you remain here, in the castle, until to-morrow?" "i am greatly honoured and appreciate your majesty's hospitality," i said. "but i have horses ready, and i am driving back to the railway at olevsk to-night." "very well, then," he said with a smile. "good-bye, and be back again in petersburg as soon as ever you can." and he stretched forth his big sinewy hand and gave me such a hearty grip that i was compelled to wince. i was backing towards the door, when it opened and the chamberlain polivanoff, standing upon the threshold, announced: "general markoff begs audience of your majesty." "ah! let him come in," the emperor replied, smiling. the next moment i found myself face to face with the man whom i knew to be natalia's worst enemy and mine--that bloated, grey-faced man in military uniform, through whose instrumentality no fewer than ten thousand persons were annually being exiled to the siberian wastes. we met just beyond the threshold. "ah! my dear m'sieur trewinnard!" he cried, raising his grey brows in evident surprise at meeting me there. "i thought you were in england. and how is your interesting young charge?" "she is very well, i believe," was my cold reply. i passed on, while he, crossing the threshold into the imperial presence, bowed low, cringing before the monarch whom he daily terrorised, and yet who believed him to be the guardian of the dynasty. "ah! i am so glad you have come, markoff!" i heard the emperor exclaim as he entered. "i have several pressing matters to discuss with you." i passed the two sentries, who presented arms, and followed colonel polivanoff along the corridor, full of gravest apprehension. ill fortune had dogged my footsteps. markoff had seen me there. he would naturally inquire of the emperor the reason of my audience. his majesty might tell him. if so, what then? chapter twenty. the land of no return. the day had been grey and dispiriting, the open windswept landscape a great limitless expanse of newly-fallen snow of dazzling whiteness--the same cheerless wintry tundra over which i had been travelling by sledge for the past four weary weeks to that everlasting jingle of harness-bells. my companion, the police-agent petrakoff, a smart, alert young man, wrapped to the tip of his nose in reindeer furs, was asleep by my side; and i, too, had been dozing, worn out by that fifteen hundred miles of road since leaving the railway at ekaterinburg. suddenly i was awakened by vasilli, our yamshick, a burly, bearded, unkempt ruffian in shabby furs, who, pointing with his whip to the grey far-off horizon, shouted: "tomsk! tomsk! look, excellency!" straining my tired eyes, i discerned upon the far skyline a quantity of low, snow-covered, wood-built houses from which rose the pointed cupolas of several churches. yonder was the end of the first stage of my long journey. so i awoke petrakoff, and for the next half-hour we sat with eyes fixed eagerly upon our goal, where we hoped to revel in the luxury of a hotel after a month of those filthy stancias or povarnias, the vermin-infested rests for travellers on the great post road of siberia. the first sod of the great trans-siberian railway had already been cut by the tzarevitch at tcheliabyisk, but no portion of the line was at that time complete. therefore all traffic across asia, both travellers and merchandise, including the tea-caravans from china, passed along that great highway, the longest in the world. six weeks had elapsed since i had left the emperor's presence, and i had accomplished by rail and road a distance of two thousand four hundred miles. since i had left the railway at ekaterinburg i had only rested for a single night on two occasions, at tiumen and at tobolsk. at the former place i made my first acquaintance with the inhuman exile system, for moored in the river obi i saw several of those enormous floating gaols, in which the victims of russia's true oppressor were transported _en route_ to the penal settlements of the far east--great double-decked barges, three hundred feet long, with a lower hold below the main deck. along two-thirds of the barge's length ran an iron cage, reaching from the lower to the upper deck-cover, and having the appearance of a great two-storied tiger's cage. eight of them were moored alongside the landing-stage. five of them were crowded by wretched prisoners, each barge containing from four to five hundred persons of both sexes and the cossack guards--a terrible sight indeed. provided as i was with an imperial permit and a doubly-stamped road-passport that directed all keepers of post-stations to provide me with the mail horses, and give me the right of way on the post road, i had set forth again after a day's rest towards tobolsk. the first snow had fallen on the third day after leaving tiumen, and the country, covered by its white mantle, presented always a dreary aspect, rendered drearier and more dispiriting by the gangs of wretched exiles which we constantly overtook. men, women, and children in companies from a hundred to three hundred, having left the barges, were marching forward to that far-off bourne whence none would ever return. they, indeed, presented a woeful spectacle, mostly of the criminal classes, all their heads being half, or clean-shaven. the majority of the men were in chains, and many were linked together. not a few of the women marched among the men as prisoners, while the rest trudged along into voluntary exile, holding the hands of their husbands, brothers, lovers or children. some of the sick, aged and young were in springless carts, but all the others toiled onward through the snow like droves of cattle, bent to the icy blast, a grey-clad, silent crowd, guarded by a dozen cossacks, with an officer taking his ease in a tarantass in the rear. once we met a family of jews--husband, wife and two children--in a tarantass, with a cossack with bayonet fixed alongside. we stopped to change horses with them, as we were then midway between post-stations. the man, a bright, intelligent, middle-aged fellow, addressed us in french, and said he had been a wealthy fur merchant in nijni novgorod, but was exiled to the yenisei country simply because he was a jew. his eyes were clouded with regret at the bitter consciousness of his captivity. four thousand of his townsmen had, he said, emigrated to england and america, and then pointing to his pretty, delicate wife and two chubby children, the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he faltered out: "siberie!" poor fellow! that word had all the import of a hell to many--many more than him. the distance between relays on the great post road was, we found, from sixteen to thirty versts, and the speed of fresh horses about ten versts an hour. vasilli, the ugly bearded yamshick who had lost one eye, we had engaged in tiumen, and he had contracted to drive me during the whole of my journey. he was a sullen fellow, who said little, but on finding that i was travelling with an imperial permit, his chief delight was to hustle up the master of each post-station and threaten to report to the governor of the province if i, the excellency, were kept waiting for a single instant. usually, changing operations at the stations occupied anything from forty minutes to two hours, according to the temper or trickishness of the post-horse keeper and his grooms, for they were about the meanest set of knaves and rogues on the face of asia. yet sight of my permit caused them all to tremble and cringe and hustle, and i certainly could not complain of any undue delay. we had set out in a tarantass from tiumen--the town from which the imperial courier had despatched the order to the various governors--but as soon as the snow came i purchased a big sledge, and in this we managed to travel with far greater comfort over the snow than by cart over the deeply-rutted road. none can know the terrible monotony of siberian travel save those who have endured it. nowadays one can cover siberia from the frontier to far vladivostock in fifteen days in a luxurious drawing-room car, with restaurant and sleeping-berth, a bath-room and a piano, the line running for the most part near the old post road. but leave the railway and strike north or south, and the same terrible greyness and monotony will grip your senses and depress you as perhaps no other journey in the world can do. it was dusk when at last we sped, our runners hissing over the frozen snow, into the wood-built town of tomsk, and alighted at the hotel million, a dismal place with corridors long and dark, and bedroom doors fastened by big iron padlocks and hasps! the full-bearded proprietor wandered along with an enormous bunch of keys, opening the doors and exhibiting his uninviting apartments; and at first i actually believed that vasilli had mistaken my order and driven to a siberian prison instead of conducting me to a hotel. upstairs, however, the rooms were much better. but there were no washing arrangements whatever, or mattresses or bedding; for every traveller in siberia is expected to carry his own pillows and bedclothes. here, however, we put up and ate our evening meal in true siberian style--a single tough beefsteak--simply that and nothing more. afterwards i drove through the snowy, unlighted streets to the governor's palace, a long, log-built place, and on giving my name to the cossack sentry at the door he at once saluted. apparently he had been warned of my coming. so had the servants, for with much bowing and grave ceremony i was shown along a corridor lit by petroleum lamps to a small reception-room at the farther end. the furniture was of the cheap, gaudy character which in england would speak mutely of the hire-system. but it had, no doubt, come from petersburg at enormous cost of transit, and was perhaps the best and most luxurious furniture--it was covered with red embossed velvet--in all siberia. scarcely was i afforded time to look round the close, overheated place with its treble windows, when general tschernaieff, a rather short, white-haired, pleasant-featured man in a green uniform, with the cross of st anne at his throat, entered, greeting me warmly and expressing a hope that i had had a pleasant journey. "i received word of your coming. mr trewinnard, some weeks ago," his excellency said rather pompously. "i am commanded to treat you as a guest of my imperial master. therefore you will, i hope, be my guest here in the palace." i told him that i already had quarters at the hotel million, whereupon he laughed, saying: "i fear that you will find it very rough and uncouth after hotels in petersburg or in your own london." i replied that as a constant traveller, and one who had knocked about in all corners of the world, i was used to roughing it. then, after he had offered me a cigarette, and a lean manservant, who, i afterwards learned, was an ex-convict, had brought us each a glass of champagne, i explained to him the object of my visit. "madame marya de rosen and her daughter luba de rosen, politicals," repeated his excellency, as though speaking to himself. "of course, sir, as you know, all prisoners, both criminal or political, pass through the forwarding-prison here. it is myself who decides to which settlement they shall be sent. but--well, there are so many that the chief of the police puts the lists before me and i sign them away to nerchinsk, to yakutsk, to sredne kolimsk, to verkhoiansk, to udinsk, or wherever it may be. their names, i fear, i never notice. i have sent some politicals recently up to parotovsk, fifty versts north of yakutsk. the two prisoners may have been among them." "here, i suppose, they lose their identity, do they not?" i asked, looking at the white-headed official who governed that great asiatic province. he was sixty-five, he had told me, and had served twenty-seven years in siberia. "yes. only across the road in the archives of the forwarding-prison are their names kept. when they leave tomsk they are known in future--until their death, indeed--only by a registered number." then, rising, the white-headed governor rang a bell, and on his secretary, a young cossack captain, entering, he gave him certain instructions to go across to the prison and obtain the registers of prisoners during the previous month. afterwards, he stretched himself out in his long chair, smoking and asking me questions concerning myself and the object of my journey. as soon as he learned that i was a british diplomat and personal friend of his majesty, his manner became much more cordial, and he declared himself ready to do everything in his power to bring my mission to a successful issue. presently the secretary returned, carrying two large registers and accompanied by a tall, dark-bearded man in uniform and wearing a decoration, who i learned was the governor of the prison. he saluted his excellency on entering the room, and said in russian: "your excellency is, i believe, inquiring regarding the prisoner marya de rosen, widow, of petersburg, deported by administrative order?" "yes," said the general. "where has she been sent, and what is her number?" "she was the woman about whom we received special instructions from the ministry of police in petersburg, your excellency will remember," replied the prison governor. "special instructions!" i echoed, interrupting. "what were they?" but his excellency, after a moment's reflection, said: "ah! i now remember! of course. there was a note upon the papers in general markoff's own handwriting to the effect that she was a dangerous person." "yes. she was one of those when your excellency sent to parotovsk," remarked the prison governor. "to parotovsk!" i echoed. "that is beyond yakutsk--two thousand five hundred miles from here--far in the north, and one of the most dreaded of all the settlements!" "all penal settlements are dreaded, i fear," remarked his excellency, blowing the cigarette smoke from his lips. then, turning to the prison governor, he inquired under what number the prisoner was registered. on referring to one of the books the officer declared madame to be now known as "number " and her daughter as "number ." i took a note of the numbers, protesting to his excellency: "but to compel delicate ladies to walk that great distance in the winter is surely a sentence of death!" "and if the politicals die, the state has fewer responsibilities," he remarked. "as you see, we have received notification from petersburg that your lady friend was a dangerous person. now, of dangerous persons we take very special care." then, turning to the prison governor, he asked: "how did they go?" "by tarantass. excellency. they were in too weak a state to walk, especially the elder prisoner. i doubt, indeed, if ever they will reach parotovsk." "and if they don't it will perhaps be the better for both of them," his excellency remarked with a sigh, rising and casting his cigarette-end into the pan of the round iron stove. he was a stiff, unbending official and ruled the province with a ruthless hand, but at heart he often evinced sympathy with the female exiles. "were they very ill?" i inquired quickly of the prison governor. "they were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards," he answered. "but if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do." "how long ago did they leave here?" "about two months," was the man's reply. "the elder prisoner implored to be sent to the trans-baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of his excellency general markoff." "then he suggested her being sent to the yakutsk settlement--in fact, to her death--eh?" i asked. his excellency replied: "that seems so. the prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by tarantass and now, no doubt, by sled. there were fifteen others, nine men and six women--all dangerous politicals, i see," he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. "if it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then i fear your journey will be futile." "why?" i asked. "because i expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road," replied his excellency. "politicals who die here in siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, i assure you." "there was, if i remember aright, a telegram to your excellency from general markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago," remarked the cossack captain. "it inquired whether you knew if madame de rosen were still alive." "ah, yes, i remember. and i replied that i had no knowledge," the general said. i was silent. my heart stood still. by the fact of that telegraphic inquiry i knew that markoff was, as i feared, aware of my journey. he would most certainly prevent my overtaking her--or, if not, he would, no doubt, contrive to seal her lips by death ere i could reach her. chapter twenty one. hot haste across asia. i resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. i lost no time. with only forty-eight hours' stay at the wretched hotel million in tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when i presented my imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia i was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of vasilli's creed to curse and grumble at everything. with the snow falling continuously our journey was not so rapid as it had been to tomsk. winter had now set in with a vengeance, although it still wanted a few days to the english christmas. yet the journey from marinsk to krasnoyarsk, two hundred miles, was one of wondrous beauty. it was cold, horribly cold. often i sat beside the sleepy petrakoff cramped and shivering, even in my furs. but those deep, dark woods, with their little glimpses of blue sky; the dashing and jingling along under the low-reaching arms of the evergreen trees, league after league of the forest bowed down to the very earth and in places prostrated with its white weight of snow, the weird ride over hill and mountain, skirting ravine and precipice, the breaks along and across the numerous watercourses, over rude bridges or along deep gullies where rough wooden guards protect the sleds from disaster--with this quick succession of scenery, wild and strange, was i kept constantly awake and charmed. at the stancias we met the travelling merchants from the far east and from china with their long train of goods hauled in sleds or packed on the backs of horses. five _pood_, we found, was the regulation load, and all packages were put up in drums bound with raw hide and so strapped that they could easily be transported by the pack-horse, which carried half a load on either side of a saddle-tree prepared for the purpose. but those stancias were filthy, overcrowded, evil-smelling places, wherein one laid in one's sleeping-bags upon a bench amid a crowd of unwashed, vodka-drinking humanity in damp, noxious sheep-skins. fortunately the moon was at that moment nearly full, and often at night i went forth alone to smoke, sometimes with the snowy plain stretched on every hand about me, and at others with gigantic peaks lifting their hoary heads far into the blue night vault of heaven; silent, frigid, white. ah! what grandeur! i rejoiced that it was night, when i could smoke and ponder. so cold and still was it that those snowy summits, bathed in the silver radiance of the siberian moon, filled me with awe such as i had never before experienced. yes, those were wonderful nights which will live for ever in my memory-- nights when my thoughts wandered far away to the gay promenade at hove, wondering how fared the little madcap, and whether her peril were real or only imaginary. ever obsessed by the knowledge that markoff was aware of my journey, and would endeavour to prevent its successful issue, i existed in constant anxiety and dread lest some prearranged disaster might befall madame de rosen ere i could reach her. siberia is, alas! the country where, as the exiles say: "god is nigh, and the tzar is far away." thus, after three weeks more of hard travelling, i passed through the big, straggling, snow-covered town of krasnoyarsk, and arrived at the wretchedly dirty stancia of tulunovsk, where the road to yakutsk-- distant nearly two thousand miles--branches to the north from the great post road, up the desolate valley of the lena. we arrived in tulunovsk in the afternoon, and, having sent a telegram to her highness from krasnoyarsk, eight days before, i was delighted to receive a charming little message assuring me that she was quite well and wishing me a continuance of good fortune on my journey. since i had left tomsk no traveller had overtaken me. at tulunovsk we found a party of politicals, about sixty men and women, in the roughly-constructed prison rest-house, being permitted a few days' respite upon their long and weary march. already they had been six months on the road, and were in a terrible condition, almost in rags, and most of them so weak that death would no doubt have been welcome. and these poor creatures were nearly all of them victims of the bogus plots of his excellency general markoff. to the cossack captain in charge of the convoy i made myself known, and after taking tea with him i was permitted to go among the party and chat with them. one tall, thin-faced man, whose hair was prematurely grey, begged me to send a message back to his wife in tver. he spoke french well, and told me his name was epatchieff, and that he had been a doctor in practice in the town of tver, between moscow and petersburg. "i am entirely ignorant of the reason i was arrested, m'sieur," he declared, hitching his ragged coat about him. "i have not committed any crime, or even belonged to any secret society. perhaps the only offence was my marrying the woman i loved. who knows?" and the sad-eyed man, whose life held more of sorrow in it than most men, went on to say: "i had been attending the little daughter of the local chief of the police for a week, but she had recovered so far that i did not consider a further visit was necessary. one morning, six months ago, i was surprised to receive a visit from the police officer's cossack, who demanded my presence at once at the house of his master, as the child had been seized with another attack. i told him i would go after breakfast as the matter was serious. but the cossack insisted that i should go at once, so i agreed and went forth. outside, the cossack told me that i must first go to the police office, and, of course, i went wonderingly, never dreaming for a moment that anything was wrong. so i was ushered into the office, where the chief of police told me that i was a prisoner. `a body of exiles are ready to start for siberia,' said the heartless brute, `and you will go with them.' i laughed--it was a good joke, but the chief of police assured me that it was a solemn fact. i was completely dumbfounded. i begged for a delay in my transportation. why was i deprived of my liberty? who was my accuser? what was the accusation? but i got no answer save `administrative order.' "i begged to be allowed to revisit my house under guard, to procure necessary articles of clothing--to say farewell to my young wife. but the scoundrel denied me everything. i waited in anguish, but they placed me in solitary confinement to await the departure of the convoy, and in six hours i was on my way here--to this living tomb!" of course the poor fellow was half crazed. what would become of his young wife--what would she think of him? a thousand thoughts and suspicions racked his mind, and he had already lived through an age of torture, as his whitening head plainly showed. at my suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife informing her of his fate, and using my authority as guest of his imperial majesty i took it, and, in due course, posted it back to russia. not until three years afterwards did i learn the tragic sequel. the poor young lady received my letter, and as quickly as she could set out to join him in his exile. with womanly wit she managed to apprise him of her coming and a light broke in upon his grief. he had been sent to irkutsk, and daily, hourly he looked and longed for her. yet just as he knew she must arrive, he was suddenly sent far away to the most northerly arctic settlement of sredne kolimsk. the poor young lady, filled with sweet sympathy and expectation, hoping to find him in irkutsk, arrived there a fortnight too late. imagine her anguish when, having travelled over four thousand miles of the worst country on the fact; of the world, she learned the cruel news. still three thousand miles distant! but she set out to find him. alas! however, it was too much for her. she lost her reason, raved for a little while under restraint and died at the roadside. is it any wonder that there were in russia real revolutionists, revolting not against their tzar, but against the inhuman system of the camarilla? petrakoff and i spent a sleepless night in that rat-eaten post-house where the food was bad, and our beds consisted only of a wooden bench. we had as companions half a dozen drivers, who had come with a big tea-caravan from china, ragged, unwashed, uncouth fellows in evil-smelling furs. indeed the air was so thick and intolerable that at two o'clock in the morning i took my sleeping-bag outside and lay in the sled, in preference to staying in that vermin-infested hut. next morning, the twenty-second of january, i signed the postmaster's book as soon as it grew light, and with three fresh horses approved of by vasilli, we were away, leaving the great post road and striking north along the lena. from that moment we entered an uninhabited country, the snowy dreariness of which was indescribable, and as day succeeded day and we pushed further north the climate became more rigorous, until it was no unusual thing to have great icicles hanging from one's moustache. one day, a week after leaving tulunovsk, we passed through an entirely deserted village of low-built huts. i asked vasilli the reason that no one lived there. "this is a bad place, excellency," was the fellow's reply. "all the people died of smallpox six months ago." and so we went on and on, and ever onward. sometimes we would travel the whole twenty-four hours rather than rest in those horrible post-houses, and on such journeys we often covered one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty versts, changing horses every twenty to thirty versts. we covered seven hundred and fifty miles to dubrovsk in sixteen days, and here, at the post-house, we met a party of cossacks coming south after taking a convoy of prisoners to olekminsk--half-way between dubrovsk and yakutsk--and handing them over to the guard sent south to meet them. while taking our evening tea i chatted with the cossack captain, a big, muscular giant in knee-boots who sat with his legs outstretched on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the high brick stove. i was making inquiries regarding the prisoners he had recently brought up, whereupon he said: "they were a batch of politicals from tomsk. poor devils, they've been sent to parotovsk--and there's smallpox there. i suppose general tschernaieff has sent them there on purpose that they shall become infected and die. politicals are often sent into an infected settlement." "to parotovsk!" i gasped, for it suddenly occurred to me that the woman of whom i was in search might be of that party! and then i breathlessly inquired if madame de rosen, political number , had been with them. "she and her daughter were ill, and were allowed a sled," i added. "there were two ladies, excellency, mother and daughter. one was about forty, and the other about eighteen. they came from petersburg, and were, i believe, well connected and moved in the best society." "you do not know their names?" i asked anxiously. "unfortunately, no," was his reply. "only the numbers. i believe the lady's number was that which you mentioned. she was registered, however, as a dangerous person." "no doubt the same!" i cried. "how is she?" "when they left olekminsk she was very weak and ill," he replied. "indeed, i recollect remarking to my lieutenant that i feared she would never reach yakutsk." "how far are they ahead of us?" i inquired eagerly. the bearded man reflected for some minutes, making mental calculations. "they left olekminsk a fortnight ago, therefore by this they should be nearing yakutsk." "and how long will it take me to reach yakutsk?" i asked. he again made a calculation and at last replied: "by travelling hard, excellency, you should reach yakutsk, i think, in twenty-five to twenty-seven days. it would be impossible before, i fear, owing to the heavy snowdrifts and the bad state of the roads." "twenty-seven days!" i echoed. "and before i can reach there the ladies will already be inmates of that infected settlement of parotovsk--the place to which they have been sent to sicken and die!" "she was marked as `dangerous,' excellency. she would therefore be sent north at once, without a doubt. persons marked as `dangerous' are never permitted to remain in yakutsk." could i reach her in time? could i save her? chapter twenty two. in the night. from that day and through twenty-two other dark, weary days of the black frosts of mid-winter, we travelled onward, ever onward. sometimes we crossed the limitless snow-covered tundra, sometimes we went down into the deep valley of the frozen lena river, changing horses every thirty versts and signing the post-horse keeper's greasy road-book. at every stage i produced my imperial permit, and at almost every station the ignorant peasant who kept it fell upon his knees in deep obeisance to the guest of the great tzar. we were now, however, off the main road, for this highway to the far-off arctic settlements, used almost solely by the convict convoys, ran for a thousand miles through a practically uninhabited country, the only sign of civilisation being the never-ending telegraph-line which we followed, and the lonely post-stations half-buried in the snow. ah! those long, anxious days of icy blasts and whirling snow blizzards. my companion and i, wrapped to our eyes in furs, sat side by side often dozing for hours, our ears tired of that irritating jingle of the sled-bells, our limbs cramped and benumbed, and often ravenously hungry, for the rough fare at the post-house was very frequently uneatable. for six dark days we met not a single soul upon the road, save a party of cossacks coming south. but from them i could obtain no news of the last batch of "politicals" who had travelled north, and whom we were following in such hot haste. again i telegraphed to hartwig in brighton, telling him of my whereabouts, and obtaining a reply from him that her highness was still well and sent me her best wishes. that in itself was reassuring. hard travel and bad food told, i think, upon both of us. petrakoff dearly wished himself back in his beloved petersburg again. yet our one-eyed half-tartar driver seemed quite unconscious of either cold or fatigue. the strain of driving so continuously--sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four--must have been terrible. but he was ever imperious in his dealings at post-stations, ever loud in his commands to the cringing owners of those log-built huts to bring out their best trio of horses, ever yelling to the fur-clad grooms not to keep his excellency waiting on pain of terrible punishment. thus through those short, dark winter days, and often through the long, steely nights, ever following those countless telegraph-poles, we went on--ever onward--until we found ourselves in a small wretched little place of log-built houses called olekminsk. upon my travelling map, as indeed upon every map of siberia, it is represented in capitals as an important place. so i expected to find at least a town--perhaps even a hotel. instead, i discovered it to be a mere wretched hamlet, with a post-house, and a wood-built prison for the reception of "politicals." we arrived at midnight. in the common room of the post-house, around which earth and snow had been banked to keep out the cold, was a high brick stove, and around the walls benches whereon a dozen wayfarers like ourselves were wrapped in their evil-smelling furs, and sleeping. the odour as i entered the place was foetid; the dirt indescribable. one shaggy peasant, in heavy top-boots and fur coat, had imbibed too much vodka, and had become hilarious, whereat one of the sleepers, suddenly awakened, threw a top-boot at him across the room, narrowly missing my head. the post-house keeper, as soon as he saw my permit, sent a man to the local chief of police, a stout, middle-aged man, who appeared on the scene in his hastily-donned uniform and who invited me to his house close by. there i questioned him regarding the political prisoners, "numbers and ." having read my permits--at which he was visibly impressed when he saw the signature of the emperor himself--he hastened to obtain his register. presently he said: "the two ladies you mention have passed through this prison, excellency. i see a note that both are dangerous `politicals,' and that the elder lady was rather weak. judging from the time when they left, they are, i should say, already in yakutsk--or even beyond." "from what is she suffering?" i asked eagerly. "ah! excellency, i cannot tell that," was his reply. "all i know is that the captain of cossacks who came down from yakutsk to meet the convoy considered that being a dangerous political, she was sufficiently well to walk with the others. so she has gone on foot the remainder of the journey. she arrived her in a sled." "on foot!" i echoed. "but she is ill--dying, i was told." the chief of police shrugged his shoulders and said with a sigh: "i fear. excellency, that the lady was somewhat unfortunate. that particular captain is not a very humane person--particularly where a dangerous prisoner is concerned." "then to be marked as `dangerous' means that the prisoner is to be treated with brutality--eh?" i cried. "is that russian justice?" "we do not administer justice here in siberia, excellency," was the man's quiet reply. "they do that in petersburg." "but surely it is a scandal to put a sick woman on the road and compel her to walk four hundred miles in this weather," i cried angrily. "alas! that is not my affair," replied the man. "i am merely chief of police of this district and governor of the _etape_. the captain of cossacks has entire charge of the prisoners on their journey." what he had told me maddened me. in all that i heard i could plainly detect the sinister hand of general markoff. indeed, when i carefully questioned this official, i felt convinced that the captain in question had received instructions direct from petersburg regarding madame de rosen. the chief of police admitted to me that to the papers concerning the prisoners there had been attached a special memorandum from petersburg concerning madame and her daughter. i smoked a cigarette with him and drank a cup of tea--china tea served with lemon. then i was shown to a rather poorly-furnished but clean bedroom on the ground floor, where i turned in. but no sleep came to my eyes. such hard travelling through all those weeks had shattered my nerves. while the bright northern moon streamed in through the uncurtained window, i lay on my back, pondering. i reflected upon all the past, the terrible fate of madame and her daughter, the strange secret she evidently held, and the peril of the emperor himself, so helpless in the hands of that circle of unscrupulous sycophants, and, further, of my little madcap friend, so prone to flirtation, the irrepressible grand duchess natalia. i reviewed all the exciting events of those many months which had elapsed since the last court ball of the season at petersburg--events which i have attempted to set down in the foregoing pages--and i was held in fear that my long journey might be in vain--that ere i could catch up with the poor wretched woman who, though ill, had been compelled to perform that last and most arduous stage of the journey through the snow, she would, alas! be no longer alive. the vengeance of her enemy markoff would have fallen upon her. a sense of indescribable oppression, combined with the hot closeness of the room, stifled me. for hours i lay awake, the moonlight falling full upon my head. at last, however, i must have dropped off to sleep, fagged out after twenty hours of those jingling bells and hissing of the sled-runners over the frozen snow. a sense of coldness awakened me, and opening my eyes i saw, to my surprise, though the room was practically in darkness with only the reflected light of the snow, that the small treble window stood open. it had certainly been tightly closed when i had entered there. i raised my eyes to peer into the darkness for the atmosphere, which when i had gone to sleep was stifling on account of the iron stove, was now at zero. suddenly i caught sight of a dark figure moving noiselessly near where i lay. a thief had entered by the window! he seemed to be searching the pockets of my coat, which i had flung carelessly upon a chair. surely he was a daring thief to thus enter the house of the chief of police! but in siberia there are many escaped convicts roaming about the woods. they are called "cuckoos," on account of their increase in the spring and their return to the prisons when starved out in winter. a "cuckoo" is always a criminal and always desperate. he must have money and food, and he dare not go near a village, as there is a price on his head. therefore, he will not hesitate to murder a lonely traveller if by so doing he thinks he can secure a passport which will permit him to leave siberia and re-enter european russia, back to freedom. some siberian roads are in summer infested with such gentry, but winter always drives them back to the towns, and consequently into prison again. only a very few manage to survive the rigours of the black frosts of the siberian winter. rather more amused than alarmed, i lay watching the dark figure engaged in rifling my pockets. i was contemplating the best method by which to secure him and hand him over to the mercies of my host. a sudden thought struck me. unfortunately, being guest in the house of the chief of police i had left my revolver in the sled. i never slept at a post-house without it. but that night i was unarmed. those moments of watching seemed hours. the man, whoever he was, was tall and slim, though of course i could not see his face. i held my breath. he was securing my papers and my money! yet he did it all so very leisurely that i could not help admiring his pluck and confounded coolness. i hesitated a few seconds and then at last i summoned courage to act. i resolved to suddenly spring up and throw myself upon him, so that he would be prevented from jumping out of the window with my property. but while i was thus making up my mind how to act, the mysterious man suddenly left the chair where my coat had been lying, and turning, came straight towards me, advancing slowly on tip-toe. apparently he was not desirous of rousing me. once again i waited my opportunity to spring upon him, for he fortunately was not yet aware that i was awake and watching him. i held my breath, lying perfectly motionless, for, advancing to me, he bent over as though to make absolutely certain that i slept. i tried to distinguish his face, but in the shadow that was impossible. i could hear my own heart beating. he seemed to be peering down at me, as though in curiosity, and i was wondering what could be his intentions, now that he had secured both my money and my papers. suddenly ere i could anticipate his intention, his hand was uplifted, and falling, struck me a heavy blow in the side of the neck just beneath the left jaw. instantly i felt a sharp burning pain and a sensation as of the running of warm liquid over my shoulders. then i knew that the fluid was blood! i had been stabbed in the side of the throat! i shrieked, and tried to spring fiercely upon my assailant, but he was too quick for me. my eager hand grasped his arm, but he wrenched himself free, and next instant had vaulted lightly through the open window and had disappeared. and as for myself, i gave vent to a loud shriek for help, and then sank inertly back, next second losing consciousness. the man had escaped with all my precious permits, signed by the emperor, as well as my money! my long journey was now most certainly a futile one. without those imperial permits i was utterly helpless. i should not, indeed, be allowed to speak with madame de rosen, even though i succeeded in finding her alive. my loss was irreparable, for it had put an end to my self-imposed mission. such were the thoughts which ran through my overstrung brain at the moment when the blackness of insensibility fell upon me, blotting out both knowledge of the present and apprehension of the future. chapter twenty three. identification! when again i opened my eyes it was to find a lamp being held close to my face, and a man who apparently possessed a knowledge of surgery--a political exile from moscow, who had been a doctor, i afterwards discovered--was carefully bathing my wound. beside him stood two cossacks and the chief of police himself. all were greatly agitated that an attack should have been made upon a man who was guest to his imperial majesty, their master. to my host's question i described in a few words what had occurred, and bewailed the loss of my papers and my money. "they are not lost," he replied. "fortunately the sentry outside heard your scream, and seeing the intruder emerge from the window and run, he raised his rifle and shot him." "killed him?" i asked. "of course. he was an utter stranger in olekminsk. presently we shall discover who and what he is. here are your papers," he added, handing back the precious documents to me. "for the present the man's body lies outside. afterwards you shall see if you recognise him. from his passport his name would appear to be gabrillo passhin. do you know anyone of that name?" "nobody," i replied, my brain awhirl with the crowded events of the past half-hour. i suppose it was another half-hour before the doctor, a grey-bearded, prematurely-aged man, finished bandaging my wound and strapping my left arm across my chest. then, assisted by my host, i rose and went forth, led by men with lanterns, to where, in the snow, as he had fallen beneath the sentry's bullet, lay the would-be assassin. they held their lanterns against the white, dead lace, but i did not recognise him. he seemed to be about thirty-five, with thin, irregular features and shaven chin. he was respectably dressed, while his hands were soft, betraying no evidence of manual labour. the features were perfectly calm, for death had been instantaneous, the bullet striking at the back of the skull. near where he lay a small pool of blood showed dark against the snow. while we were examining the body, petrakoff, whom i had sent for from the post-house, arrived in hot haste, and became filled with alarm when he saw my neck and arm enveloped in bandages. in a few words i told him what had occurred, and then advancing, he bent and looked upon my assailant's face. he remained bent there for quite a couple of minutes. then, straightening himself, he asked: "does his passport give his name as ivan muller--or gabrillo passhin?" "you know him!" i gasped. "who is he?" "well," he replied, "i happen to have rather good reason to know him. in odessa he was chief of a desperate gang of bank-note forgers, who, after eluding us for two years, were at last arrested--six of them in moscow. the seventh, who called himself muller, escaped to germany. a year ago he was bold enough to return to petersburg, where i recognised him one day close to the nicholas station and followed him to the house where he lodged. i entered there alone, very foolishly perhaps, whereupon he drew a revolver and fired point-blank at me. the bullet struck me in the right shoulder, but assistance was forthcoming, and he was arrested. his sentence about eleven months ago was confinement in the fortress of peter and paul for fifteen years. so he must have escaped. ah! he was one of the most daring, astute and desperate criminals in all russia. at his trial he spat at the judge, and contemptuously declared that his friends would not allow him to be confined for very long." "it seems that they have not," i remarked thoughtfully. "the fact of his having dared to break into the house of the chief of police shows in itself the character of the man," petrakoff exclaimed. "i myself had a most narrow escape when i arrested him. but what was he doing here--in siberia?" "he may have been exiled here and escaped," remarked the chief of police, as we were returning to the bureau at the side of the house. "i hardly think that, excellency," interrupted a cossack sergeant, who had just returned from the post-station, where he had been making inquiries. "we have just arrested a yamshick, who arrived with the assassin an hour after midnight. here he is." a moment later a big, red-faced, shaggy, vodka-drinking driver in ragged furs was brought into the bureau between two cossacks, and at once interrogated by the chief of police. first he was taken out to view the body still lying in the snow; then brought back into the police office, a bare, wooden room, lit by a single petroleum lamp, and bearing on its walls posters of numbers of official regulations, each headed by the big black double eagle. "now," asked the chief of police, assuming an air of great severity, "where do you come from?" "krasnoyarsk, excellency," answered the man gruffly. "what do you know of the individual you have just seen dead--eh?" "all i know of him, excellency, is that he contracted with me to drive him to yakutsk." "why? was he quite alone?" "yes, excellency. he made me hurry, driving night and day sometimes, for he was overtaking a friend." "what friend?" "ah! i do not know. only at each stancia, or povarnia, he inquired if an englishman had passed. therefore i concluded that it was an englishman he was following." petrakoff, hearing the man's words, looked meaningly towards me. "he was alone, you say?" i inquired. "had he any friends in krasnoyarsk, do you know?" "none that i know of. he had journeyed all the way from petersburg, and he paid me well, because he was travelling so rapidly. we heard of the englishman at a number of stancias, and have gradually overtaken him, until we found, on arrival here, that the friend he sought had only come in an hour before us. i heard the post-house keeper tell him so." "then he was following this mysterious englishman--eh?" asked the chief of police, who had seated himself at his table with some officiousness before commencing the inquiry. "no doubt he was, excellency. one day he told me that if he did not overtake the englishman on his way to yakutsk, he would remain and wait for his return." then i took a couple of steps forward to the official's table and said: "i fear that i must be the englishman whom this mysterious person has followed in such hot haste for nearly six thousand miles." "so it seems. but why?" asked the chief of police. "i can see no reason why that escaped criminal should follow you with such sinister intent. you don't know him?" "not in the least. i have never even heard his name before." "he was well supplied with money, it seems," remarked my host. "this wallet found upon him contains over ten thousand roubles in notes, together with a credit upon the branch of the national bank in yakutsk for a further thirty thousand." and he showed me a well-worn leather pocket-book, evidently of german manufacture. both petrakoff and myself knew only too well that this daring criminal had been released from that cold citadel in the nevi and given money, promised a free pardon in all probability, if he followed me and at all hazards prevented me from obtaining an interview with the poor, innocent, suffering woman whose dastardly enemy had marked her "dangerous." i was about to tell the while scandalous truth, but on second thought i saw that no good could be served. therefore i held my tongue, and allowed the officials--for the starosti of the village had now arrived-- regard the affair as a complete mystery. i had narrowly escaped death, the doctor had declared, and my friend, the chief of police of olekminsk, kept the unfortunate yamshick under arrest while he reported the extraordinary affair to yakutsk. he also confiscated the money found upon the man who had made that daring attack upon me. i could see he was secretly delighted that the criminal had been killed. what, i wondered, would have happened to him if i, a guest of his imperial majesty, had lost my life beneath his roof? the same thought apparently crossed his mind, for in those white winter days i was compelled to remain his guest, being unfit for travel on account of my wound, he many times referred to the narrow escape i had had. petrakoff, on his part, related to us some astounding stories of the man, who hid been known to the coining and note-forging fraternity as muller, _alias_ passhin, the man who had at least three murders to his record. and this man was markoff's hireling! what, i wondered, was the actual price placed upon my head? for a whole week--seven weary days--i was compelled to remain there in olekminsk. i wanted to push forward, but the exiled doctor would not allow it. there was a small and wretched colony of political exiles in the village, and i visited them. fancy a poet and _litterateur_, one of those rare russian souls whose wonder-working effusions must ultimately enlighten and enfranchise the people--a turgenieff--immured for life in that snowy desert. yet in olekminsk there was such a one. he lived in a wretched one-roomed, log-built cabin within a stone's-throw of the house wherein i so nearly lost my life--a tall, alert, deep-eyed man, whom even the savagery of his surroundings could not dispirit or cool the ardour of his wonderful genius. from his prolific pen flowed a ceaseless stream of learning and of light; he wrote and wrote, and in this writing forgot his wrongs and sorrows. the authorities--the local officials who wield such autocratic authority in those parts--were overjoyed to see him in this mood. they fostered his rich whim, they encouraged him to write his books, the manuscripts of which they seized and sold in petersburg and berlin, paris and london. yet he lived in a smoky, wooden hovel, banked up by snow, and wrote his books upon a rough wooden bench, which was polished at the spot over which his forearm travelled with his pen. no exile, i found, was allowed to carry on any business, teach in a school, till the soil, labour at a trade, practise a profession, or engage in any work otherwise than through a master. if i wanted any service, an exile would sometimes come and offer to perform it, but i would have to pay his master, upon whose bounty he must depend for remuneration. the doctor, named kasharofski who bandaged me was not a revolutionist, or at all intemperate in his political view's. he was one of the thousands of markoff's victims sacrificed in order that the chief of secret police should remain in favour with the emperor. therefore he was not in favour with many of his fellow-exiles, who held pronounced revolutionary views. he was on pleasant visiting terms with the chief of police, and i often went to his wretched, carpetless hut, around which were sleeping bunks, and spent many an hour with him listening to the cruel, inhuman wrong from which he had suffered at the hands of that marvellously alert organisation, the secret police. one grey, snowy afternoon, while i sat with him in his bare wooden hut, one room with benches around for beds, and he smoked a cigar i had given him, he burst forth angrily against the exile system, declaring: "the whole government is a monstrous mistake. russia has been striding in vain to populate siberia for a thousand years, but she will never succeed so long as she continues in her present policy of converting the land into a vast penitentiary wherein the prisoners are prevented from making an honest livelihood, and so driven, if criminals, to a further commission of crime. beyond doubt there are rogues of the very worst type in russia and siberia, but certainly it is plain that their mode of punishment will never tend to elevate or reform them; further, it is utterly impossible that siberia, under its present system of government, should ever be populated or improved, as have been the penal colonies of the french and english." his words were, alas! too true. what i had seen of siberia and its exile system--those terrible prisons where men and women were herded together and infected with typhoid and smallpox; those wretched hovels of the political settlement, and those chained gangs of despairing prisoners on the roads--had indeed filled me with horror. the condition of those exiles, both socially and morally, was utterly appalling. the day after my conversation with doctor kasharofski, after a week of irritating delay, in which every moment i feared that i was losing valuable time, i set forth again upon my last stage, the journey of four hundred miles of snow-covered tundra and forests of cheerless silver birch to yakutsk. did madame de rosen still live, or had markoff taken good care that, even though i escaped the assassin's knife, i should never meet her again in the flesh? ay, that was the one important question. and my heart beat quickly as, bidding farewell to my hospitable friend, the chief of police, our three shaggy horses plunged jingling away into the snow. chapter twenty four. the journey's end. the farther north we pushed, the worse became the roads, and snow fell daily. only by following the line of telegraph and the verst-posts could we find the road, which sometimes ran along the lena valley, and at others crossed high hills or penetrated deep, gloomy forests of dwarfed leafless trees. after three days we approached a high mountain range, where absolute silence reigned and the snowfall was constant and heavy. the trees were so overburdened with the white weight softly and quietly heaped upon them, that many had broken down completely and obstructed the wild road through the forest. vasilli had furnished us with hatchets for this purpose, and we were often compelled to stop and hack and drag the fallen trees from our path. when at last we had gained the top of the mountain pass, we at once felt a complete change in the atmosphere. whereas to the south everything was as calm as the quiet of death, in front of us a gale was already blowing, and instead of trees bowed down and breaking with their burden of snow, to the northward of the mountain range not a single flake appeared on the shrubbery or woodland. we had passed from the world of silence to the wild, bleak regions of the arctic blizzard. all that day we toiled through deep snow, the mountain road rugged beyond description and the tearing wind icy and howling. it blew as though it would never calm. and the distance between the two lonely post-houses was one hundred and twenty-four english miles. not a vestige of a habitation between. all was a great lone land. the frost was intense, and icicles hung from vasilli's beard and from our own moustaches--a black deadly cold, rendered the more biting by the wind straight from the polar ice-pack. i looked up upon that awful snow-covered road and shuddered. luba and her mother had actually traversed it on foot. because they had been marked as "dangerous" the cossack captain had exposed them to that terrible suffering, hoping that they would thereby die before reaching yakutsk--in which case he would, no doubt, receive a word of commendation from the governor. we were now fast approaching the dreaded arctic penal settlements, of which the town of yakutsk was the centre, distant over four thousand miles from the russian frontier, every inch of which we had traversed by road. hour by hour, day by day, onward we went, with those irritating bells ever jingling in our ears. petrakoff slept, his head sunk wearily upon his breast, but my mind was much too agitated for sleep. i had, by good fortune, escaped the assassin who had followed me hot-foot across asia, and now i must soon overtake the unfortunate woman from whose lips i would seek permission for her highness to speak. pakrovskoe, a mere handful of huts, came in sight one day just as the grey light faded. it was the last village before our goal--yakutsk. we changed horses and ate some dried fish and rye bread, washed down by a cup of weak tea. then, after half an hour's rest, again we went forward into the grey gloom of the snow, where on our left at the edge of the plain showed the pale yellow streak of the winter afterglow. through that long, interminable night we toiled on and ever on in deep snowdrifts. vasilli ever and anon uttering curses in his beard, for the horses we had obtained at pakrovskoe were terrible screws. at length, however, just as the first grey of dawn appeared on the horizon our driver pointed with his whip, crying excitedly: "yakutsk! excellency! yakutsk! god be thanked for a safe journey!" at first i could see nothing, but presently, straining my eyes straight before me, i discerned at the far edge of the snow-covered plain several low towers with bulgy spires, and a long line of house roofs silhouetted against the faint horizon. petrakoff gazed forth sleepily, and then with a low, half-conscious grunt lapsed again into inert slumber. but no longer could i close my eyes. i drew my furs more closely round me, and sat with eyes fixed upon my longed-for goal. would success crown my efforts, or had, alas! poor marya de rosen succumbed to the brutal treatment meted out to her by the cossack captain. after three eager, breathless hours, which seemed weeks to me, we at last drove into the long wide thoroughfare which is the principal street of that northerly town--a road lined by small, square wooden houses, with sloping roofs, each surrounded by its little stockade. the town seemed practically deserted, a dreary, dismal, silent place, of which half the inhabitants were exiles or the free children of exiles. the remainder were, as i afterwards discovered, free russians--merchants who had emigrated there for the advantage of trade, together with a host of government officials--cossack, civil, police, revenue, church, etc. without much difficulty we found the guestnitsa hotel, a wretched place, verminous and dirty, like every other hotel in all siberia was before the enlightening days of the great railroad. here i established myself, and sent petrakoff with a note to the governor-general, asking for audience without delay. scarcely had i washed, shaved and made myself a trifle presentable-- though i fear my unshorn hair presented a somewhat shaggy appearance-- when the agent of police returned with a note from his excellency general vorontzoff, governor-general of the province, expressing his regret that owing to being compelled to make a military inspection during that day he was unable to receive me until five o'clock in the evening. thus was i compelled to await his excellency's pleasure. the fame of alexander vorontzoff was well-known in petersburg. he was a hard, hide-bound bureaucrat, without a spark of pity or of human feeling. and for that reason the camarilla surrounding his majesty the emperor had managed to obtain his appointment as governor-general of yakutsk. he was the catspaw of that half-dozen astute ministers who terrorised the emperor and his court, and by so doing feathered their own nests. "politicals" committed by markoff to his tender mercies were shown little consideration, for was not his appointment as governor-general mainly on account of his brutal treatment of offenders during his term of office at tomsk? hartwig, had, more than once, mentioned this man as the most cruel, inhuman official in all siberia. therefore, being forewarned, i was ready to meet him on his own ground. many a man, and many a delicate woman, transported there from russia, although quite as innocent of revolutionary ideas as my friend madame de rosen, had lived but a few short days on their arrival at the prison at yakutsk, horrible tales of which had even filtered through back to petersburg and moscow. one fact well-known was that, two years before, when smallpox had broken out at the prison, this brutal official caused a whole batch of prisoners to be placed in a room where a dozen other prisoners were lying in the last stages of that fatal disease, with the result that over two hundred exiles became infected, and of them one hundred and eighty died without receiving the least medical attention. such an action stood to his credit in the bureau of the ministry of the interior at petersburg! he had saved the empire the keep of a hundred and eighty prisoners--mostly the victims of markoff and the camarilla! when at five o'clock i was ushered into a big, gloomy room, lit by a hundred candles in brass sconces, a vulgar, thick-set man in tight-fitting, dark green uniform, his breast glittering with decorations, rose to greet me in a thick, deep voice. i judged him to be nearly sixty, with grey, steely eyes, a bloated face, short-cropped grey beard, and very square shoulders. he apologised for his absence during the day, and after handing me a cigarette invited me to a chair covered with red plush, himself taking one opposite to me. "i have been already notified of your coming," he said, speaking through his beard. "they sent me word from petersburg that you were travelling to yakutsk. i am very delighted to receive you as guest of my imperial master. in what way can i be of service to you?" i treated him with considerable hauteur, as became one bearing the order of the tzar. from my pocket i produced the imperial instructions to all governors of the asiatic provinces to do my bidding. as soon as he saw it his manner changed and he became most humble and submissive. "i must again apologise for not receiving you--for not calling upon you instantly on your arrival, mr trewinnard. but, truth to tell, i had for the moment forgotten that you were the guest of his imperial majesty. i had quite overlooked the telegram sent to me months ago," he said; and then he read the other permits i produced. "i hope you have had a safe journey, and not too uncomfortable," he went on. "i travelled once from moscow in winter, and i must confess i, although a russian, found it uncommonly cold." i gave him to understand that i had not travelled over six thousand miles merely to talk of climatic conditions. but he strode with swagger across the big, well-furnished room, his gay decorations glittering in the candle-light. the treble windows were closed with thick, dark green curtains pulled across them. the armchairs and sofa were leather-covered, and at the farther end of the room was a big, littered writing-table set near the high stove of glazed brick. he was a bachelor, with the reputation of being a hard drinker and a confirmed gambler. and under the iron hand of this unsympathetic and brutal official ten thousand political exiles, scattered all over the arctic province, led an existence to which, in many cases, death would have been far preferable. upon the dark green walls of that sombre room--a room in which many a wretched "political" had pleaded in vain--was a single picture, a portrait of the emperor, one of those printed by the thousand and distributed to every government office throughout the great empire. his excellency general vorontzoff, as representative of the emperor, lived in considerable state with a large military staff, and cossack sentries posted at all the doors. he was as unapproachable as the tzar himself, probably knowing how hated he was among those unfortunates over whom he held the power of life and death. for the ordinary man to obtain audience of him was wellnigh impossible. the explicit order in his majesty's own handwriting altered things considerably in my case, and i saw that he was greatly puzzled as to who i really could be, and why his master had been so solicitous regarding my welfare. "i have travelled from petersburg, your excellency, in order to have private interviews with two political prisoners who have recently arrived here," i explained at last. he frowned slightly at mention of the word "political." "i understand," he said. "they are friends of yours--eh?" "yes," i replied. "and i wish to have interviews with the ladies with as little delay as possible." "ladies--eh?" he asked, raising his grey eyebrows. "who are they?" "their name is de rosen," i said, "but their exile numbers are and ." he bent to his writing-table, near which he was at that moment standing, and scribbled down the numbers. "they arrived recently, you say?" "yes. and i may tell you in confidence that a grave injustice has been done in exiling them. his majesty is about to institute full and searching inquiries into the circumstances." his bloated face fell. he grew a trifle paler, and regarded me with some concern. "i suppose they arrived with the last convoy?" he said reflectively. "we will quickly see." and he rang a bell, in answer to which a smart young cossack officer appeared, saluting. to him he handed the slip of paper with the numbers, saying in that hard, imperious voice of his: "report at once to me the whereabouts of these two prisoners. they arrived recently, and i am awaiting information." the officer again saluted and withdrew. scarcely had he closed the door when another officer, wearing his heavy greatcoat flecked with snow, entered and, saluting, handed the governor a paper, saying: "the prisoners for kolimsk are ready to start, excellency." "how many?" "two hundred and seven--one hundred and twenty-six men, and eighty-one women. your excellency." sredne kolimsk! that was the most northerly and most dreaded settlement in all the arctic, still distant nearly one thousand miles--the living tomb of so many of markoff's victims. "are they outside?" asked the governor. to which the officer in charge replied in the affirmative. "may i see them?" i asked. whereupon my request was readily granted. but before we went outside general vorontzoff took the list from the captain's hand and scrawled his signature--the signature which sent two hundred and seven men and women to the coldest region in the world--that frozen bourne whence none ever returned. outside in the dark snowy night the wretched gang, in rough, grey, snow-covered clothes, were assembled, a dismal gathering of the most hopeless and dejected wretches in the world, all of them educated, and the majority being members of the professional classes. yet all had, by that single stroke of the governor's pen, been consigned to a terrible fate, existence in the filthy yaurtas or huts of the half-civilised yakuts--an unwashed race who live in the same stable as their cows, and whose habits are incredibly disgusting. that huddled, shivering crowd had already trudged over four thousand miles on foot and survived, though how many had died on the way would never be told. they stood there like driven cattle, inert, silent and broken. hardly a word was spoken, save by the mounted cossack guards, who smoked or joked, several of them having been drinking vodka freely before leaving. the governor, standing at my side, glanced around them, mere shadows on the snow. then he exclaimed with a low laugh, as though amused: "even this fate is too good for such vermin! let's go inside." i followed him in without a word. my heart bled for those poor unfortunate creatures, who at that moment, at a loud word of command from the cossack captain, moved away into the bleak and stormy night. in the cosy warmth of his own room general vorontzoff threw himself into a deep armchair and declared that i must leave the "guestnitsa" and become his guest, an invitation which i had no inclination to accept. he offered me champagne, which i was compelled out of courtesy to drink, and we sat smoking until presently the young cossack officer reappeared, bearing a bundle of official papers. "well, where are they?" inquired the governor quickly. "how slow you are!" he added emphatically. "the two prisoners in question are still here in yakutsk," was the officer's reply. "they have not yet been sent on to parotovsk." "then i must go to them at once," i cried in eagerness, starting up quickly from my chair. "i must speak with them without delay. i demand to do so--in the tzar's name." the officer bent and whispered some low words into his excellency's ear; whereupon the governor, turning to me with a strange expression upon his coarse countenance, said in a quiet voice: "i much regret, mr trewinnard, but i fear that is impossible--quite impossible!" chapter twenty five. luba makes a statement. "impossible!" i echoed, staring at the all-powerful official. "why?" he shrugged his shoulders, slowly flicked the ash from his cigarette and glanced at the paper which the officer had handed to him. i saw that beneath the candle-light his heavy features had changed. the diamond upon his finger flashed evilly. "my pen and writing-pad," he said, addressing his aide-de-camp. the latter went to the writing-table and handed what he required. his excellency rapidly scribbled a few words, then tearing off the sheet of paper handed it to me, saying: "as you so particularly wish to see them, i suppose your request must be granted. here is an order to the prison governor." i took it with a word of thanks, and without delay put on my heavy fur shuba and accompanied the aide-de-camp out into the darkness. he carried a big, old-fashioned lantern to guide my footsteps, though the walk through the steadily-falling snow was not a long one. presently we came to a series of long, wood-built houses, windowless save for some small apertures high near the roof, standing behind a high stockade before which cossack sentries, huddled in their greatcoats, were pacing, white, snowy figures in the gloom. my guide uttered some password, which brought two sentries at the door to the salute, and then the great gates opened and we entered a big, open space which we crossed to the bureau, a large, low room, lit by a single evil-smelling petroleum lamp. here i met a narrow-jawed, deep-eyed man in uniform--the prison governor, to whom i presented my permit. he called a cossack gaoler, a big, fur-clad man with a jingling bunch of keys at his waist, and i followed him out across the courtyard to one of the long wooden sheds, the door of which he with difficulty unlocked, unbolted, and threw open. a hot, stifling breath of crowded humanity met me upon the threshold, a foetid odour of dirt, for the place was unventilated, and then by the single lamp high in the roof i saw that along each side of the shed were inclined plank benches crowded by sleeping or reclining women still in their prison clothes, huddled side by side with their heads against the wall, their feet to the narrow gangway. "prisoners!" shouted the gaoler in russian. "attention! where is one four nine five seven?" there was a silence as i stood upon the threshold. "come," cried the man petulantly. "i want her here." a weak, thin voice, low and trembling, responded, and from the gloom slowly emerged a female figure in thick, ill-fitting clothes of grey cloth, unkempt and ragged. "move quickly," snapped the gaoler. "here is someone to see you!" "to see me!" repeated the weak voice slowly. next moment, the light of the lantern revealed my face, i suppose, for she dashed forward, crying in english: "why--you, mr trewinnard! ah! save me! oh! save me! i beg of you." and she clung to me, trembling with fear. it was the girl luba de rosen! alas! so altered was she, so pale, haggard and prematurely-aged that i scarcely recognised her. her appearance was dejected, ragged, horrible! her fair hair that used to be so much admired was now tangled over her eyes, and her fine figure hidden by her rough, ill-fitting prison gown, which was old, dirty and tattered. i stared at her, speechless in horror. she was only nineteen. in that smart set in which her mother moved her beauty had been much admired. madame de rosen was the widow of a wealthy jew banker, and on account of her late husband's loans to certain high officials to cover their gambling debts, all doors had been open to her. i recollected when i had last seen luba, the night before her arrest. she had worn a pretty, paris-made gown of carnation chiffon, and was waltzing with a good-looking young officer of the kazan dragoons. alas! what a different picture she now presented. "luba!" i said quietly in english, taking her hand as she clung to me. "come outside. i am here to speak with you. i want to talk with you alone." the gaoler, who had had his orders from the governor, relocked and bolted the door, and taking his lantern, withdrew a respectable distance while i stood with luba under the wooden wall of the prison wherein she had been confined. "i have followed you here," i said, opening my capacious fur coat and throwing it around the poor shivering girl. "i only arrived to-night. where is your mother? i must see her at once." she was silent. in the darkness i saw that her white face was downcast. i felt her sobbing as i held her, weak and tearful, in my arms. she seemed, poor girl, too overcome at meeting me to be able to speak. she tried to articulate some words, but they became choked by stifled sobs. "your mother has been very ill, i hear, luba," i said. "is she better?" but the girl only drew a long sigh and slowly shook her head. "i--i can't tell you--mr trewinnard!" she managed to exclaim. "it is all too terrible--horrible! my poor mother! poor darling! she--she died this morning!" "dead!" i gasped. my heart sank within me. the iron entered my soul. "yes. alas!" responded the unfortunate girl. "and i am left alone--all alone in this awful place! ah! mr trewinnard, you do not know--you can never dream how much we have suffered since we left petersburg. i would have preferred death a thousand times to this. and my poor mother. she is dead--at last she now has peace. the cossacks cannot beat her with their whips any more." "where did she die?" i asked blankly. "in here--in this prison, upon the bench beside where i slept. ah!" she cried, "i feel now as though i shall go mad. i lived only for her take--to wait upon her and try to alleviate her sufferings. now that she has been taken from me i have no other object for which to live in this dreary waste of ice and snow. in a week i shall be sent on to parotovsk with the others. but i hope before reaching there that god will be merciful and allow me to die." "no, no!" i exclaimed, my hand placed tenderly upon the poor girl's shoulder. "banish such thoughts. you may be released yet. i am here, striving towards that end." but she only shook her head again very mournfully. nobody is released from siberia. as we stood together, my heavy coat wrapped about her in order to protect her a little from the piercing blast, she told me how, under the fatigue and exposure of the journey, her mother had fallen so ill that she one day dropped exhausted by the roadside. one cossack officer, finding her unconscious, suggested that she should be left there to die, as fully half a dozen other delicate women had been left. but another officer of the convoy, a trifle more humane, had her placed in a tarantass, and by that means she had travelled as far as tulunovsk. but the officer in charge there had compelled her to again walk, and over that last thousand miles of snow she had dragged wearily until, ill and worn out, she had arrived in yakutsk. from the moment of her arrival she had scarcely spoken. so weak was she, that she could only lie upon the bare wooden bench, and was ever begging to be allowed to die. and only that morning had she peacefully passed away. i had arrived twelve hours too late! she had carried her secret to her grave! i heard the terrible story from the girl's lips in silence. my long weary journey had been all in vain. from the beginning to the end of poor madame's illness no medical man had seen her. from what she had suffered no one knew, and certainly nobody cared a jot. she was, in the eyes of the law, a "dangerous political" who had died on the journey to the distant settlement to which she had been banished. and how many others, alas! had succumbed to the rigours of that awful journey! i walked with luba back to the governor's bureau, and in obedience to my demand he gave me a room--a bare place with a brick stove, before which the poor sad-eyed girl sat with me. i saw that the death of her mother had utterly crushed her spirit. transferred from the gaiety and luxury of petersburg, her pretty home and her merry circle of friends, away to that wilderness of snow, with brutal cossacks as guards--men who beat exhausted women with whips as one lashes a dog--her brain was at last becoming affected. at certain moments she seemed very curious in her manner. her deep blue eyes had an unusual intense expression in them--a look which i certainly did not like. that keen glittering glance was, i knew, precursory to madness. though unkempt and ragged, wearing an old pair of men's high boots and a dirty red handkerchief tied about her head, her beauty was still remarkable. her pretty mouth was perhaps harder, and it tightened at the corners as she related the tragic story of their arrest and their subsequent journey. yet her eyes were splendid, and her cheeks were still dimpled they had been when i had so often sat at tea with her in her mother's great salon in petersburg, a room decorated in white, with rose-du-barri furniture. in tenderness i hold her hand as she told me of the brutal treatment both she and her fellow-prisoners had received at the hands of the cossacks. "never mind, luba," i said with a smile, endeavouring to cheer her, "every cloud has its silver lining. your poor mother is dead, and nobody regrets it more than myself. i travelled in haste from england in order to see her--in order to advise her to reveal to me a certain secret which she possessed." "a secret!" said the girl, looking straight into my face. "a secret of what?" "well," i said slowly, "first, luba, let me explain that as you well know, i am an old friend of your dear mother." "i know that, of course," she said. "poor mother has frequently spoken of you during her journey. she often used to wonder what you would think when you heard of our arrest." "i knew you were both the innocent victims of general markoff," i said quickly. "ah! then you knew that!" she cried. "how did you know?" "because i was well aware that markoff was your mother's bitterest enemy," i answered. "he was. but why? do you know that, mr trewinnard? can you give me any explanation? it has always been a most complete mystery to me. mother always refused to tell me anything." i paused. i had hoped that she would know something, or at least that she might give me some hint which would serve as a clue by which to elucidate the mystery of those incriminating letters, now, alas! destroyed. "has your mother told you nothing?" i asked, looking earnestly straight in her face. "nothing." "immediately before her arrest she gave to her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia certain letters, asking her to keep them in safety. are you aware of that?" "mother told me so," the girl replied. "she also believed that the letters in question must have fallen into general markoff's hands." "why?" "i do not know. she often said so." "she believed that the arrest and exile of you both was due to the knowledge of what those letters contained--eh?" i asked. "i think so." "but tell me, luba," i asked very earnestly, "did your mother ever reveal to you the nature of those letters? i am here to discover this-- because--well, to tell the truth, because your friend the grand duchess natasha is in deadly peril." "in peril, why? where is she?" in a few brief words i told her of natalia's _incognita_ at brighton, and of the attempt that had been made to assassinate us both, in order to suppress any knowledge of the letters that either of us might have gained. "our own sad case is on a par with yours," she declared thoughtfully at last. "poor mother was, i think, aware of some secret of general markoff's. perhaps it was believed that she had told me. at any rate, we were both arrested and sent here, where we should never have any opportunity of using our information." "you have no idea of its nature, luba," i asked in a low voice, still deeply in earnest. "i mean you have no suspicion of the actual nature of the contents of those letters which your mother gave into natalia's care?" the girl was silent for some time, her eyes downcast in thought. at last she replied: "it would be untrue to say that i entertain no suspicion. but, alas! i have no corroboration. my belief is only based upon what my dear mother so often used to repeat to me." "and what was that?" i asked. "that she had held the life of russia's oppressor, general markoff, in her hand. that she could have crushed and ruined him as he so justly deserved; but that for motives of humanity she had warned him of repeating his dastardly actions, and had long hesitated to bring him to ruin and to death." "ah! the brute. he knew that," i cried. "he craftily awaited his opportunity, then he dealt her a cowardly blow, by arresting her and sending her here, where even in life or in death her lips would be closed for ever." chapter twenty six. not in the newspapers. twelve weeks had elapsed--cold, weary weeks of constant sledging over those bleak, snow-bound plains, westward, back to civilisation. on the twenty-seventh of april--i have, alas! cause to remember the date--at six o'clock in the evening, i alighted from the train at brighton, and hartwig came eagerly forward to greet me. i had journeyed incessantly, avoiding petersburg and coming by warsaw and berlin to the hook of holland, and that morning had apprised him of my arrival in england; but, i fear, as i emerged from the train my appearance must have been somewhat travel-worn. true, i had bought some ready-made clothes in berlin--a new overcoat and a new hat. but i was horribly conscious that they were ill-fitting, as is every man who wears a "ready-to-wear garment"--as the tailors call it. yes, i was utterly fagged out after that long and fruitless errand, and a i glanced at hartwig i detected in an instant that something unusual had occurred. "what's the matter?" i asked quickly. "what has happened?" "ah! that i unfortunately do not exactly know, mr trewinnard," was his reply in a tone quite unusual to him. "but what has occurred?" "disaster," he answered in a low, hoarse voice. "her highness has mysteriously disappeared!" "disappeared!" i gasped, halting and staring at him. "how? with whom?" "how can we tell?" he asked, with a gesture of despair. "explain," i urged. "tell me quickly. how did it happen?" together we walked slowly out of the station-yard down in the direction of king's road, when he said: "well, the facts are briefly these. last monday--that is five days ago--her highness and miss west had been over to eastbourne by train to see an old schoolfellow of the grand duchess's, a certain miss finlay-- with whom i have since had an interview. they lunched at mrs finlay's house--one of those new ones on the road to beachy head--and left, together with miss finlay, to walk back to the station at half-past seven o'clock. her highness would not drive, but preferred to walk along the promenade and up terminus road. when close to the station, dmitri--who accompanied them--says that her highness stopped suddenly before a fancy needlework shop, while the other two went on. the grand duchess, before entering the shop, motioned to dmitri to walk along to the station, for his surveillance, as you know, always irritated her. dmitri, therefore, strolled on--and--well, that was the last seen of her highness!" "impossible!" i gasped. "i have made every effort to trace her, but without avail," declared hartwig in despair. "it appears that she purchased some coloured silks for embroidery, paid for them, and then went out quite calmly. the girl who served her recollects her customer being met upon the threshold by a man who raised his hat in greeting and spoke to her. but she could not see his face, nor could she, in the dusk, discern whether he were young or old. the young lady seemed to be pleased to meet him, and, very curiously, it struck her at the time that that meeting had been prearranged." "why?" i asked. "because she says that the young lady, while making her purchase, glanced anxiously at her gold wristlet-watch once or twice." "she had a train to catch, remember." "yes. i put that point before the girl, but she remains unshaken in her conviction that her highness met the man there by appointment. in any case," he added, "we have been unable to discover any trace of her since." i was silent for a moment. "but, surely, hartwig, this is a most extraordinary affair!" i cried. "she may have been decoyed into the hands of danilovitch!" "that is, alas! what i very much fear," the police official admitted. "this i believe to be some deeply-laid plot of markoff's to secure her silence. you have been across siberia, and arrived too late, yet her highness is still in possession of the secret. she is the only living menace to markoff. is it not natural, therefore, that he should take steps to seal her lips?" "we must discover her, hartwig--we must find her, either alive or dead," i said resolutely. this news staggered me, fagged and worn out as i was. i had been compelled to leave luba in the hands of the governor-general, who had promised, because i was the guest of his majesty, that he would do all in his power to render her lot less irksome. indeed, she had been transferred to one of the rooms in the prison hospital in yakutsk, and was under a wardress, instead of being guarded by those brutal, uncouth cossacks. but this sudden disappearance of natalia just at the very moment when her presence was of greatest importance held me utterly bewildered. all my efforts had been in vain! should i telegraph the alarming news to the emperor? hartwig explained to me how diligently he had searched, and at once i realised the expert method with which he was dealing with the remarkable affair, and the wide scope of his inquiry. no man in europe was more fitted to institute such a search. he had, in confidence, invoked the aid of new scotland yard, and being known by the heads of the criminal investigation department, they had allowed him to direct the inquiry. "at present," he said, "the papers are fortunately in entire ignorance of the matter. i have been very careful that nothing shall leak out, for the story would, of course, be a grand one for the sensational press. the public, however, does not know whose identity is hidden beneath the name of gottorp, and no reporter dreams that a russian grand duchess has been living _incognita_ in brunswick square," he added with a smile. "the criminal investigation department have agreed with me that it would be unwise for a single word to leak out regarding the disappearance. of course they incline to the theory of a secret lover-- but--" "you suspect young drury--eh?" i interrupted quickly. "i hardly know what theory to form," he said with a puzzled air: "while the shopgirl in eastbourne describes the appearance of the man's back as exactly similar to that of mr drury, yet i cannot believe that he would willingly play us such a trick. i know him quite well, and i believe him to be a very honest, upright, straightforward young fellow." "he knows nothing of her highness's real identity?" i asked anxiously, as we still strolled down towards the sea. "has no suspicion whatever of it. he believes miss gottorp to be the daughter of a berlin brewer who died and left her a fortune. no," he went on, "i detect in this affair one of markoff's clever plots. she probably believed that she was to meet young drury, and adopted that ruse to pause and speak with him--but--!" "but what?" i asked, turning and looking into his grave face, revealed by the light of a shop window. "well--she was led into a trap," he said. "decoyed away into one of the side streets, perhaps--and then--well, who knows what might have happened?" "you have searched eastbourne, i suppose?" "the criminal investigation department are doing so," he said. "i am making a perfectly independent inquiry." "you have reported nothing yet to petersburg--eh?" "not a word. what can i say? i have asked miss west to refrain from uttering a syllable--also the finlays have promised entire secrecy." "there is a motive in her disappearance, hartwig," i said. "what is it?" "ah! that's just it, mr trewinnard," he replied. "her highness had no motive whatever to disappear. mr drury was always welcome at brunswick square, for miss west entirely approved of him. besides, his presence had prevented other flirtations. therefore there was no reason that there should have been any clandestine meeting in eastbourne." "then the only other suggestion is that of treachery." "exactly. and that is the correct one--depend upon it." "if she has fallen into markoff's hands then she may be already dead!" i gasped, staring at him. "if so, the secret will remain a secret for ever!" for a moment the great detective remained silent. then slowly he said: "to tell the truth, that is exactly what i fear. yes, i will try and suppress the horrible apprehension. it is too terrible." "danilovitch is unscrupulous," i said, "and he hates us." "no doubt he does. he fears us, yet--" and he paused. "yet a most curious point is the fact that her highness deliberately remained behind and sent dmitri on, in order to be allowed opportunity to escape his vigilance." "all cleverly planned by her enemies," i declared. "she was misled, and fell into some very cunningly-baited trap, without a doubt. do you believe she is still in eastbourne?" "no." "neither do i," was my assertion. "she went to london, no doubt, for there she would be easily concealed--if death has not already overtaken her--as it has overtaken poor madame de rosen." "i trust not," he said very thoughtfully. then he added: "i have been thinking whether we might not again approach danilovitch?" "he is our enemy and hers. he will give us no satisfaction," i said. "certainly, whatever plot suggested by markoff arose in his fertile brain. and his plots usually have the same result--the death of the victim. it may be so in this case," i added reflectively; "but i sincerely trust not." hartwig drew a long breath. his face clouded. "remember," he said, "it is to markoff's advantage--indeed to him her death means the suppression of some disgraceful truth. if she lives-- then his fall is imminent. i have foreseen this all along, hence my constant precaution, which, alas! was relaxed last monday, because i had to go to london to consult the ambassador. they evidently were aware of that." i explained the failure of my errand, whereat he drew a long breath and said: "it almost seems, mr trewinnard, that our enemies have secured the advantage of us, after all. i really feel they have." "you fear that the trap into which her highness has fallen is a fatal one--eh?" i asked, glancing at him quickly. "what can i reply?" he said in a low tone. "every inquiry i can devise is in progress. all the ports are watched, and observation is kept night and day upon the house in lower clapton from a house opposite, which matthews, of new scotland yard, has taken for the purpose. her highness has not been there--up to now. markoff is in petersburg." the great detective--the man whose cleverness in the detection of crime was perhaps unequalled in europe--drew a long, thoughtful face as he halted with me beneath a street-lamp. people hurried past us, ignorant of the momentous question we were discussing. "where is drury?" i asked suddenly. "ah! that is yet another point," answered hartwig. "he, too, is missing--he has disappeared!" chapter twenty seven. at tzarskoie-selo. just before eleven o'clock that night, accompanied by hartwig, i called at richard drury's cosy artistic flat in albemarle street, and in answer to my questions his valet, a tall, thin-faced young man, informed me that his master was not at home. "i understand that you have had no news of him since last monday?" i said. "the fact is, this gentleman is a detective, and we are endeavouring to elucidate the mystery of mr drury's disappearance." the valet recognised hartwig as having called before, and invited us into the small bachelor sitting-room, over the mantelpiece of which were many photographs of its owner's friends--the majority being of the opposite sex. "well, sir, it's a complete mystery," the man replied. "my master slept here on sunday night, and left for the country on monday afternoon. he had a directors' meeting at westminster on tuesday, and told me that he should be back at midday. but he has never returned. that's all. they sent round from the office to know if he was in town, and of course i told them that he had not come back." "have there been any callers lately?" i asked. "has a lady been here?" "only one lady ever calls, sir--a foreign lady named gottorp." "and has she been here lately?" i inquired quickly. "she called on the friday, and they went out together to lunch at jules's. she often calls. she's a very nice young lady, sir." "she hasn't called since monday?" i asked. "no, sir. a stranger--a foreigner--called on tuesday afternoon and inquired for mr drury." "a foreigner!" i exclaimed. "who was he? describe him." "oh! he was a dark, middle-aged man, dressed in a shabby brown suit. he wanted to see mr drury very particularly." hartwig and i exchanged glances. was the caller an agent of secret police. "what did he say when you told him of your master's absence?" "he seemed rather puzzled, and went away expressing his intention of calling again." "he was a stranger?" "i'd never seen him before, sir." "and this miss gottorp--is your master very attached to her?" "he worships her, as the sayin' is, sir," replied the man frankly. "she lives down at brighton, and he spends half his time there on her account." "you say your master left london for the country on monday afternoon. what was his destination?" "ah, i don't know. i only know he drove to victoria, but whether he left by the south eastern or the south coast line is a mystery." i had already formed a theory that drury had travelled down to eastbourne and had met his well-beloved outside the shop in terminus road. afterwards both had disappeared! my amazement was mingled with annoyance and chagrin. natalia had, alas! too little regard for the _convenances_. she had acted foolishly, with that recklessness which had always characterised her and had already scandalised the imperial family. now it had resulted in her becoming victim of some dastardly plot, the exact nature of which was not yet apparent. for half an hour we both questioned drury's valet, but could learn little of further interest. therefore we left, and strolled along piccadilly as far as st james's club, where, until a late hour, we sat discussing the sensational affair. was it an elopement, or had they both fallen victims of some cleverly-conceived trap in which we detected the sinister hand of his excellency general serge markoff? next day i returned to brighton and closely questioned miss west, the maid davey, and the puzzled dmitri. i saw the manager of the hotel where drury was in the habit of staying, and, discovering that drury's friend, doctor ingram, lived in gower street, i resumed to london and that same night succeeded in running him to earth. he was perfectly frank. "dick has disappeared as suddenly as if the earth has swallowed him," he declared. "i can't make it out, especially as he told me he had a most important directors' meeting last tuesday, and that he must travel up to greenock on thursday to be present at the launch of a new cruiser which his firm is building for the admiralty. he certainly would have kept those two appointments had he been free to do so." "you knew miss gottorp, i believe?" i asked of the quiet-mannered, studious young man in gold-rimmed glasses. "quite well. dick's man told me yesterday that the young lady has also disappeared," he said. "it is really most extraordinary. i can't make it out. dick is not the kind of man to elope, you know. he's too straightforward and honourable. besides, he was always made most welcome at brunswick square--though, between ourselves, the young lady though inexpressibly charming, was always a very great mystery to me. i went with dick twice to her house, and on each occasion saw men, foreigners they seemed, lurking about the hall. they eyed one suspiciously, and i did not like to visit her on that account." i pretended ignorance, but could see that he held natalia in some suspicion. indeed, he half hinted that for aught they knew, the pretty young lady might be some clever foreign adventuress. at that i laughed heartily. what would he think if i spoke the truth? next day i put into the personal columns of several of the london newspapers an advertisement which read: "gottorp.--have returned: very anxious; write club--uncle colin." then for four days i waited for a reply, visiting the club a dozen times each day, but all in vain. i called at chesham house one afternoon and had a chat with his excellency the russian ambassador. he was unaware of her imperial highness's disappearance, and i did not inform him. i wanted to know what knowledge he possessed, and whether markoff was still in petersburg. i discovered that he knew nothing, and that at that moment the chief of secret police was with the emperor at the military manoeuvres in progress on that great plain which stretches from the town of ivanovo across to the western bank of the broad volga. hartwig was ever active, night and day, but no trace could we find of the missing couple. drury's friends, on their part, were making inquiry in every direction, but all to no avail. the pair had entirely disappeared. the house of the conspirators in lower clapton was being watched night and day, but as far as it could be observed there was little or no activity in that quarter. danilovitch was still living there in retirement, going out only after dark, and though he was always shadowed it could not be found that he ever called at any other place than a little shop kept by a russian cigarette-maker in dean street, soho, and a small eight-roomed villa in north finchley, where lived a compatriot named felix sasonoff, the london correspondent of one of the petersburg daily newspapers. our warning had, it seemed, had its effect. much as we desired to approach the mysterious head of the so-called revolutionary organisation--the man known as "the one," but whose identity was veiled in mystery--we dared not do so, knowing that he was our bitterest enemy. one morning, in despair at obtaining no trace of the missing pair, i resolved to travel to petersburg and there make inquiry. i realised that i must inform the emperor, even at risk of his displeasure, for, after all, i had been compelled by my journey to siberia to relax my vigilance, though i had left the little madcap under hartwig's protection. what if they had actually eloped! alas! i knew too well the light manner in which natalia regarded the conventions of old-fashioned mother grundy. indeed, it had often seemed her delight to commit breaches of the imperial etiquette and to cause horror in her family. yet surely she would never commit such an unpardonable offence as to elope with richard drury! again, was she already dead? that was, i confess, my greatest fear, knowing well the desperate cunning of serge markoff, and all that her decease meant to him. so, with sudden resolve, i took the nord express once more back across europe, and four days later found myself again in my old room at the embassy, where stoyanovitch brought me a command to audience from the emperor. how can i adequately describe the interview, which took place in a spacious room in the palace of tzarskoie-selo. "so your friend madame de rosen was unfortunately dead before you reached yakutsk," remarked his majesty gravely, standing near the window in a brilliant uniform covered with glittering decorations, for he had just returned from an official function. "i heard of it," he added. "the governor-general vorontzoff reported to me by telegraph. indeed, trewinnard, i had frequent reports of your progress. i am sorry you undertook such a journey all in vain." "i beg of your majesty's clemency towards the dead woman's daughter luba," i asked. but he only made a gesture of impatience, saying: "i have already demanded a report on the whole case. until that comes, i regret i cannot act. vorontzoff will see that the girl is not sent farther north, and no doubt she will be well treated." in a few brief words i described some of the scenes i had witnessed on the great post road, but the emperor only sighed heavily and replied: "i regret it, i tell you. but how can i control the loyal cossacks sent to escort those who have made attempts upon my life? i admit most freely that the exile system is wrong, cruel--perhaps inhuman. yet how can it be altered?" "if your majesty makes searching inquiry, he will find some terrible injustices committed in the name of the law." "in confidence, i tell you, i am having secret inquiry made in certain quarters," he replied. "and, trewinnard, i wish you, if you will, to make out for me a full and confidential report on your journey, and i will then have all your allegations investigated." i thanked him. though an autocrat, he was yet a humane and just ruler-- when he was allowed to exercise justice, which, unfortunately, was but seldom. "my journey had a tragic sequel in yakutsk, sire," i said presently, "and upon my return to england i was met with still another misfortune-- a misfortune upon which i desire to consult your imperial majesty." "what?" he asked, opening his eyes widely. "a further misfortune?" "i regret to be compelled to report that her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia has disappeared," i said in a low voice. his dark, heavy brows narrowed, his cheeks went pale, and his lips compressed. "disappeared!" he gasped. "what do you mean? describe this latest escapade of hers--for i suppose it is some ridiculous freak or other?" "i fear not, sire," was my reply. then, having described to him the facts as i have related them here to you, my reader, omitting, of course, all reference to richard drury, i added: "what i fear is that her highness has fallen victim to some revolutionary plot." "why? what motive can the revolutionary party have in making an attempt upon her--a mere giddy girl?" "the fame motive which incited the attempt in petersburg, in which her lamented father lost his life," was my quiet reply. his majesty touched a bell, and in answer stoyanovitch appeared upon the threshold and saluted. "if general markoff is still here i desire to see him immediately." the captain saluted, backed out and withdrew. i held my breath. this was, indeed, a misfortune. i had no wish that markoff should know of the inquiries i was instituting. "may i venture to make a request of your majesty?" i asked in a low, uncertain voice. "what is it?" he asked with quick irritation. "that general markoff shall be allowed to remain in ignorance of her highness's disappearance?" "why?" asked the emperor, looking across at me in surprise. "because--well, because, for certain reasons, i believe secrecy at present to be the best course," i replied somewhat lamely. "nonsense!" was his abrupt response. "natalia is missing. you suspect that she has fallen victim to some conspiracy. therefore markoff must know, and our secret police must investigate. markoff knows of every plot as soon as it is conceived. his organisation is marvellous. he will probably know something. fortunately, he had only just left me on your arrival." his excellency probably left the emperor's presence because he did not wish to meet me face to face. again i tried to impress upon his majesty that, as hartwig had commenced an investigation in england, the matter might be left to him. but he only replied: "hartwig is head of the criminal police. he therefore has little, if any, knowledge of the revolutionaries. no, trewinnard. this is essentially a matter for markoff." i bit my lips, for next second the white-enamelled steel door of that bomb-proof room in which we were standing was thrown open, and a chamberlain announced: "his excellency general serge markoff!" chapter twenty eight. the emperor's favourite. for a second the famous chief of secret police turned his cunning, steel-blue eyes upon mine and bowed slightly, after making obeisance to his majesty. "why, i believed, mr trewinnard, that you were still in siberia!" he said with a crafty smile. though my bitterest enemy, he always feigned the greatest friendliness. "trewinnard has just revealed a very painful and serious fact, markoff," exclaimed the emperor, in a deep, earnest voice. "her highness the grand duchess natalia has disappeared." the general gave no sign of surprise. "it has already been reported to us," was his calm answer. "i have not reported it, in turn, to your majesty, fearing to cause undue alarm. both here and in england we are instituting every possible inquiry." "another plot," i remarked, with considerable sarcasm, i fear. "probably," was his excellency's reply, as he turned to his imperial master, and in that fawning voice of his, added: "your majesty may rest assured that if her highness be alive she will be found, wherever she may be." hatred--hatred most intense--arose within my heart as i glanced at the sinister face of the favourite before me, the man who had deliberately ordered the commission of that crime which had resulted in the death of the emperor's brother, the grand duke nicholas. to his orders had been due that exciting episode in which i had so nearly lost my life in siberia; at his orders, too, poor marya de rosen had been deliberately sent to her grave; and at his orders had been planned the conspiracy against the grand duchess which danilo danilovitch had intended to carry into execution, and would no doubt have done, had he not been prevented by hartwig's boldness. i longed to turn and denounce him before his imperial master. indeed, hot, angry words were upon my lips, but i suppressed them. no! the time was not yet ripe. natalia herself had promised to make the revelations, and to her i must leave them. i must find her--and then. "ah!" exclaimed his majesty, well pleased. "i knew that you would be already informed, markoff. you know everything. nothing which affects my family ever escapes you." "i hope not, sire. i trust i may ever be permitted to display my loyalty and gratitude for the confidence which your majesty sees fit to repose in me." "to your astuteness, markoff, i have owed my life a score of times," the emperor declared. "i have already acknowledged your devoted services. now make haste and discover the whereabouts of my harebrained little niece, tattie, for the little witch is utterly incorrigible." markoff, pale and hard-faced, was silent for a moment. then with a strange expression upon his grey, deceitful countenance he said: "perhaps i should inform your majesty of one point which to-day was reported to us from england--namely, that it is believed that her highness has fled with--well, with a lover--a certain young englishman." "a lover!" roared the emperor, his face instantly white with anger. "another lover! who is he, pray?" "his name is richard drury," his excellency replied. "then the girl has created an open scandal! the english and french newspapers will get hold of it, and we shall have detailed accounts of the elopement--eh?" he cried excitedly. "this, markoff, is really too much!" then turning to me he asked: "what do you know of this young drury? tell me, trewinnard." "very little, sire, except that he is her friend, and that he is in ignorance of her true station." "but are they in love with each other?" he demanded in a hard voice. "have you neglected my instructions and allowed clandestine meetings-- eh?" "unfortunately my journey across siberia prevented my exercising due vigilance," i faltered. "yet she gave me her word of honour that she would form no male attachment." "bosh!" he cried angrily, as he crossed the room. "no girl can resist falling in love with a man if he is good-looking and a gentleman--at least, no girl of tattie's high spirits and disregard for the _convenances_. you were a fool, trewinnard, to accept the girl's word." "i believed in the honour of a lady," i said in mild reproach, "and especially as the lady was a romanoff." "the romanoff women are as prone to flirtation as any commoner of the same sex," he declared hastily. "markoff knows of more than one scandal which has had to be faced and crushed out during the last five years. but this fellow drury," he added impatiently, "who is he?" in a few brief sentences i told him what i knew concerning him. "you think they have fallen in love?" "i am fully convinced of it, sire." "therefore they may have eloped! tattie's disappearance may have no connection with any revolutionary plot--eh?" "it may not. but upon that point i am quite undecided," was my reply. "let me hear your views, markoff," said the emperor sharply. "i believe that her highness has fallen the victim of a plot," was his quick reply. "the man drury may have shared the same fate." "fate!" he echoed. "do you anticipate, then, that the girl is dead?" "alas, sire! if she has fallen into the hands of the revolutionists, then without doubt she is dead," was the cunning official's reply. was he revealing to his imperial master a fact that he knew? was he preparing the emperor for the receipt of bad news? i glanced at his grey, coarse, sphinx-like countenance, and felt convinced that such was the case. had she, after all, fallen a victim of his craft and cunning, and were her lips sealed for ever? i stood there staring at the pair, the emperor and his all-powerful favourite, like a man in a dream. suddenly i roused myself with the determination that i would leave no stone unturned to unmask this man and reveal him in his true light to the sovereign who had trusted him so complacently, and had been so ingeniously blinded and misled by this arch-adventurer, to whose evil machinations the death of so many innocent persons were due. "then you are not certain whether, after all, it is an elopement?" asked the emperor, glancing at him a few moments later. and turning impatiently to me he said in reproach: "i gave her into your hands, trewinnard. you promised me solemnly to exercise all necessary vigilance in order to prevent a repetition of that affair in moscow, when the madcap was about to run away to london. yet you relaxed your vigilance and she has escaped while you have been on your wild-goose chase through siberia." "with greatest respect to your majesty, i humbly submit that my mission was no wild-goose chase. it concerned a woman's honour and her liberty," and i glanced at markoff's grey, imperturbable countenance. "but the unfortunate lady was sent to her death--purposely killed by exhaustion and exposure, ere i could reach yakutsk." "she was a dangerous person," the general snapped, with a smile of sarcasm. "yes," i said in a hard, bitter voice. "she was marked as such upon the list of exiles--and treated as such--treated in a manner that no woman is treated in any other country which calls itself christian!" i saw displeasure written upon the emperor's face, therefore i apologised for my outburst. "it ill becomes you, an englishman, to criticise our penal system, trewinnard," the emperor remarked in quiet rebuke. "and, moreover, we are not discussing it. madame de rosen conspired against my life and she is dead. therefore the question is closed." "i believe when your majesty comes to ascertain the truth--the actual truth," i said, glancing meaningly at markoff, who was then standing before the sovereign, his hands clasped behind his back, "that you will discover some curious connection between the death of marya de rosen in the yakutsk prison and the disappearance and probable death of her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia." "what do you mean?" he asked, staring at me in surprise. "for answer," i said, "i must, with great respect, direct your majesty to his excellency general markoff, who is aware of all that concerns the imperial family. he probably knows the truth regarding the strange disappearance of the young lady, and what connection it has with madame de rosen's untimely end." "i really do not understand you," cried the renowned chief of secret police, drawing himself up suddenly. "what do you infer?" "his majesty is anxious to learn the truth," i said, looking straight into those cunning blue eyes of his. "your excellency, a loyal and dutiful subject, will, i trust, now make full revelation of what has really happened during the past twelve months, and what secret tie existed between her highness and marya de rosen." his face went white as paper. but only for a single second. he always preserved the most marvellous self-control. "i do not follow your meaning," he declared. "madame de rosen's death was surely no concern of mine. many other politicals have died on their way to the arctic settlements." "you speak in enigmas, trewinnard. pray be more explicit," the emperor urged. i could see that my words had suddenly aroused his intense curiosity, although well aware of the antagonism in which i held the dreaded oppressor of holy russia. "i regret, your majesty, that i cannot be more explicit," i said. "his excellency will reveal the truth--a strange truth. if not, i myself will do so. but not, however, to-day. his excellency must be afforded an opportunity of explaining circumstances of which he is aware. therefore i humbly beg to withdraw." and i crossed to the door and bowed low. "as you wish, trewinnard," answered the emperor impatiently, as with a wave of the hand he indicated that my audience was at an end. so as i backed out, bowing a second time, and while markoff stood there in statuesque silence, his face livid, i added in a clear voice: "ask his excellency for the truth--the disgraceful truth! he alone knows. let him find her imperial highness--if he can--if he dare!" then i opened the door and made my exit, full of wonder at what might occur when the pair were alone. chapter twenty nine. presents another problem. on returning to petersburg that evening and entering the embassy, i found a telegram from hartwig, summoning me back to london immediately. there were no details, only the words: "return here at once." all my letters to the club i had ordered to be sent to him during my absence, so i wondered whether he had received any communication from the missing pair. with the knowledge that any telegrams to me would be copied and sent to the bureau of secret police, he had wisely omitted any reason for my return to london. i sent him, through the bureau of detective police, the message to wire me details to the esplanade hotel in berlin, and at midnight left by the ordinary train for the german frontier. four eager anxious days i spent on that never-ending journey between the neva and the channel. at berlin, on calling at the hotel, i received no word from him, only when i entered the st james's club at five o'clock on the afternoon of my arrival at charing cross did i find him awaiting me. "well," i asked anxiously, as i entered the square hall of the club, "what news?" "she's alive," he said. "she saw your advertisement and has replied!" "thank heaven!" i gasped. "where is she?" "here is the address," and he drew from his pocket-book a slip of paper, with the words written in natalia's own hand: "miss stebbing, glendevon house, lochearnhead, perthshire." and with it he handed the note which had come to the club and which he had opened--a few brief words merely enclosing her address and telling me to exercise the greatest caution in approaching her. "i have been watched by very suspicious persons," she added, "and so i am in hiding here. when you can come, do so. i am extremely anxious to see you." "what do you make of that?" i asked the famous police official. "that she scented danger and escaped," he replied. "my first intention was to go up to scotland to see her, but on reflection i thought, sir, that you might prefer to go alone." "i do. i shall leave euston by the mail to-night and shall be there to-morrow morning. she has, i see assumed another name." "yes, and she has certainly gone to an outlandish spot where no one would have thought of searching for her." "drury suggested it, without a doubt. he knows scotland so well," i said. therefore yet another night i spent in a sleeping-car between euston and perth, eating scones for breakfast in the station hotel at the latter place, and leaving an hour later by way of crieff and st fillans, to the beautiful bank of loch earn, lying calm and blue in the spring sunshine. at the farther end of the loch the train halted at the tiny station of lochearnhead, a small collection of houses at the end of the picturesque little lake, where the green wooded banks sloped to the water's edge. quiet, secluded, and far from the bustle of town or city it was. i found a rural little lake-side village, with a post-office and general shop combined, and a few charming old-world cottages inhabited by sturdy, homely scottish folk. of a brown-whiskered shepherd passing near the station i inquired for glendevon house, whereupon he pointed to a big white country mansion high upon the hill-side, commanding a wide view across the loch and surrounding hills; a house hemmed in by tall firs, fresh in their bright spring green. a quarter of an hour later, having climbed the winding road leading to it, i entered the long drive flanked by rhododendrons, and was approaching the house when, across the lawn a slim female figure, in a white cotton gown, with a crimson flower in the corsage, came flying toward me, crying: "uncle colin! uncle colin! at last!" and a moment later natalia wrung my hand warmly, her cheeks flushed with pleasure at our encounter. "whatever is the meaning of this latest escapade?" i asked. "you've given everybody a pretty fright, i can tell you." "i know, uncle colin. but you'll forgive me, won't you? say you do," she urged. "i can't before i know what has really happened." "let's go over to that seat," she suggested, pointing to a rustic bench set invitingly on the lawn beneath a spreading oak, "and i'll tell you everything." then as we walked across the lawn she regarded me critically and said: "how thin you are! how very travel-worn you look!" "ah!" i sighed. "i've been a good many thousand miles since last i saw your highness." "i know. and how is poor marya? you found her, of course." "alas!" i said in a low voice, "i did not. my journey was of no avail. she died a few hours before my arrival in yakutsk!" "died in yakutsk," she echoed in a hoarse whisper halting and looking at me. "poor marya dead! and luba?" "luba is well, but still in prison." "dead!" repeated the girl, speaking to herself, "and so your long winter journey was all in vain!" "utterly useless," i said. "then, on returning to london a fortnight ago, i learned that you had mysteriously disappeared. i have been back to petersburg and informed the emperor." "and what did he say? was he at all anxious?" she asked quickly. "it is known that drury has also disappeared, and therefore his majesty believes that you have fled together." "so we did, but it was not an elopement. no, dear old uncle colin, you needn't be horribly scandalised. mrs holbrook, the owner of this place, is dick's aunt, and he brought me here so that i might hide from my enemies." "then where is he?" "staying at the hotel over at st fillans, at the other end of the loch, under the name of gregory. fortunately his aunt has only recently bought this place, so he has never been here before. she is extremely kind to me." "then you often see drury--eh?" "oh, yes, we spend each day together. dick comes over by the eleven o'clock train. it is such fun--much better than brighton." "but the london police are searching everywhere for you both," i said. "this is a long way from london," she replied with a bright laugh; "they are not likely to find us, nor are those bitter enemies of ours." "what enemies?" "the revolutionists. there is a desperate plot against me. of that i am absolutely convinced," she said as she sank upon the rustic garden seat beneath the tree. the sunny view over loch and woodland was delightful, and the pretty garden and fir wood surrounding were full of birds singing their morning song. "but you told neither hartwig nor dmitri of your fears," i remarked. "why not?" and i looked straight into her beautiful face, lit by the brilliant sunshine. "well, i will tell you, uncle colin," she said, leaning back, putting her neat little brown shoe forth from the hem of her white gown, and folding her bare arms as she turned to me. "dick one day discovered that wherever we went we were followed by dmitri, and, as you may imagine, i had considerable difficulty in explaining his constant presence. but dick loves me, and hence believes every word i tell him. he--" "i know, you little minx," i interrupted reprovingly, "you've bewitched him. i only fear lest your mutual love may lead to unhappiness." "that's just it. i don't know exactly what will happen when he learns who i really am." "he must be told very soon," i said; "but go on, explain what happened." "ah! no," cried the girl in quick alarm; "you must not tell him. he must not know. if so, it means our parting, and--and--" she faltered, her big, expressive eyes glistened with unshed tears. "well--you know, uncle colin--you know how fondly i love dick." "yes, i know, my child," i sighed. "but continue, tell me all about your disappearance and its motive." now that i had found her i saw to what desperate straights markoff must be reduced. he had, after all, no knowledge of her whereabouts. "it was like this," she said. "one evening we had walked along the cliffs to rottingdean together. dmitri had not followed us, or else he had missed us before we left brighton. but just as we were coming down the hill, after passing that big girls' college, dick noticed that we were being followed by a man, who he decided was a foreigner. he was, i saw, a thin-faced man with a black moustache and deeply-furrowed brow, and then i recognised him as a man whom i had seen on several previous occasions. i recollected that he followed us that night on the pier when you first saw dick walking with doctor ingram." "a man of middle height, undoubtedly a russian," i cried. "i remember him distinctly. his name is danilo danilovitch--a most dangerous person." "ah!" she exclaimed, "i see you know him. well, at the moment i was not at all alarmed, but next day i received an anonymous letter telling me to exercise every precaution. there was a revolutionary plot to kill me. it was intended to kill both dick and myself. i showed him the letter. at first he was puzzled to know why the revolutionary party should seek to assassinate a mere girl like myself, but again he accepted my explanation that it was in revenge for some action of my late father, and eventually we resolved to disappear together and remain in hiding until you returned. then, according to what marya de rosen had told you, i intended to act." "alas! i learnt nothing." "ah!" she sighed. "that is the unfortunate point. i am undecided now how to act." "explain how you managed to elude dmitri's vigilance in eastbourne." "well, on that evening in eastbourne i induced miss west, gladys finlay and dmitri to walk on to the station, and i entered a shop. when i came cut, dick joined me. we slipped round a corner, and after hurrying through a number of back streets found ourselves again on the esplanade. we walked along to pevensey, whence that night we took train to hastings, and arrived in london just before eleven. at midnight we left euston for scotland, and next morning found ourselves in hiding here. i was awfully sorry to give poor miss west such a fright, and i knew that hartwig would be moving heaven and earth to discover me. but i thought it best to escape and lie quite low until your return. i telegraphed to you guardedly to the british consulate in moscow, hoping that you might receive the message as you passed through." "i was only half an hour in moscow, and did not leave the station," i replied. "otherwise i, no doubt, should have received it." "to telegraph to russia was dangerous," she remarked. "the secret police are furnished with copies of all telegrams coming from abroad, and markoff is certainly on the alert." "no doubt he is," i said. "as you well know, he is desperately anxious to close your lips. now that poor marya is dead, you alone are in possession of his secret--whatever it may be." "and for that reason," she said slowly, her fine eyes fixed straight before her across the blue waters of the loch, "he has no doubt decided that i, too, must die." "exactly; therefore it now remains for your highness to reveal to the emperor the whole truth concerning those letters and the secret which resulted in marya de rosen's arrest and death. it is surely your duly! you have no longer to respect the promise of secrecy which you gave her. her death must be avenged--and by you--_and you alone_," i added very quietly and in deep earnestness. "you must see the emperor--you must tell him the whole truth in the interests of his own safety--in the interests, also, of the whole nation." my dainty little companion remained silent, her eyes still fixed, her slim white fingers toying nervously with her skirt. "and forsake dick?" she asked presently in a low voice which trembled with emotion. "no, uncle colin. no, don't ask me!" she urged. "i really can't do that--i really can't do that. i--i love him far too well." i sighed. and of a sudden, ere i was aware of it the girl, torn by conflicting emotions, burst into a flood of tears. there, at her side i sat utterly at a loss what to say in order to mitigate her distress; for too well i knew that the pair loved each other truly, nay, madly. i knew that the love of an imperial grand duchess of the greatest family in europe is just as intense, just is passionate, just as fervent as that of a commoner, be she only a typist, a seamstress, or a serving-maid. the same feelings, the same emotions, the same passionate longings and tenderness; the same loving heart bests beneath the corsets of the patrician as beneath those of the plebeian. you, my friendly readers, each of you--be you man or woman, love to-day, or have loved long ago. your love is human, your affection firm, strong and undying, differing in no particular to the emotions experienced by the peasant in the cottage or the princess of the blood-royal. i looked at the little figure on the rustic seat at my side, and all my sympathy went out to her. i have loved once, just as you have, my reader; and i knew, alas! what she suffered, and how she foresaw opened before her the grave of all her hopes, of all her aspirations, of all her love. she was committing the greatest sin pronounced by the unwritten law of her imperial circle. she loved a commoner! to go forward, to speak and save her nation from the depredations of that unscrupulous camarilla, the council of ministers, would mean to her the abandonment of the young englishman she loved so intensely and devotedly--the sacrifice, alas! of all she held most dear in life by the betrayal of her identity. chapter thirty. reveals the gulf. having been introduced to mrs holbrook--a pleasant-fated old lady in a white-laced cap with mauve ribbons--i made excuse to "miss stebbing" to leave, and took train a quarter of an hour later back to st fillans. from the village post-office i sent an urgent wire to hartwig to go again to lower clapton, see danilovitch, explain how her highness had discovered the plot against her, and assure him that if any attempt were male, proof of his treachery would be placed at once before his "comrades." i called at the hotel and inquired for mr gregory, but was informed that he was out fishing. but though i lunched there and waited till evening, yet he did not return. so again i took train back to lochearnhead, and with the golden sunset flashing upon the loch, climbed the hill path towards glendevon house--a nearer cut than by the carriage road. suddenly, as i turned the corner, i saw two figures going on before me-- natalia and richard drury. she wore a darker gown than in the morning, with simple, knockabout country hat, while he had on a rough tweed jacket and breeches. i drew back quickly when i recognised them. his arm was tenderly around her waist as they walked, and he was bending to her, speaking softly, as with slow steps they ascended through the hill-side copse. yes, they were indeed a handsome, well-matched pair. but i held, my breath, foreseeing the tragic grief which must ere long arise as the result of that forbidden affection. standing well back in the hedge, i gazed after their as with halting steps they went up that unfrequented scotch by-way, rough and grass-grown. suddenly they paused, and the man, believing that they were alone, took his well-beloved in his strong embrace, pushed back her hat, and imprinted a warm, passionate kiss upon her white, open brow. perhaps it was impolite to watch. i suppose it was; yet my sympathy was entirely with them. i, who had once loved and experienced a poignant sorrow as result, knew well all that they felt at that moment, especially now that the girl, even though an imperal princess, was compelled to decide between love and duty. unseen, i watched them cling to each other, exchanging fond, passionate caresses. i saw him tenderly push the dark hair from her eyes and again place his hot lips reverently to her brow. he held her small hand, and looking straight into her wonderful eyes, saw truth, honesty and pure affection mirrored there. they had halted. while the evening shadows fell he had placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder and was whispering in her ear, speaking words of passionate affection, in ignorance that between them, alas! lay a barrier of birth which could never be bridged. i felt myself a sneak and an eavesdropper; but i assure you it was with no idle curiosity--only because what i had witnessed aroused within me the most intense sorrow, because i knew that only a man's great grief and a woman's broken heart could accrue from that most unfortunate attachment. in all the world i held no girl in greater respect than natalia, the unconventional daughter of proud imperial romanoffs. indeed, i regarded her with considerable affection, if the truth were told. she had charmed me by her natural gaiety of heart, her disregard for irksome etiquette and her plain outspokenness. she was a typical outdoor girl. what the end of her affection for dick drury would be i dreaded to anticipate. again he bent, and kissed her upon the lips, her sweet face raised to his, aglow in the crimson sunset. he had clasped her tenderly to his heart, holding her there in his strong arms, while he rained his hot, fervent kisses upon her, and she stood in inert ecstasy. soon the shadows declined, yet the pair still stood there in silent enjoyment of their passionate love, all unconscious of observation. i drew a long breath. had i not myself long ago drunk the cup of happiness to the very dregs, just as dick drury was now drinking it--and ever since, throughout my whole career in those gay court circles in foreign cities, i had been obsessed by a sad and bitter remembrance. she had married a peer, and was now a great lady in london society. her pretty face often looked out at me from the illustrated papers, for she was one of england's leading hostesses, and mentioned daily in the "personal" columns. once she had sent me an invitation to a shooting-party at her fine castle in yorkshire. the irony of it all! i had declined in three lines of formal thanks. ah! yes. no man knew the true depths of grief and despair better than myself, therefore, surely, no man was more fitted to sympathise with that handsome couple, clasped at that moment in each other's arms. i turned back; i could endure it no longer, foreseeing tragedy as i did. descending the hill to the loch-side again, i found the carriage road, and approached the big white house. i was standing alone in the long, old-fashioned drawing-room, with its bright chintzes and bowls of potpourri, awaiting mrs holbrook, when the merry pair came in through the long french windows, from the sloping lawn. "why, uncle colin!" she gasped, starting and staring at me. "how long have you been here?" "only a few moments," i replied, and then, advancing, i shook drury's hand. he looked a fine, handsome fellow in his rough country tweeds. "so glad to meet you again, mr trewinnard," he said frankly, a smile upon his healthy, bronzed face. "i've heard from miss gottorp of your long journey across siberia. you've been away months--ever since the beginning of the winter! i've always had a morbid longing to see siberia. it must be a most dreadful place." "well, it's hardly a country for pleasure-seeking," i laughed; then changing my tone, i said: "you two have given me a nice fright! i returned to find you both missing, and feared lest something awful had happened to you." "fear of something happening caused us to disappear," he answered; then he practically repeated what natalia had told me earlier in the day. "my aunt very kindly offered to put miss gottorp up, and i have since lived down at st fillans under the name of gregory." i told him of the search in progress in order to discover him. but he declared that a scotch village or the back streets of a manufacturing town were the safest places in which to conceal oneself. "but how long do you two intend causing anxiety to your friends?" i asked, glancing from one to the other. natalia looked at her lover with wide-open eyes of admiration. "who knows?" she asked. "dick has to decide that." "but miss west and davey, and all of them at hove are distracted," i said, and then, turning to drury, added, "your man in albemarle street and the people at your offices in westminster are satisfied that you've met with foul play. you certainly ought to relieve their minds by making some sign." "i must, soon," he said. "but meanwhile--" and he turned his eyes upon his well-beloved meaningly. "meanwhile, you are both perfectly happy--eh?" "now don't lecture us, uncle colin!" cried the little madcap, leaning over the back of a chair and holding up her finger threateningly; and then to dick she added: "oh! you don't know how horrid my wicked uncle can be when he likes. he says such caustic things." "when my niece deserves them--and only then," i assured her lover. though dick drury was in trade a builder of ships, as his father before him, he was one of nature's gentlemen. there was nothing of the modern young man, clean-shaven, over-dressed, with turned-up trousers and bright socks. he was tall, lithe, strong, well and neatly dressed as became a man in his station--a man with an income of more than ten thousand a year, as i had already secretly ascertained. had not natalia been of imperial birth the match would have been a most suitable one, for dick drury was decidedly one of the eligibles. but her love was, alas! forbidden, and marriage with a commoner not to be thought of. they stood together laughing merrily, he bright, pleasant, and all unconscious of her true station, while she, sweet and winning, stood gazing upon him, flushed with pleasure at his presence. i was describing to drury the fright i had experienced on arrival in brighton to find them both missing, whereupon he interrupted, saying: "i hope you will forgive us in the circumstances, mr trewinnard. miss gottorp resolved to go into hiding until you returned to give her your advice. therefore, with my aunt's kind assistance, we managed to disappear completely." "my advice is quickly given," i said. "after to-night there will be no danger, therefore return and relieve the anxiety of your friends." "but how can you guarantee there is no danger?" asked the young man, looking at me dubiously. "i confess i'm at a loss to understand the true meaning of it all--why, indeed, any danger should arise. miss gottorp is so mysterious, she will tell me nothing," he said in a voice of complaint. for a moment i was silent. "there was a danger, drury--a real imminent danger," i said at last. "but i can assure you that it is now past. i have taken steps to remove it, and hope to-morrow morning to receive word by telegraph that it no longer exists." "how can you control it?" he queried. "what is its true nature? tell me," he urged. "no, i regret that i cannot satisfy your curiosity. it is--well--it's a family matter," i said; "therefore forgive me if i refuse to betray a confidence reposed in me as a friend of the family. it would not be fair to reveal anything told me in secrecy." "of course not," he said. "i fully understand, mr trewinnard. forgive me for asking. i did not know that the matter was so entirely confidential." "it is. but i can assure you that, holding the key to the situation as i do, and being in a position to dictate terms to miss gottorp's enemies, she need not in future entertain the slightest apprehension. the danger existed, i admit; but now it is over." "then you advise us to return, uncle colin?" exclaimed the girl, swaying herself upon the chair. "yes--the day after to-morrow." "you are always so weirdly mysterious," she declared. "i know you have something at the back of your mind. come, admit it." "i have only your welfare at heart," i assured her. "welfare!" she echoed, and as her eyes fixed themselves upon me she bit her lips. i knew, alas! the bitter trend of her thoughts. but her lover stood by, all unconscious of the blow which must ere long fall upon him, poor fellow. i pitied him, for i knew how much he was doomed to suffer, loving her so fondly and so well. he, of course, believed her to be a girl of similar social position to himself--a dainty little friend whom he had first met as a rather gawky schoolgirl at eastbourne, and their friendship had now ripened to love. "i feel that you, mr trewinnard, really have our welfare at heart," declared the young man earnestly. "i know in what very high esteem miss gottorp holds you, and how she has been awaiting your aid and advice." "i am her friend, drury, as i am yours," i declared. "i am aware that you love each other. i loved once, just as deeply, as fervently as you do. therefore--i know." "but we cannot go south--back to brighton," the girl declared. "i refuse." "why?" he asked. "mr trewinnard has given us the best advice. you need not now fear these mysterious enemies of yours who seem to haunt you so constantly." "ah!" she cried in a low, wild voice, "you do not know, dick! you don't know the truth--all that i fear--all that i suffer--for--for your sake! uncle colin knows." "for my sake!" he echoed, staring at her. "i don't quite follow you. what do you mean?" "i mean," she exclaimed in a low, hoarse voice, drawing herself up and standing erect, "i mean that you do not know what uncle colin is endeavouring to induce me to do--you do not realise the true tragedy of my position." "no, i don't," was his blunt response, his eyes wide-open in surprise. "oh, dick," she cried in despair, her voice trembling with emotion, "he speaks the truth when he urges me for my own sake to go south--to return again to hove. but, alas! if i followed his advice, sound though it is, it would mean that--that to-morrow we should part for ever!" "part!" gasped the young man, his face becoming white in an instant. "why?" "because--well, simply because all affection between us is forbidden," she faltered in a hoarse, half whisper, her beautiful face ashen pale, "because,"--she gasped, still clinging to the back of the chintz-covered chair, "because, although we love each other as passionately and as dearly as we do, we can never marry--never! between us there exists a barrier--a barrier strong but invisible, that can never be broken-- never--until the grave!" chapter thirty one. the painful truth. with her highness's permission i had despatched a reassuring telegram in the private cipher to the emperor prefixed by the word "bathildis"--a message which, i think, greatly puzzled the local postmaster at lochearnhead. another i had sent to miss west, and then returned to the small hotel at the loch-side where i intended to spend the night. i had left the pair together, and strolled out across the lawn. of what happened afterwards i was in ignorance. the girl had come in search of me a quarter of an hour later, pale, trembling and tearful, and in a broken voice told me that they had parted. i took her soft little hand, and looking straight into her eyes asked: "does he know the truth?" she shook her head slowly in the negative. "i--i have resolved to return to russia," she said simply, in a faltering voice. "to see the emperor?" i asked eagerly. "to tell him the truth--eh?" her white lips were compressed. she only drew a long, deep breath. "dick has gone," she said at last, in a strange, dreamy voice. "and-- and i must go back again to all the horrible dreariness and formality of the life to which, i suppose, i was born. ah! uncle colin--i--i can't tell you how i feel. my happiness is all at an end--for ever." "come, come," i said, placing my hand tenderly upon the girl's shoulder. "you will go back to petersburg--and you will learn to forget. we all of us have similar disappointments, similar sorrows. i, too, have had mine." but she only shook her head, bursting into tears as she slowly disengaged herself from me. then, with head sunk upon her chest in blank despair and sobbing bitterly, she turned from me, and in the clear, crimson afterglow, went slowly back up the garden-path to the house. i stood gazing upon her slim, dejected figure until it was lost around the bend of the laurels. then i retraced my steps towards the little lake-side village. at ten o'clock that night, while writing a letter in the small hotel sitting-room, richard drury was shown in. his face was paler than usual, hard and set. he apologised for disturbing me at that hour, but i offered him a chair and handed him my cigarette-case. his boots were very dusty, i noticed; therefore i surmised that since leaving his well-beloved he had been tramping the roads. "i am much puzzled, mr trewinnard," he blurted forth a moment later. "miss gottorp has suddenly sent me from her and refused to see me again." "that is to be much regretted," i said. "before i left i heard her declare that there were certain circumstances which rendered it impossible for you to marry. i therefore know that your interview this evening must have been a painful one." "painful!" he echoed wildly. "i love her, mr trewinnard! i confess it to you, because you are her friend and mine." "i honestly believe you do, drury. but," i sighed, "yours is, i fear, an unfortunate--a very unfortunate attachment." i was debating within myself whether or not it were wise to reveal to him natalia's identity. surely no good could now accrue from further secrecy, especially as she had resolved to return at once to russia. i saw how agitated the poor fellow was, and how deep and fervent was his affection for the girl who, after all, was sacrificing her great love to perform a duty to her oppressed nation and to avenge the lives of thousands of her innocent compatriots. "yes. i know that my affection for her is an unfortunate one," he said, in a thick voice. "she has talked strangely about this barrier between us, and how that marriage is not permitted to her. it is all so mysterious, so utterly incomprehensible, mr trewinnard. she is concealing something. she has some secret, and i feel sure that you, as an intimate friend of her family, are aware of it." then after a slight pause he grew calm and, looking me straight in the face, asked: "may i not know it? will you not tell me the truth?" "why should i, drury, when the truth must only cause you pain?" i queried. "you have suffered enough already. why not go away and forget? time heals most broken hearts." "it will never heal mine," he declared, adding: "her words this evening have greatly puzzled me. i cannot see why we may not marry. she has no parents, i understand. yet how is it that she seems eternally watched by certain suspicious-looking foreigners? why is her life--and even mine--threatened as it is?" for a few moments i did not speak. my eyes were fixed upon his strong, handsome face, tanned as it was by healthy exercise. "if you wish to add to your grief by ascertaining the truth, drury, i will tell you," i said quietly. "yes," he cried. "tell me--i can bear anything now. tell me why she refuses any longer to allow me at her side--i who love her so devotedly." "her decision is only a just one," i replied. "it must cause you deep grief, i know, but it is better for you to be made aware of the truth at once, for she knew that a great and poignant sorrow must fall upon you both one day." "why?" he asked, still puzzled and leaning in his chair towards me. "because the woman you love--whom you know as miss gottorp--has never yet revealed her true identity to you." "ah! i see!" he cried, starting to his feet. "i guess what you are going to say. she--she is already married!" "no." "thank god for that!" he gasped. "well, tell me." again i paused, my eyes fixed steadily upon his. "her true name is not gottorp. she is her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia olga nicolaievna of russia, niece of his majesty the emperor!" the man before me stared at me with open mouth in blank amazement. "the grand duchess natalia!" he echoed. "impossible!" "it is true," i went on. "at eastbourne, in her school-days, she was known as miss gottorp--which is one of the family names of the imperial romanoffs--and on her return to brighton she resumed that name. the suspicious-looking foreigners who have puzzled you by haunting her so continuously are agents of russian police, attached to her for her personal protection; while the threats against her have emanated from the revolutionary party. and," i added, "you can surely now see the existence of the barrier between you--you can discern why, at last, foreseeing tragedy in her love for you, her highness has summoned courage and, even though it has broken her heart, has resolved to part from you in order to spare you further anxiety and pain." for some moments he did not speak. "her family have discovered her friendship, i suppose," he murmured at last, in a low, despairing voice. "her family have not influenced her in the least," i assured him. "she told me the truth that she could not deceive you any longer, or allow you to build up false hopes, knowing as she did that you could never become her husband." "ah! my god! all this is cruel, mr trewinnard!" he burst forth, with clenched hands. "i have all along believed her to be a girl of the upper middle-class, like myself. i never dreamed of her real rank or birth which precluded her from becoming my wife! but i see it all now-- i see how--how utterly impossible it is for me to think of marriage with her imperial highness. i--i--" he could not finish his sentence. he stretched out his strong hand to me, and in a broken breath murmured a word of thanks. in his kind, manly eyes i saw the bright light of unshed tears. his voice was choked by emotion as, turning upon his heel, poor fellow! he abruptly left the room, crushed beneath the heavy blow which had so suddenly fallen upon him. chapter thirty two. at what cost! colonel paul polivanoff, marshal of the imperial court, gorgeous in his pale-blue and gold uniform of the nijni-novgorod dragoons, with many decorations, tapped at the white-enamelled steel door of his majesty's private cabinet in the palace of tzarskoie-selo, and then entered, announcing in french: "her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia and m'sieur colin trewinnard." nine days had passed since that parting of the lovers at lochearnhead, and now, as we stood upon the threshold of the bomb-proof chamber, i knew that our visit there in company was to be a momentous event in the history of modern russia. as we entered, the emperor, who had been busy with the pile of state documents upon his table, rose, settled the hang of his sword--for he was in a dark green military uniform, with the double-headed eagle of saint andrew in diamonds at his throat--and turned to meet us. towards me his majesty extended a cordial welcome, but i could plainly detect that his niece's presence caused him displeasure. "so you are back again in russia--eh, tattie?" he snapped in french, speaking in that language instead of russian because of my presence. "it seems that during your absence you have been guilty of some very grave indiscretions and more than one scandalous escapade--eh?" "i am here to explain to your majesty," the girl said quite calmly, and looking very pale and sweet in her half-mourning. "trewinnard has furnished me with reports," he said hastily, motioning her to a chair. "what you have to say, please say quickly, as i have much to do and am leaving for moscow to-night. be seated." "i am here for two reasons," she said, seating herself opposite to where he had sunk back into his big padded writing-chair, "to explain what you are pleased to term my conduct, and also to place your majesty in possession of certain facts which have been very carefully hidden from you." "another plot--eh?" he snapped. "there are plots everywhere just now." "a plot--yes--but not a revolutionary one," was her answer. "leave such things to markoff or to hartwig. they are not women's business," he cried impatiently. "rather explain your conduct in england. from what i hear, you have so far forgotten what is due to your rank and station as to fall in love with some commoner! markoff made a long report about it the other day. i have it somewhere," and he glanced back upon his littered table, whereon lay piled the affairs of a great and powerful empire. her cheeks flushed slightly, and i saw that her white-gloved hand twitched nervously. we had travelled together from petersburg, and upon the journey she had been silent and thoughtful, bracing herself up for an ordeal. "i care not a jot for any report of general markoff's," she replied boldly. "indeed, it was mainly to speak of him that i have asked for audience to-day." "to tell me something against him, i suppose, just because he has discovered your escapades in england--because he has dared to tell me the truth--eh, tattie?" he said, with a dry laugh. "so like a woman!" "if he has told you the truth about me, then it is the first time he has ever told your majesty the truth," she said, looking straight at the emperor. the sovereign glanced first at her with quick surprise and then at myself. "her imperial highness has something to report to your majesty, something of a very grave and important nature," i ventured to remark. "eh? eh?" asked the big bearded man, in his quick, impetuous way. "something grave--eh? well, tattie, what is it?" the girl, pale and agitated, held her breath for a few moments. then she said: "i know, uncle, that you consider me a giddy, incorrigible flirt. perhaps i am. but, nevertheless, i am in possession of a secret--a secret which, as it affects the welfare of the nation and of the dynasty, it is, i consider, my duty to reveal to you." "ah! revolutionists again!" "i beg of you to listen, uncle," she urged. "i have several more serious matters to place before you." "very well," he replied, smiling as though humouring her. "i am listening. only pray be brief, won't you?" "you will recollect the attempt planned to be made in the nevski on the early morning of our arrival from the crimea, and in connection with that plot a lady, a friend of mine and of mr trewinnard's, named madame de rosen, and her daughter luba were arrested and sent by administrative process to siberia?" "certainly. trewinnard went recently on a quixotic mission to the distressed ladies," he laughed. "but why, my dear child, refer to them further? they were conspirators, and i really have no interest in their welfare. the elder woman is, i understand, dead." "yes," the grand duchess cried fiercely; "killed by exposure, at the orders of general serge markoff." "oh!" he exclaimed, "then you have come here to denounce poor markoff as an assassin--eh? this is really most interesting." "what i have to relate to your majesty will, i believe, be found of considerable interest," she said, now quite calm and determined. "true, i have charged serge markoff with the illegal arrest and the subsequent death of an innocent woman. it is for me now to prove it." "certainly," said his imperial majesty, settling himself in his big chair, and placing the tips of his strong white fingers together in an attitude of listening. "then i wish to reveal to you a few facts concerning this man who wields such wide and autocratic power in our russia--this man who is the real oppressor of our nation, and who is so cleverly misleading and terrorising its ruler." "tattie! what are you saying?" "you will learn when i have finished," she said. "i am only a girl, i admit, but i know the truth--the scandalous truth--how you, the emperor, are daily deceived and made a catspaw by your clever and unscrupulous chief of secret police." "speak. i am all attention," he said, his brows darkening. "i have referred to poor marya de rosen," said the girl, leaning her elbow upon the arm of the chair and looking straight into her uncle's face. "if the truth be told, marya and serge markoff had been acquainted for a very long time. two years after the death of her husband, felix de rosen, the wealthy banker of odessa and warsaw, serge markoff, in order to obtain her money, married her." "married her!" echoed the emperor in a loud voice. "can you prove this?" "yes. three years ago, when i was living with my father in paris, i went alone one morning to the russian church in the rue daru, where, to my utter amazement, i found a quiet marriage-service in progress. the contracting parties were none other than general markoff and the widow, madame de rosen. beyond the priest and the sacristan, i was the only person in possession of the truth. they both returned to petersburg next day, but agreed to keep their marriage secret, as the general was cunning enough to know that marriage would probably interfere with his advancement and probably cause your majesty displeasure." "i had no idea of it!" he remarked, much surprised. "marya de rosen--or madame markoff, as she really was--frequently went to her husband's house, but always clandestinely and unknown to luba, who had no suspicion of the truth," the girl went on. "according to the story told to me by marya herself, a strange incident occurred at the general's house one evening. she had called there and been admitted, by the side entrance, by a confidential servant, and was awaiting the return of the general, who was having audience at the winter palace. while sitting alone, a young woman of the middle-class--probably an art-student--was ushered into the room by another servant, who believed marya was awaiting formal audience of his excellency. the girl was highly excited and hysterical, and finding marya alone, at once broke out in terrible invective against the general. marya naturally took markoff's part, whereupon the girl began to make all sorts of charges of conspiracy, and even murder, against him--charges which marya declared to the girl's face were lies. "suddenly, however, the girl plunged her hand deep into the pocket of her skirt and produced three letters, which, with a mocking laugh, she urged marya to read and then to judge his excellency accordingly. meanwhile, the manservant, having heard the girl's voice raised excitedly, entered and promptly ejected her, leaving the letters in marya's hands. she opened them. they were all in serge markoff's own handwriting, and were addressed to a certain man named danilo danilovitch, once a shoemaker at kazan, and now, in secret, the leader of the revolutionary party. "from the first of these marya saw that it was quite plain that the general--the man in whom your majesty places such implicit faith--had actually bribed the man with five thousand roubles and a promise of police protection to assassinate your majesty's brother, the grand duke peter michailovitch, from whom he feared exposure, as he had been shrewd enough to discover his double-dealing and the peculation of the public funds of which markoff had been guilty while holding the office of governor of kazan. six days after that letter," her highness added in a hard, clear voice, "my poor uncle peter was shot dead by an unknown hand while emerging from the opera house in warsaw." "ah! i remember!" exclaimed his majesty hoarsely, for the grand duke peter was his favourite brother, and his assassination had caused him the most profound grief. "of the other two letters--all of them having been in my possession," her highness went on, "one was a brief note, appointing a meeting for the following evening at a house near the peterhof station, in petersburg, while the third contained a most amazing confession. in the course of it general markoff wrote words to the following effect: `you and your chicken-hearted friends are utterly useless to me. i was present and watched you. when he entered the theatre you and your wretched friends were afraid--you failed me! you call yourself revolutionists--you, all of you, are without the courage of a mouse! i thought better of you. when you failed so ignominiously, i waited-- waited until he came out. where you failed, i was fortunately successful. he fell at the first shot. arrests were, of course, necessary. some of your cowardly friends deserve all the punishment they will get. forty-six have been arrested to-day. meet me to-morrow at eight p.m. at the usual rendezvous. you shall have the money all the same, though you certainly do not deserve it. destroy this.'" "where is that letter?" demanded his majesty quickly. "it has unfortunately been destroyed--destroyed by its writer. marya was aghast at these revelations of her husband's treachery and double-dealing, for while chief of secret police and your majesty's most trusted adviser he was actually aiding and abetting the revolutionists! she placed the letters which had so opportunely come into her possession into her pocket, and said nothing to markoff when he returned. but from that moment she distrusted him, and saw how ingenious and cunning were his dealings with both yourself and with the leader of the revolutionists. he, assisted by his catspaw, danilo danilovitch, formed desperate plots for the mere purpose of making whole sale arrests, and thus showing you how active and astute he was. danilo danilovitch--who, as `the one,' the leader whose actual identity is unknown by those poor deluded wretches who believe they can effect a change in russia by means of bombs--is as cunning and crafty as his master. it was he who threw the bomb at our carriage and who killed my poor dear father. he--" "how can you prove that?" demanded the emperor quickly. "i myself saw him throw the bomb," i said, interrupting. "the outrage was committed at markoff's orders." "impossible! why do you allege this, trewinnard? what motive could markoff have in killing the grand duke nicholas?" "the same that he had in ordering the arrest and banishment of his own wife and her daughter," was my reply. "her highness will make further explanation." "the motive was simply this," went on the girl, still speaking with great calmness and determination. "a few days before i left with your majesty on the tour of the empire, i called upon marya de rosen to wish her good-bye. on that occasion she gave me the three letters in question--which had apparently been stolen from danilovitch by the girl who had handed them to her. marya told me that she feared lest her husband, when he knew they were in her possession, might order a domiciliary visit for the purpose of securing possession of them. therefore she begged me, after she had shown me the contents and bound me to strictest silence, to conceal them. this i did. "while we were absent in the south nothing transpired, but danilovitch had arranged an attempt in the nevski on the morning of our return to petersburg. the plot was discovered at the eleventh hour, as usual and among those arrested was madame de rosen and luba. why? because your majesty's favourite, serge markoff, having discovered that the incriminating letters had been handed to his wife, knew that she, and probably luba, were aware of his secret. he feared that the evidence of his crime must have passed into other hands, and dreading lest his wife should betray him, he ordered her arrest as a dangerous political. after her arrest he saw her, and, hoping for her release, she explained how she had handed the letters to me for safe-keeping, and confessed that i was aware of the shameful truth. she was not, however, released, but sent to her grave. for that same reason markoff ordered his agent danilovitch to throw the bomb at the carriage in which i was riding with my poor father and mr trewinnard." "but i really cannot give credence to all this!" exclaimed the emperor, who had risen again and was standing near the window which looked out upon the courtyard of the palace, whence came the sound of soldiers drilling and distant bugle-calls. "presently your majesty shall be given a complete proof," his niece responded. "danilovitch has confessed. at markoff's orders--which he was compelled to carry out, fearing that if he refused the all-powerful chief of secret police would betray him to his comrades as a spy--he, at imminent risk of being shot by the sentries, visited our palace on four occasions, and succeeded at last, after long searches, in discovering the letters where i had hidden them for safety in my old nursery, and, securing them, he handed them back to his master." "then this danilovitch is a revolutionist paid by markoff to perform his dirty work--eh?" asked the emperor angrily. "he is paid, and paid well, to organise conspiracies against your majesty's person," i interrupted. "the majority of the plots of the past three years have been suggested by markoff himself, and arranged by danilovitch, who finds it very easy to beguile numbers of his poor deluded comrades into believing that the revolution will bring about freedom in russia. a list of these he furnishes to markoff before each attempt is discovered, hence the astute chief of secret police is always able to put his hand upon the conspirators and to furnish a satisfactory report to your majesty, for which he receives commendation." "apparently a unique arrangement," remarked the sovereign reflectively. "in order to close the lips of madame de rosen, he contrived that she should receive such brutal and inhuman treatment that she died of the effects of cold, hardship and exposure," i went on. "one of markoff's agents made a desperate attempt upon myself while in siberia, fearing that her highness had revealed the truth to me, and well knowing that i was aware of danilovitch's true _metier_. the attempt fortunately failed, as did another recently formed by danilovitch in london at markoff's orders. therefore--" "but this danilovitch!" interrupted his majesty, turning to me. "has he actually confessed to you?" "he has, sire," i replied. "the sole reason of my journey to yakutsk was in order to see marya de rosen on her highness's behalf and obtain permission for her to speak and reveal to your majesty all that the grand duchess has now told you. her highness had promised strictest secrecy to her friend, but now that the lady is dead i have at last induced her to speak in the personal-interests of your majesty, as well as in the interests of the whole nation." "yes, yes, i quite understand," said his majesty very gravely. "by returning here, by abandoning my _incognita_, i--i have been compelled to sacrifice my love," declared the girl in a low, faltering voice, her cheeks blanched, her mouth drawn hard, and her fine eyes filled with tears. "ah! tattie! if what you have revealed to me be true, then the reason of markoff's unsatisfactory reports concerning, you is quite apparent," his majesty said, slowly folding his arms as he stood in thought, a fine commanding figure with the jewelled double eagle at his throat flashing with a thousand fires. "and so, trewinnard," he added, turning to me, "all this is the reason why, more than once, you have given me those mysterious hints which have set me pondering." "yes, sire," i replied. "you have been blinded by these clever adventurers surrounding you--that circle which, headed by serge markoff, is always so careful to prevent you from learning the truth. the intrigue they practise is most ingenious and far-reaching, ever securing their own advancement with fat emoluments at the expense of the oppressed nation. their basic principle is to terrorise you--to keep the bogy of revolution constantly before your majesty, to discover plots, and by administrative process to send hundreds, nay thousands, into exile in those far-off arctic wastes, or fill the prisons with suspects, more than two-thirds of whom are innocent, loyal and law-abiding citizens." he turned suddenly and, pale with anger, struck his fist upon his table. "there shall be no more exile by administrative process!" he cried, and seating himself, he drew a sheet of official paper before him, and for a few moments his quill squeaked rapidly over the paper. thus he wrote the ukase abolishing exile by administrative process--that law which the camarilla had so abused--and signed it with a flourish of his pen. the first reform in russia--a reform which meant the yearly saving of thousands of innocent lives, the preservation of the sanctity of every home throughout the great empire, and which guaranteed to everyone in future, suspect or known criminal or revolutionist, a fair and open trial--had been achieved. surely the little grand duchess, the madcap of the romanoffs, had not sacrificed her great love in vain, even though while that imperial ukase was being written she sat with bitter tears rolling slowly down her white cheeks. chapter thirty three. describes a momentous audience. a dead silence fell in that small, business-like room, wherein the monarch, the hardest-working man in the empire, transacted the complicated business of the great russian nation. outside could be heard a sharp word of command, followed by the heavy tramp of soldiers and the roll of drums. the sentries were changing guard. slowly--very slowly--his majesty placed a sheet of blotting-paper over the document he had written, and then turning to the tearful girl, asked: "will not this individual, danilo danilovitch, furnish me with proofs? he is a revolutionist, yet that is no reason why i should not see him. from what you tell me, markoff holds him in his power by constantly threatening to betray him to his comrades as a police-spy. i must see him. where is he?" "he has accompanied us from london, your majesty," was my reply. "i had some difficulty in assuring him that he would obtain justice at your majesty's hands." "he is an assassin. he killed my brother nicholas; yet it seems--if what you tell me be true--that markoff compelled him to commit this crime." "without a doubt," was my reply. "then, revolutionist or not, i will see him," and he touched the electric button placed in the side of his writing-table. a sentry appeared instantly, and at my suggestion his majesty permitted me to go down the long corridor, at the end of which the dark, thin-faced man, in a rather shabby black suit, was sitting in a small ante-room, outside which stood a tall, statuesque cossack sentry. a few words of explanation, and somewhat reluctantly danilovitch rose and followed me into the presence of the man he was ever plotting to kill. the emperor received him most graciously, and ordered him to be seated, saying: "my niece here and mr trewinnard have been speaking of you, danilo danilovitch, and have told me certain astounding things." the man looked up at his sovereign, pale and frightened, and his majesty, realising this, at once put him at his ease by adding: "i know that, in secret, you are the mysterious `one' who directs the revolutionary movement throughout the empire, and the constant conspiracies directed against my own person. well," he laughed, "i hope, danilovitch, you will not find me so terrible as you have been led to expect, and, further, that when you leave here you will think a little better of the man whose duty it is to rule the russian nation than you hitherto have done. now," he asked, looking straight at the man, "are you prepared to speak with me openly and frankly, as i am prepared to speak to you?" "i am, your majesty," he said. "then answer me a few questions," urged the imperial autocrat. "first, tell me whether these constant conspiracies against myself--these plots for which so many hundreds are being banished to siberia--are genuine ones formed by those who really desire to take my life?" "no, sire," was the answer. "the last genuine plot was the one in samara, nearly two years ago. your majesty escaped only by a few seconds." "when the railway line was blown up just outside the station; i remember," said the emperor, with a grim smile. "four of your fellow-conspirators were killed by their own explosives." "that was the last genuine plot. all the recent ones have been suggested by general markoff, head of the secret police." "with your assistance?" the man nodded in the affirmative. "then you betray your fellow-conspirators for payment--eh?" "because i am compelled. i, alas! took a false step once, and his excellency the general has taken advantage of it ever since. he forces me to act according to his wishes, to conspire, to betray--to murder if necessity arises--because he knows how i dread the truth becoming known to the secret revolutionary committee, and how i fully realise the terrible fate which must befall me if the actual facts were ever revealed. the terrorists entertain no sympathy with their betrayer." "i quite understand that," remarked the sovereign. and then, in gracious words, he closely questioned him regarding the assassination of the grand duke peter outside the opera house in warsaw, and heard the ghastly truth of markoff's crime from the witness's own lips. "i read the letters which i secured from the palace of the grand duke nicholas," he admitted. "they were to the same effect as your majesty has said. in one of them his excellency the general confessed his crime." "you threw the bomb which killed my brother, the grand duke nicholas?" "it was intended to kill her highness the grand duchess," and he indicated natalia, "and also the englishman, mr trewinnard. the general was plotting the death of both of them, fearing that they knew his secret." "and in england there was another conspiracy against them--eh?" "yes," replied the man known as the shoemaker of kazan. "but mr trewinnard and the chief of criminal police, ivan hartwig, discovered me, and dared me to commit the outrage on pain of betrayal to my friends. hence i have been between two stools--compelled by markoff and defied by hartwig. at last, in desperation, i sent an anonymous letter to her highness warning her, with the fortunate result that both she and her lover--a young englishman named drury--disappeared, and even the secret police were unable to discover their whereabouts. i did so in order to gain time, for i had no motive in taking her highness's life, although if i refused to act i knew what the result must inevitably be." "all this astounds me," declared the emperor. "i never dreamed that i was being thus misled, or that markoff was acting with such cunning and unscrupulousness against the interests of the dynasty and the nation. i see the true situation. you, danilo danilovitch, are a revolutionist-- not by conviction, but because of the drastic action of the secret police, the real rulers of russia. therefore, read that," and he took from his table the imperial ukase and handed it to him. when he had read it he returned it to the emperor's hand, and murmured: "thank god! all russia will praise your majesty for your clemency. it is the reform for which we have been craving for the past twenty years-- fair trial, and after conviction a just punishment. but we have, alas! only had arrest and prompt banishment without trial. every man and woman in russia has hitherto been at the mercy of any police-spy or any secret enemy." "my only wish is to give justice to the nation," declared the sovereign, his dark, thoughtful eyes turned upon the dynamitard whose word was law to every terrorist from archangel to odessa, and from wirballen to ekaterinburg. "and, sire, on behalf of the party of the people's will i beg to thank you for granting it to us," said the man, whose keen, highly-intelligent face was now slightly flushed. "what i have heard to-day from my niece's lips, from mr trewinnard and from yourself, has caused the gravest thoughts to arise within me," his majesty declared after a slight pause. "injustice has, i see, been done on every hand, and the secret police has been administered by one who, it seems, is admittedly an assassin. it is now for me to remedy that-- and to do so by drastic measures." "and the whole nation will praise your majesty," danilovitch replied. "i am a revolutionist, it is true, but i have been forced--forced against my will--to formulate these false plots for the corrupt secret police to unearth. i declare most solemnly to your majesty that my position as leader of this party and at the same time an _agent-provocateur_ has been a source of constant danger and hourly terror. in order to hide my secret, i was unfortunately compelled to commit murder--to kill the woman i loved. she discovered the truth, and would have exposed me to the vengeance which the party never fails to mete out to its betrayers. markoff had given me my liberty and immunity from arrest in exchange for my services to him. he held me in his power, body and soul, and, because of that, i was forced to strike down the woman i loved," he added, with a catch in his voice. "and--and--" he said, standing before the emperor, "i crave your majesty's clemency. i--i crave a pardon for that act for which i have ever been truly penitent." "a pardon is granted," was the reply in a firm, deep voice. "you killed my brother nicholas under compulsion. but on account of your open confession and the service rendered to me by these revelations, i must forgive you. i see that your actions have, all along, been controlled by serge markoff. now," he added, "what more can you tell me regarding this maladministration of the police?" danilovitch threw himself upon his knees and kissed the emperor's hand, thanking him deeply and declaring that he would never take any further part in the revolutionary movement in the future, but exercise all his influence to crush and stamp it out. then, when he had risen again to his feet, he addressed his majesty, saying: "the secret police, as at present organised, manufacture revolutionaries. i was a loyal, law-abiding russian before the police arrested my brother and my wife illegally, and sent them to siberia without trial. then i rose, like thousands of others have done, and fell into the trap which markoff's agents so cleverly prepared. no one has been safe from arrest in russia--" "until to-day," the emperor interrupted. "the ukase i have written is the law of the empire from this hour." "ah! god be thanked!" cried the man, placing his hands together fervently. "probably no man can tell the many crimes and injustices for which general markoff has been responsible. you want to know some of them--some within my own knowledge," he went on. "well, he was responsible for the great plot in moscow a year ago when the little tzarevitch so narrowly escaped. seventeen people were killed and twenty-three were injured by the six bombs which were thrown, and nearly one hundred innocent persons were sent to schusselburg or to siberia in consequence." "did you formulate that plot?" the emperor asked. "i did. also at markoff's orders the one at nikolaiev where the young woman, vera vogel, shot the governor-general of kherson and two of his cossacks. again at markoff's demand, i formed the plot whereby, near tchirskaia, the bridge over the don was blown up; fortunately just before your majesty's train reached it. it was i who pressed the electrical contact--i pressed it purposely a few moments too quickly, as i was determined not to be the cause of that wholesale loss of life which must have resulted had the train fallen into the river. another attempt was the zuroff affair, when an infernal machine charged with nitro-glycerine was not long ago actually found within the winter palace--placed there by an unknown hand in order to terrify your majesty. but i tell you the hand that placed it where it was found was that of serge markoff himself--the same hand which killed his imperial highness the grand duke peter in order to prevent his highness telling your majesty certain ugly truths which he had accidentally discovered. and," he went on, "there were many other conspiracies of various kinds conceived for the sole purpose of keeping the empire ever in a state of unrest and the arrest of hundreds of the innocent of both sexes. indeed, explosives--picric acid, nitro-glycerine, melinite and cordite-- were supplied to us from a secret source. sometimes, too, when i furnished a list of, say, ten or a dozen of those implicated in a plot, the police would arrest them with probably thirty others besides, people taken haphazard in the streets or in the houses. whole families have been banished, men dragged from their wives, women from their husbands and children, and though innocent were consigned to those terrible oubliettes beneath the level of the lake at schusselburg, or in the fortress of peter and paul. to adequately describe all the fierce brutality, the gross injustice and the ingenious plots conceived and financed by serge markoff would be impossible. i only speak of those in which i, as his unwilling catspaw, have been implicated." her highness and myself had listened to this amazing confession without uttering a word. the emperor, intensely interested in the man's story, put to him many questions, some concerning the demands of the party of the people's will, others in which he requested further details concerning markoff's crimes against persons, and against the state. "this man in whom for years i have placed such implicit confidence has played me false!" cried the ruler presently, his face pale as he struck the table fiercely in his anger. "he has plotted with the terrorists against me! he has been responsible for several attempts from which i have narrowly escaped with my life. therefore he shall answer to me-- this cunning knave who is actually my brother's assassin! he shall pay the penalty of his crimes!" "all russia knows that at your majesty's hands we always receive justice," the revolutionist said. "from the ministry, however, we never do. they are our oppressors--our murderers." "and you revolutionists wish to kill me because of the misdeeds of my ministers!" cried the emperor in reproach. "if your majesty dismisses and punishes those who are responsible, then there will be no more terrorism in russia. i am a leader; i have bred and reared the serpent of the revolution, and i myself can strangle it-- and i promise your majesty that as soon as general markoff is removed from office--i will do so." chapter thirty four. the emperor's command. again the emperor turned to his table and scribbled a few lines in russian, which he handed to the man. it was an impressive moment. what he had written was the dismissal in disgrace of his favourite, the most powerful official in the empire. "i shall receive him in audience to-night, and shall give this to him," he said. "the punishment i can afterwards consider." then, after a pause, he added: "i have to thank you, danilo danilovitch, for all that you have revealed to me. go and tell your comrades of the revolution all that i have said and what i have done. tell them that their emperor will himself see that justice is accorded them--that his one object in future shall be to secure, by god's grace, the peace, prosperity and tranquillity of the russian nation." then the emperor bowed as sign that the audience was at an end, and the man, unused to the etiquette of court, bowed, turned, and wishing us farewell, walked out. "all this utterly astounds me, trewinnard," said his majesty, when danilovitch had gone. he was speaking as a man, not as an emperor. "yet what tattie has revealed only confirms what i suspected regarding the death of my poor brother peter," he went on. "you recollect that i told you my suspicions--of my secret--on the day of the fourth court ball last year. it is now quite plain. he was ruthlessly killed by the one man in my _entourage_ whom i have so foolishly believed to be my friend. ah! how grossly one may be deceived--even though he be an emperor!" and he sighed, drawing his strong hand wearily across his brow. after a pause he added: "i have to thank you, trewinnard, for thus tearing the scales from my eyes. indeed, i have to thank you for much in connection with what i have learned to-day." "no, sire," was my reply. "rather thank her imperial highness. to her efforts all is due. she has sacrificed her great love for a most worthy man in the performance of this, her duty. had she not resolved to return to russia and speak openly at risk of giving you offence, she might have remained in england--or, rather, in scotland, still preserving her _incognita_, and still retaining at her side the honest, upright young englishman with whom she has been in love ever since her school-days at eastbourne." "i quite realise the great sacrifice you have made, tattie," said the emperor, turning to her kindly, and noting how pale was her beautiful countenance and how intense her look. "by this step you have, in all probability, saved my life. markoff and his gang of corrupt ministers would have no doubt killed me whenever it suited their purpose to do so. but you have placed your duty to myself and to the nation before your love, therefore some adequate recompense is certainly due to you." the great man of commanding presence strode across the room from end to end, his bearded chin upon his breast, deep in thought. suddenly he halted before her, and drawing himself up with that regal air which suited him so well, he looked straight at her, placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder as she sat, and said: "tell me, tattie; do you really and truly love this englishman?" "i do, uncle," the girl faltered, her fine eyes downcast. "of course i do. i--i cannot tell you a lie and deny it." "and--well, if richard drury took out letters of naturalisation as a russian subject, and i made him a count--and i gave you permission to marry--what then--eh?" he asked, smiling merrily as he stood over her. she sprang to her feet and grasped both his big hands. "you will!" she cried. "you really will! uncle, tell me!" the emperor, smiling benignly upon her--for, after all, she was his favourite niece--slowly nodded in the affirmative. whereupon she turned to me, exclaiming: "oh! uncle colin. dear old uncle colin! i'm so happy--so very happy! i must telegraph to dick at once--at once!" "no, no, little madcap," interrupted the emperor; "not from here. the secret police would quickly know all about it. send someone to the german frontier with a telegram. one of our couriers shall start to-night. drury will receive the good news to-morrow evening, and, tattie,"--he added, taking both her little hands again, "i have known all along, from various reports, how deeply and devotedly you love this young englishman. therefore, if i give my consent and make your union possible, i only hope and trust that you will both enjoy every happiness." in her wild ecstasy of delight the girl raised her sweet face to his heavy-bearded countenance, that face worn by the cares of state, and kissed him fervently, thanking him profoundly, while i on my part craved for the immediate release of poor luba de rosen. the emperor at once scribbled something upon an official telegraph form, and touching a bell, the sentry carried it out. "the young lady so cruelly wronged will be free and on her way back to petersburg within three hours," the monarch said quietly, after the sentry had made his exit. "oh! uncle colin!" cried her highness excitedly to me, "what a red-letter day this is for me!" "and for me also, tattie," remarked his majesty in his deep, clear voice. "owing to your efforts, i have learned some amazing but bitter truths; i have at last seen the reason why my people have so cruelly misjudged me, and why they hate me. i realise how i have, alas! been blinded and misled by a corrupt and unscrupulous ministry who have exercised their power for their own self-advancement, their methods being the stirring-up of the people, the creation of dissatisfaction, unrest, and the actual manufacture of revolutionary plots directed against my own person. i now know the truth, and i intend to act--to act with a hand as strong and as relentless as they have used against my poor, innocent, long-suffering subjects." her highness was all anxiety to send a telegram by courier over the frontier to eydtkuhnen. if he left petersburg by the night train at a quarter-past ten, he would, she reckoned, be at the frontier at six o'clock on the following evening. it was half an hour by train from tzarskoie-selo to petersburg, and she was now eager to end the audience and be dismissed. but his majesty seemed in no hurry. he asked us both many questions concerning markoff, and what we knew regarding his dealings with the bomb-throwers. natalia explained what had occurred in brighton, and how she had been constantly watched by danilovitch, while i described the visit of hartwig and myself to that dingy house in lower clapton. that sinister, unscrupulous chief of secret police had been directly responsible for the death of natalia's father; and her highness was bitter in her invectives against him. "leave him to me," said the emperor, frowning darkly. "he is an assassin, and he shall be punished as such." then, ringing his bell again, he ordered the next imperial courier in waiting to be summoned, for at whatever palace his majesty might be there were always half a dozen couriers ready at a moment's notice to go to the furthermost end of the empire. "i know, tattie, you are anxious to send your message. write it at my table, and it shall be sent from the first german station. here, in russia, the secret police are furnished with copies of all messages sent abroad or received. we do not want your secret disclosed just yet!" he laughed. so the girl seated herself in the emperor's chair, and after one or two attempts composed a telegram containing the good news, which she addressed to richard drury at his flat in albemarle street. presently the courier, a big, bearded man of gigantic stature, in drab uniform, was ushered into the imperial presence, and saluted. to him, his majesty gave the message, and ordered him to take it by the next train to eydtkuhnen. whereupon the man again saluted, backed out of the door, and started upon his errand. what, i wondered, would dick drury think when he received her reassuring message? natalia's face beamed with supreme happiness, while the emperor himself for the moment forgot his enemies in the pleasure which his niece's delight gave to him. again his majesty, with darkening brow, referred to the brutal murder of his favourite brother, the grand duke peter, saying: "you will recollect, trewinnard, the curious conviction which one day so suddenly came upon me. i revealed it to you in strictest secrecy--the ghastly truth which seemed to have been forced upon me by some invisible agency. it was my secret, and the idea has haunted me ever since. and yet here to-day my suspicion that poor peter was killed by some person who feared what secret he might reveal stands confirmed; and yet," he cried, "how many times have i, in my ignorance, taken the hand of my brother's murderer!" colonel polivanoff, the imperial marshal; my old friend, captain stoyanovitch, equerry-in-waiting, both craved audience, one after the other, for they bore messages for his majesty. therefore they were received without ceremony and impatiently dismissed. the subject the sovereign was discussing with us was of far more importance than reports from the great military camps at yilna and at smolensk, where manoeuvres were taking place. the emperor turned to his private telephone and was speaking with trepoff, the minister for foreign affairs in petersburg, when the marshal polivanoff again entered, saying: "his excellency general markoff petitions audience of your majesty." natalia and i exchanged quick glances, and both of us rose. for a second the emperor hesitated. then, turning to us, he commanded us to remain. "i will see him at once," he said very calmly, his face a trifle paler. next moment the man whose dismissal in disgrace was already lying upon the emperor's desk stood upon the threshold and bowed himself into the imperial presence. chapter thirty five. "from our own correspondent." that moment was indeed a breathless one. the emperor's countenance was grey with anger. yet he remained quite calm and firm. he was about to deal with an enemy more bitter and more dangerous than the most relentless firebrand of the whole revolutionary party. "i was not aware that your majesty was engaged with her imperial highness," the sinister-faced official began. "i have a confidential report to make--a matter of great urgency." "well, i hope it is not another plot," remarked the sovereign with bitter, weary sarcasm. "but whatever report you wish to make, markoff, may be made here--before my niece and mr trewinnard." he glanced at us suspiciously and then said: "this afternoon the moscow police have unearthed a most desperate plot to wreck your majesty's train early to-morrow morning at chimki. i furnished them with information, and twenty-eight arrests have been made." "indeed," remarked his imperial master, raising his eyebrows, quite unmoved. "have you the list of names?" in answer, the general produced a yellow official paper, which he placed upon his majesty's table. then, with but a casual glance, the emperor took up his quill and scribbled some words across the sheet and handed it back. markoff glanced at the words written, then, much puzzled, looked at his majesty. "yes," the latter said. "i order their immediate release. and, let me tell you, serge markoff, that this afternoon i have given audience to a very intimate friend of yours; your _agent-provocateur_, danilo danilovitch!" the general's countenance went white as paper. such a reception was entirely unexpected. "ah!" exclaimed his majesty, with a bitter smile, "i see what surprise and apprehension my talk with danilovitch causes you. well, i will not give utterance to the loathing i feel towards you--the man in whose hands i have placed such supreme power, and whom i have so implicitly trusted. suffice it to say that he has revealed to me the ingenious manner in which plots have been formed in order to terrorise me, and your inhuman method of sending hundreds of innocent ones into exile, merely in order to obtain my favour." "i have never done such a thing!" cried the man in uniform, standing at attention as his master spoke. "the fellow lies." "enough," said the emperor, in a loud, commanding voice. "hear me! you are an assassin. you killed my brother the grand duke peter with your own dastardly hand in order to hide your disgraceful tactics. you sent your own wife to her grave, and you paid your catspaw to kill the grand duke nicholas. to-day there is a plot afoot to close the lips of my niece and my good friend trewinnard! these are only a few of your disgraceful crimes. no; do not attempt to deny them, brute and liar that you are. rather reflect upon the terrible fate of the thousands of poor wretches who have been sent to the arctic settlements by your relentless, inhuman hand. the souls of all those who have been worn out by the journey and died like dogs upon the great post road, or in other ways have fallen innocent victims of your plots, call loudly for vengeance. and i tell you, serge markoff," he said, his dark, heavy brows narrowing in fierce anger, "i tell you that i shall find means by which adequate punishment will be awarded to you. here is your dismissal!" he added, taking the document from his table. "it will be gazetted to-morrow. go back to petersburg at once and there remain. do not attempt to leave russia, or even to leave petersburg, or you will at once be placed under arrest and sent to the fortress. go home, place your affairs in order, and await until i send for you again." the emperor had not yet decided what form his punishment should take. "but--but surely your imperial majesty will allow me to--" he gasped with difficulty. "i will allow you nothing--nothing! you are my enemy, serge markoff--a crafty, cunning enemy, who now stands revealed as a brutal assassin! ah! i shall avenge my brother peter's death--depend upon it! go! get from my presence!" he commanded, and raising his hand, he pointed with his finger imperiously to the door. i had never before seen such a look upon his majesty's strong face. and the man whose evil actions had spread terror into every corner and every home throughout the russian empire, thus receiving his sudden _conge_, slowly crossed the room, his head bowed, his face ashen. he was unable to speak or to protest. for a second he stood still, then, opening the door, he passed out in silence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ extract from the second edition of _the times_ issued on the following day: "from our own correspondent. "st petersburg, may th. "a startling tragedy occurred just after seven o'clock last evening in front of the barracks in the zagarodny prospect in st petersburg, just outside the tzarskoie-selo station. according to the journal _novosti_, his excellency general serge markoff, chief of secret police, and one of the emperor's most trusted officials, who had been to tzarskoie-selo for audience with his majesty, had arrived at the station unexpectedly on his return to petersburg, and his carriage not being there, he resolved to walk down into the city. he had turned out of the station, when he was followed by an unknown man, who had, it seems, arrived by the same train. in front of the barracks the pair apparently recognised each other, and, according to a bystander, his excellency drew a revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger, who next instant drew his own weapon and shot the general dead. "all took place in the space of a few seconds, so suddenly, indeed, that the stranger, who certainly fired in self-protection, was able to get clear away before any of the passers-by could stop him. the general's body was removed by the military ambulance to his residence facing the summer gardens, and the strange affair created the greatest sensation throughout the city. "it is believed that the man so suddenly recognised by his excellency must have been a prominent terrorist from whom the general feared assassination; but it is proved by an onlooker--a butcher who was walking only a few feet from them--that his excellency, who appeared seized by sudden anger, fired the first shot. "the police are making every inquiry, and it is believed that the assassin of the well-known official will be arrested. "another curious feature in connection with the strange affair is that the same journal in another column publishes in the `official gazette' the announcement that his majesty the emperor only two hours before the tragic occurrence dismissed his favourite official in disgrace. no reason is given, but it is rumoured in the diplomatic circle that certain grave administrative scandals have been discovered, and this dismissal is the first of several which are to follow. in fact, in certain usually well-informed quarters it is persistently declared that the whole cabinet will be dismissed. "the emperor left with the tzarina for moscow last evening. the grand duchess natalia accompanied them, and mr colin trewinnard, of the british embassy, travelled by the same train." chapter thirty six. describes to-day. three months later. it was hot august in russia--the month of drought and dust. luba de rosen had returned to her mother's house in petersburg, where her property and her dead mother's handsome income, which had been confiscated by the state, had been returned to her. several times both her highness and myself had visited her, while one afternoon she had been received in private audience at gatchina by the emperor, who had sympathised with her and promised to make amends in every way for the injustice she had suffered. the camarilla who had so long ruled russia, placing the onus of their oppression upon the emperor, had, thanks to natalia, been broken up, and a new and honest cabinet established in its place. danilo danilovitch, on the day following markoff's assassination, had telegraphed openly from germany to his majesty, announcing that he had rid russia of her worst enemy. and probably that message did not cause the emperor much displeasure. it was the carrying out of the old biblical law of an eye for an eye. and as the catspaw was beyond the frontier, and the crime a political one, its perpetrator was immune from arrest. five weeks later, however, the supreme council of the people's will, held in an upstairs room in greek street, soho, and presided over by danilovitch in person, heard from him a long and complete statement, in which he described his audience at tzarskoie-selo, and delivered the message sent by the emperor to the revolutionists. unanimously it was then decided to put an end to all militant measures, now that the emperor knew the truth, and to trust the assurances given from the throne. a loyal reply was drafted to his majesty's message, and this was duly despatched by a confidential messenger to russia and placed in the emperor's own hands--a declaration of loyalty which gave him the greatest gratification. diplomatic europe, in ignorance of what was actually in progress, was surprised at the sudden turn of events in russia, and on account of the unexpected dismissal of ministers and the establishment of the duma, felt that open revolution was imminent. from the official busybodies at the various embassies the truth was carefully concealed. it was, of course, known that general markoff had all along been the worst enemy of russia, and in consequence the revolutionary party made open rejoicing at the news of his death. yet the actual facts were ingeniously suppressed, both from the diplomatic corps and from the correspondents of the foreign newspapers. the entire change in the emperor's policy and the granting of many much-needed reforms were regarded abroad as the natural reaction after the drastic autocracy. but nobody dreamed of the truth, how the emperor, after all a humane man and a benign ruler, had at last learned the bitter truth, and had instantly acted for the welfare and safety of his beloved people. many of the london journals published leading articles upon what they termed "the new era in russia," attributing it to all causes except the right one, the popular opinion being that his majesty had at last been terrorised into granting justice and a proper representation to the people. exile of political prisoners to siberia had been suddenly abolished by imperial ukase, together with the major powers vested in the secret police. the safety and sanctity of the home was guaranteed, and no person could in future be consigned to a dungeon or exiled without fair and open trial. all this, it was said, was a triumph of the revolution. journalists believed that the emperor had been forced to accord the people their demand. little, indeed, did the world dream the actual truth, the secret of which was so well kept that only the british foreign minister at downing street was aware of it, for by the emperor's express permission i was able to sit one day in that sombre private room in the foreign office and there in confidence relate the strange events, the shadows of a throne, which i have endeavoured to set down in the foregoing pages. since the day of the dismissal of serge markoff with five members of the cabinet, and the breaking up of that disgraceful camarilla which had surrounded the sovereign, suppressing the truth, preventing reforms, and ruling holy russia with a hand of iron, the nation had indeed entered upon an era of financial and social progress. russia has become a nation of enlightenment, prosperity and industry, even, perhaps, against the will of her upper classes. i was present on that august day in the handsome private church attached to the great palace of peterhof, and there witnessed the marriage of her imperial highness the grand duchess natalia to richard drury, count of ozerna, who had become a naturalised russian subject and been ennobled by the emperor. it was a brilliant function, for all the ministers, foreign ambassadors and the whole imperial court, including the emperor and empress, were present. the court now being out of mourning for the grand duke nicholas, the display of smart gowns, uniforms and decorations was more striking than even at a state ball at the winter palace. standing beside captain stoyanovitch, i was near natalia, the incorrigible little madcap of the romanoffs, when with her husband she knelt before the altar while the priest, in his gorgeous robes, bestowed upon them his blessing. and when they rose and passed out, their handsome faces reflected the supreme joy of the triumph of their mutual love. some years have now passed. his imperial majesty, alas! lies in his great sarcophagus in moscow, and the tzarevitch reigns in his stead. but in russia the revolutionary movement is no longer a militant one, for the people know well that their ruler's aims and aspirations are those of his father, and patiently await the reforms which, though perhaps slow in progress, nevertheless do from time to time become law and bestow the greatest benefits upon the many millions of souls from the german frontier to the sea of japan. ivan hartwig, the anglo-russian, still lives on the outskirts of petersburg as otto schenk, and is still head of the russian surete, and from him i only recently heard that danilo danilovitch had been discovered in chicago, leading the life of a highly-respected citizen. he had changed his name into daniels, and was the proprietor of one of the largest boot factories in that progressive city. miss west has been pensioned and remains in brighton, but davey, the english maid, is still in the grand duchess's service. as for myself--well, i am still a diplomat, and still a bachelor. after service as councillor of embassy in berlin, washington and paris, i was appointed by the late king edward his _envoy extraordinaire et ministre plenipotentiaire_ to a certain brilliant court in the south of europe, where i still reside in the great white embassy as chief of a large and brilliant staff. sometimes when i go on leave, i manage to snatch a week or two with count drury and his pretty wife, at the grand ducal palace in petersburg, where they live together in perfect idyllic happiness, and where splendid receptions are given during the winter season. more than once, too, i have been guest at their great castle of ozerna, a gloomy mediaeval fortress, near orel in central russia, to enjoy the excellent boar-hunting in the huge forests surrounding. and often as i have sat at their table, waited on by the gorgeous flunkeys in the blue-and-gold grand ducal livery, headed by old igor, i have looked into natalia's pretty face and reflected how little the russian people ever dream that for the liberty which has recently come to them they are indebted solely to a woman--to the girl who was once declared to be an incorrigible flirt, and who had scandalised the imperial family--the little grand duchess, who, at the sacrifice of her own great love, boldly exposed and denounced that unscrupulous and powerful official, markoff, the one-time chief of secret police, the man who had sacrificed so many innocent lives as the price of power. the end. juliet sutherland, and the online distributed proofreading team afghanistan and the anglo-russian dispute by theo. f. rodenbough bvt. brigadier general, u.s.a an account of russia's advance toward india, based upon the reports and experiences of russian, german, and british officers and travellers; with a description of afghanistan and of the military resources of the powers concerned [illustration: afghanistan: england versus russia] [illustration: the ruler of afghanistan, abdurrahman khan, ameer of kabul] * * * * * with three maps and other illustrations * * * * * contents. i. through the gates of asia ii. on the threshold of india iii. the british forces and routes iv. the russian forces and approaches v. review of the military situation list of authorities index list of illustrations. _maps_. afghanistan and the surrounding territories (drawn for this work and corrected by the latest military surveys--end of vol.) the asiatic territories absorbed by russia during the past two centuries, with the dates of the various annexations the russian lines of advance from their base of supplies _cuts_. abdurrahman khan, ameer of kabul (frontispiece) mahaz khan (a tajik), khan of pest bolak jehandad (lohanir), from ghazni wullie mohammed, a dahzungi hazara pozai khan, a shinwarri (musician) khan baz, a khumbhur khel afreedi tooro baz, a kookie khel afreedi zool kuddar, an adam khel afreedi mousa, a kizilbash, born in peshawur the city of kandahar, afghanistan castle of zohak, first march from bamian, irak road to kabul an afghan post-chaise; going to the front gate of the bazaar at kabul major-general, sir f. s. roberts, v.c., k.c.b. khelat-i-ghilzi, between kandahar and ghazni elephant with artillery; on the road to ali musjid detail of elephant saddle noah's valley, kunar river watch tower in the khaiber pass fort of ali musjid, from the heights above lala cheena, in the khaiber pass fort of dakka, on the kabul river the ishbola tepe, khaiber pass entrance to the bolan pass, from dadur entrance to the khojak pass, from pishin, on the road to kandahar the order of march in central asia gorge in the tirband-i-turkestan, through which the murghab flows jelalabad, from piper's hill [illustration: map showing the advances of russia towards india - .] afghanistan and the anglo-russian dispute i. through the gates of asia. in universal history there is no more interesting subject for the consideration of the political student than the record of russian progress through central asia. in one sense this advance is a practical reestablishment or extension of the influence of the aryan race in countries long dominated by peoples of turki or mongolian origin; in another sense it has resulted in a transition from the barbarism or rude forms of asiatic life to the enlightenment and higher moral development of a european age. in a religious sense it embodies a crusade against oriental fanaticism; and it is a curious feature of the anglo-russian dispute, that upon a question of temporal gain, the greatest christian nation finds itself allied with the followers of buddha and mahomet against russia under the banner of the cross. the descendants of the great peter have opened up in central asia a new region which, if as yet it has not been "made to blossom as the rose," has nevertheless profited by the introduction of law, order, and a certain amount of industrial prosperity. russia commenced her relations with central asia as early as the sixteenth century. not only through embassies sent, but by military expeditions; these, however, at that time were private ventures by roving cossacks and other inhabitants of southern russia. authorized government expeditions commenced with peter the great, who in - sent two exploring parties into the central asian deserts--bekovitch to khiva, and likhareff to the black irtish. these expeditions were undertaken in search of gold, supposed to exist in those regions, but failed in their object; the detachment under bekovitch being entirely destroyed after reaching khiva. peter next turned his attention to the country bordering upon the southern shores of the caspian sea; taking advantage of persian embarrassments, with the consent of the shah and of the sultan he acquired, in - , the provinces of gilan, mazanderan, and asterabad; but the great expense of maintaining a large garrison so remote from russia, and the unhealthiness of the locality, induced the russian government, in , to restore the districts to persia. in the same year abul-khair, the khan of the little kirghiz horde, voluntarily submitted to russia. twenty years later a small strip of the kingdom of djungaria, on the irtish, was absorbed, and toward the commencement of the reign of catharine ii, russian authority was asserted and maintained over the broad tract from the altai to the caspian. this occupation was limited to a line of outposts along the ural, the irtish, and in the intervening district. during catharine's reign the frontier nomads became reduced in numbers, by the departure from the steppe between the ural and volga of the calmucks, who fled into djungaria, and were nearly destroyed on the road, by the kirghiz. the connection between russia and central asia at this time assumed another character, that of complete tranquillity, in consequence of the development of trade through orenburg and to some extent through troitsk and petropaulovsk. the lines along the ural and irtish gradually acquired strength; the robber-raids into european russia and western siberia almost entirely ceasing. the allegiance of the kirghiz of the little and central hordes was expressed in the fact that their khans were always selected under russian influence and from time to time appeared at st. petersburg to render homage. with the central asian khanates there was no connection except that of trade, but as regarded the turcomans, who, it is said, had frequently asked for russian protection, intercourse was discouraged, as they could not be trusted "within the lines," being simply bandits. the emperor paul imagined that the steppes offered a good road to southern asia, and desiring to expel the english from india, in the year he despatched a large number of don cossacks, under orloff, through the districts of the little horde. at the time a treaty was concluded with napoleon, then first consul, by virtue of which a combined russo-french army was to disembark at asterabad and march from thence into india by way of khorassan and afghanistan. the death of the emperor of russia put an end to this plan. during the reign of alexander i, central asia was suffered to rest, and even the chinese made raids into russian territory without interruption. in the third decade of the present century, however, several advanced military settlements of cossacks were founded. "thus," says m. veniukoff, "was inaugurated the policy which afterward guided us in the steppe, the foundation of advanced settlements and towns (at first forts, afterwards _stanitsas_ [footnote: cossack settlements.]) until the most advanced of them touches some natural barrier." about , it was discovered that the system of military colonization was more effectual in preserving order in the orenburg district than by flying detachments sent, as occasion required, from southern russia; and in - the orenburg and ural (or targai and irgiz) forts were established. in the great kirghiz horde acknowledged its subjection to russia on the farther side of the balkash, while at the same time a fort was constructed on the lower yaxartes. in the encroachments of russia in central asia had brought her upon the borders of the important khanates of khiva and khokand, and, like some huge boa-constrictor, she prepared to swallow them. in the inevitable military expedition was followed by the customary permanent post. another row of forts was planted on the lower yaxartes, and in far to the eastward, in the midst of the great horde, was built fort vernoye--the foundation of a new line, more or less contiguous to natural boundaries (mountains and rivers), but not a close line. between perovsky and vernoye there were upwards of four hundred and fifty miles of desert open to the incursions of brigands, and between the aral and caspian seas there was a gap, two hundred miles in width, favorable for raids into the orenburg steppe from the side of khiva. finally, under the pretext of closing this gap, a general convergent movement of the siberian and orenburg forces commenced, culminating under general tchernayeff in the capture of aulieata and chemkent in , and of tashkent in . here, m. veniukoff says: "the government intended to halt in its conquests, and, limiting itself to forming a closed line on the south of the kirghiz steppes, left it to the sedentary inhabitants of tashkent to form a separate khanate from the khokand so hostile to us." and this historian tells us that the tashkendees declined the honor of becoming the czar's policemen in this way, evidently foreseeing the end, and, to cut the matter short, chose the russian general, tchernayeff, as their khan. the few central asian rulers whose necks had so far escaped the muscovite heel, made an ineffectual resistance, and in hodjeni and jizakh were duly "annexed," thus separating bokhara and khokand. here we may glance at the method by which russia took firmer root on the shores of the caspian, and established a commercial link with the khivan region. in a military post and seaport was planted at krasnovodsk, on that point of the east shore of the caspian, which presents the greatest facilities for shipping, and as a base of operations against the turcomans, who were at that time very troublesome. several military expeditions set out from this point, and every year detachments of troops were despatched to keep the roads open toward khiva, the kepet dagh, or the banks of the attrek. within five years ( -' ) the nomads living within the routes named had become "good turcomans," carried the czar's mails to khiva, and furnished the krasnovodsk-khivan caravans with camels and drivers. but the colonization scheme on the lower caspian had once more brought the russians to the persian boundary. in the shah had been rather officiously assured that russia would not think of going below the line of the attrek; yet, as colonel veniukoff shows, she now regrets having committed herself, and urges "geographical ignorance" of the locality when the assurance was given, and the fact that part of her restless subjects, on the attrek, pass eight months of the year in russian territory and four in "so-called" persia; it is therefore not difficult to imagine the probable change on the map of that quarter. the march continued toward khiva, and after the usual iron-hand-in-velvet-glove introduction, general kaufmann in pounced upon that important khanate, and thus added another to the jewels of the empire. nominally, khiva is independent, but nevertheless collects and pays to russia a considerable contribution annually. in russia seized samarcand, and established over the khanate of bokhara a similar supervision to that in khiva. as the distinguished russian already quoted remarks: "the programme of the political existence of bokhara as a separate sovereignty was accorded to her by us in the shape of two treaties, in and , which defined her subordinate relation to russia. but no one looks at these acts as the treaties of an equal with an equal. they are instructions in a polite form, or programmes given by the civilized conqueror to the conquered barbarians, and the execution of which is guaranteed by the immediate presence of a military force." the district of khokand, whose ruler, khudoyar khan, submitted himself to russia in , was for a number of years nominally independent, but becoming disturbed by domestic dissensions, was ultimately annexed under the name of the fergana province. to this point we have followed colonel veniukoff's account of the russian advance. it will doubtless interest the reader to continue the narrative from an english view, exceptionally accurate and dispassionate in its nature. in a lecture before the royal united service institution in london, may , , lieut.-general sir edward hamley, of the british army, discussed the central asian question before an audience comprising such indian experts as sir henry rawlinson, lord napier of magdala, and mr. charles marvin, and many distinguished officers, including lord chelmsford, sir f. haines, and colonel malleson. among other things, general hamley said: "probably england has never been quite free, during the present century, from some degree of anxiety caused by the steady, gradual approaches of russia through central asia toward india. it was seen that where her foot was planted it never went back. it was seen that with forces comparatively small she never failed to effect any conquest she was bent on, and that the conquest, once effected, was final. this security in possession was owing in great measure to the fact that the governments she displaced were bad governments, and that she substituted one far better in itself and of a simplicity which was well adapted to the people with whom she was dealing. she aimed mainly at three things--the establishment of order and of confidence and the obtaining of some return for her own heavy expenses. from the establishment of order and of confidence sprang a prosperity which enabled her to obtain a certain revenue, though entirely inadequate to her expenditure. thus we beheld her pressing solidly on, and we knew not where she might stop. pretexts, such as it was difficult to find a flaw in, were never wanting on which to ground a fresh absorption of territory. and seeing behind this advance a vast country--almost a continent--which was not merely a great asiatic power, but a great european state, under autocratic, irresponsible rule, with interests touching ours at many points, it is not to be wondered at that we watched with anxiety her progress as she bore steadily down toward our indian frontier." general hamley says that england became particularly suspicious of russia in when she absorbed turkestan, and this feeling was intensified in , while the treaty of berlin was still pending. general kaufmann assembled a small army of about , men and thirty-two guns on the frontier of bokhara, and although upon the signing of the treaty all threatening movements ceased, yet the british commander then operating in afghanistan knew that kaufmann had proposed to march in the direction of kabul, and menace the british frontier. it has ever been the practice of russia, in her schemes of aggrandizement, to combine her diplomatic with her military machinery; but, unlike other nations, the ambassador has generally been subordinate to the general. at the time that general kaufmann sheathed his sword under the influence of the treaty of berlin, in , there remained another representative of russia--general stolietoff--who had been quietly negotiating with the ameer of afghanistan, shere ali, the terms of a "russian treaty," whose characteristics have already been described. hearing of this, the english ambassador at st. petersburg questioned the russian minister, who answered him "that no mission had been, nor was intended to be, sent to kabul, either by the imperial government or by general kaufmann." this denial was given on july d, the day after stolietoff and his mission had started from samarcand. after the envoy's arrival at kabul, another remonstrance met with the reply that the mission was "of a professional nature and one of simple courtesy," and was not, therefore, inconsistent with the pacific assurances already given. the real nature of this mission became known from papers found by general roberts at kabul in . these showed that shere ali had been invited to form a close alliance with the russian government. general kaufmann had advised shere ali to try and stir up disaffection among the queen's indian subjects, promising to aid him, eventually, with troops. finding that this scheme was impracticable at the moment, russia dropped the ameer, who fled from the scene of his misfortunes, and died soon after. for the moment england breathed more freely. there were still great natural obstacles between the empires of russia and of india. not only the friendly state of afghanistan, but on its northwestern border the neutral territory of merv, hitherto an independent province, and inhabited by warlike tribes of turcomans difficult to reach through their deserts and likely to harass a russian advance to herat to an embarrassing extent. it was seen that the possession of this territory would at once free russia from much difficulty in case of an advance and give her the means of threatening herat as well as kabul from her base in turkestan, and even to some extent to carry forward that base beyond the oxus. on the part of russia, the success of general skobeleff in capturing the fortified position of geok tepe, january , , marked the beginning of negotiations with the turcomans for the acquisition of merv. for a long while these were unsuccessful, but early in it was cabled to london, that "the queen of the world" had accepted the white czar as her future liege lord. the immediate cause of this event was the effect produced upon the minds of the turcoman deputation to moscow by the spectacle of the czar's coronation. the impression created by the gorgeous ceremonial was heightened by the presence of so many asiatic chiefs and kinglets at the ancient and historic capital of russia. the tales they brought back were well calculated to influence the minds of a wild and primitive people; and when the khan of khiva proffered his services for the settlement of their relations with russia, that section of the tekke tribe in favor of peace accepted them. the chiefs tendered their formal submission to the czar, and promised to allow russian merchants to reside among them, and pledged themselves to maintain the security of the routes from the oxus to the tejend; also accepting the responsibilities of russian subjects by rendering tribute either in money or by military service. to all intents and purposes it is equivalent to the establishment of a russian garrison in merv. the thorough way in which russia seeks to bind her asiatic subjects is shown in the fact that in , at the request of the khan of khiva, a russian tutor was selected to instruct his children. soon after it was reported that the russians had established themselves at sarakhs on the direct road to herat and just over the persian boundary of afghanistan. these later movements again aroused the distrust of england, and a joint commission of russian and english officials was appointed early in the year . while the english members of the commission under sir peter lumsden were awaiting the convenience of their foreign colleagues, the presence of russian troops was reported on the disputed territory in the vicinity of herat. this action alarmed the afghans, and a collision seemed imminent. the english government considered m. de giers' explanation of this encroachment unsatisfactory. pending an adjustment of the new complication both nations prepared for the worst. here we will leave the subject of the russian advance through the gates of asia and pass to the consideration of the present neutral ground of afghanistan. [illustration: outline map showing russian-caucasian and trans-caspian territory, and new odessa-herat route.] ii. on the threshold of india. from the amu daria and the turcoman steppes to the deserts of beloochistan, from persian khorassan to the valley of the indus, stretches the country of the afghans. men of renown and events of world-wide interest have been connected with its history. its records tell of the murder of cavagnari in recent times; of the tragedy of elphinstone's command ( - ); of shah nadir, the butcher of delhi ( - ); of baber khan, the founder of mongolian rule in india ( ); of timur, the assailer of the world ( ); of genghiz khan, the annihilator of the civilization of ancient asia ( - ); of the great ruler, sultan mahmoud (a. d. ); and yet earlier, of alexander, "the divinely favored macedonian." afghan history dies away, in the hymns of the indian vedas, eighteen hundred years before the birth of christ. the territory of afghanistan--which is destined to be the arena of a great international duel--covers an area of , square miles, or a tract measuring from north to south miles, and from east to west miles. it is a mountainous country; a high plateau, , feet above the sea, overlooked by lofty mountain ranges which open out and sink toward the west and south. on the north it is bordered by the western ranges of the himalayas, which reach to the amu daria; by the wall-like range of the hindu kush, some of whose peaks are , feet high; and by several smaller ridges. between the kabul and kuram rivers rises the snow-capped sufeid koh, the principal peak of which, to the south of jelalabad, attains an altitude of , feet. to the south of this, in southern afghanistan, the suleiman range, of an average height of , feet, falls rapidly toward the valley of the indus. between the hindu kush and the suleiman ranges there are several lesser ones stretching toward the southwest, including the auran mountains ( , feet). of the principal rivers noted here (the helmund, har-i-rud, kabul, kuram, and the gomal) the helmund alone is navigable. the helmund terminates in the swamps of seistan, as also do the kash, farrah, and herat rivers, running parallel to the helmund across the kandahar-herat roads, at , , and miles, respectively, to the west of it. these rivers are without bridges, but (with the exception of the helmund--provided with ferry at girishk) are fordable, save in the months of april and may. the country is otherwise open and easily traversable, but only on the main routes can water be readily obtained, and forage is scarce in the winter. the turnuk valley, running northeast from kandahar, is followed by the great route to ghazni and kabul skirting the guikok range--separated from the hazaristan to its west by the parallel valley of the argandab. the latter valley is also followed by a route which enters it from mooktur, the source of the turnuk. this debouches upon the herat road about ten miles west of kandahar, and there is no communication west of it between herat and kabul, save by impracticable mountain routes across the hazaristan. three routes from kandahar to herat separate at girishk on the helmund, cross the kash at different points, and meet at sabzawar ( miles from kandahar) on the herat; both of the southernmost passing by the town of farrah, which is miles from kandahar. from girishk also a road follows the helmund to seistan and lash jowain, where it joins the herat road at farrah on the river of that name, or at sabzawar on the herat. the southernmost of the routes to farrah also branches from kash down the river named kash, joining the seistan route at lash. the general aspect of afghanistan is that of a series of elevated flat-bottomed valleys, in the vicinity of the streams, somewhat under cultivation. the scenery is often wild and beautiful, and some of the defiles to the north of the hindu kush are said to be of appalling grandeur, while the soft, still loveliness of the sheltered glens on the southern slope of that range strongly impresses the traveller who visits them. some of the ranges in the north and northeast are well timbered with pine and oak. the eastern half of afghanistan is generally cold and rugged, but sustains innumerable flocks and herds, and abounds in mineral wealth, especially lead and sulphur. in the more sheltered valleys considerable fruit is grown, but only grain enough for the actual consumption of the inhabitants. water and fodder abound, but fuel is deficient; a serious matter, as the cold in the winter is extreme. the western part of afghanistan is a more fertile region, interspersed, it is true, with lofty ranges, but comprising many pleasant valleys and pastures. the population is approximately estimated at eight millions. afghanistan is a genuine society of different nations, although the greater part are of persian descent. the strongholds of the german self-protecting federations are here produced on a large scale. thus the duranis, tajiks, yusafzais, ghilzais, eimaks, hazaris, kaffirs, hindus, jats, arabs, kizilbashis, uzbeks, biluchis, are near neighbors; of these about , , may be real afghans who profess the suni faith and speak indo-persian puchtu. there are over four hundred inferior tribes known. the duranis are numerically strongest and live in the vicinity of kandahar. next in importance are the ghilzais, estimated at , fighting men living in the triangle--kabul, jelalabad, khelat-i-ghilzai; until they furnished the rulers of afghanistan. to the south of the ghilzais live the puchtu-speaking races who chiefly defend only their own territory; the mountainous eastern border is inhabited by the momunds, afridis, arakzais, zymukts, waziris, who have never been subdued. their sense of independence, however, does not prevent them from selling their friendship for ready money to the highest bidder. on the watershed of the helmund and indus dwell the independent pathans and biluchis. the persian-speaking kizilbashis in kabul, comprise , , of shiahs, who are not afghans, many of whose , fighting men are in the ameer's regular army. the tajiks--about , men--are chiefly in the kabul and ghazni districts. the hazaris and eimaks are in the central section of afghanistan, known as the hazaristan, extending east and west from the koushan pass over the hindu-kush range to marchat on the turcoman frontier, and north and south from sirpool in turkestan to girishk, between kandahar and herat; they are the descendants of the military settlers left by the tartar hordes that swept central asia under genghiz khan, and still maintain a quasi-independence; they cordially detest the afghan government, but pay an annual tribute in money to its support. finally there is a million of foreign nationalities, including turks, persians, indians, armenians, and kaffirs; the last-named are hindus, and violent antagonists of the mohammedans living around them. [illustration: mahaz khan (a tajik), khan of pest bolak. jehandad (lohanir), from ghazni.] thus it is seen that modern afghanistan comprises three great districts--herat in the west, kabul in the east, and kandahar in the centre, with the seat of government at the cities of the same names respectively. within each district are, as already described, a large number of tribes occupying sub-districts, closely connected like the cells of a honey-comb, but each with its destinctive manners and customs and irregular military forces, in no instance numbering less than , men, and often twice that number, divided about equally into horse and foot. many of these render military service to the ameer, many are bandits in the worst sense. the nomadic tribes--like the eimaks peopling the heratic region--live principally in tents, encamping in winter in the valleys, and in summer on the table-lands of the mountain ranges. they are ignorant, hospitable, and brave and ardent hunters. their principal trade is with herat, and consists of woollen and camel-hair fabrics and clarified butter. [illustration: wullie mohammed, a dahzungi hazara. pozai khan, a shinwarri (musician).] the farming population all live in small hamlets. the better classes of these live in villages surrounding or joined to the castle of a khan. these castles are encompassed by a rude wall, having frequently turrets at the corners, and occasionally armed with swivel-guns or wall-pieces. the principal gardens are always on the outside of the castle, and the herds of horses and camels belonging to the khan are kept at distant pastures and attended by herders, who live in tents. in the bori and ghazgar valleys the houses are of wood. in the ghazgar valley they are all fortified, as already described; the doors are generally mere man-holes, and the top of the towers are loopholes. the better class, and more modern of these, have flat roofs, from which the water is carried by spouts; the walls surrounding are at least twelve feet high, and cover nearly an acre of ground. three or four such houses usually constitute a village. these semi-barbarians are noted for the length and ferocity of their feuds. sometimes two branches of a family who are neighbors become enemies. the distance between their "fortlets" may be two hundred yards, and on that space no one ventures. they go out at opposite gates and walk straight from their own fort in a line protected by its walls from the fire of the other, until out of range, then they turn around to their fields. broadfoot relates that "once in zurmat i saw a fort shut by rolling a stone against the door, instead of with the usual heavy chain. on inquiring as to the cause of such carelessness, the malik, a fine old man with a plump, good-humored face, stretched his arms out toward the line of distant forts, and said: 'i have not an enemy!' it was a pleasing exception to the rule." [illustration: khan baz, a khumbhur khel afreedi. tooro baz, a kookie khel afreedi.] these feuds are a system of petty warfare, carried on by long shots, stealing cattle, and burning crops. samson, burning his neighbor's corn, acted just like an afghan. when the harvest is nearly ripe, neither party dare sleep. the remedy is sometimes for both to fight until an equal number are killed on each side, when the neighbors step in and effect a reconciliation; another method is to pay forfeit of a feast and some sheep or cloth; in exceptional cases, a few afghan virgins are substituted for the sheep, but they are given in marriage, and are well treated. our space does not permit an extended reference to the manners and customs of this primitive people but a few characteristics may be briefly noted. the love of war is felt much more among afghans than by other eastern peoples, although but little effort has been made by them to augment the means of resistance and aggression. pillage, fighting, and disturbances are at times necessary to their very existence, and are followed by long days of idleness, during which they live on the fruits of their depredations. there is no shade of difference between the character of the nomad and the citizen; a town life does not soften their habits; they live there as they live in a tent, armed to the teeth and ready for the onslaught. though full of duplicity, one is nevertheless liable to be taken in by their apparent frankness. they are hospitable to strangers, but only because this is an ancient custom which has the force of law and is not a virtue which springs from the heart. the pride of the afghans is a marked feature of their national character. they boast of their descent, their prowess in arms, their independence; and cap all by "am i not a puktan?" the afghan people, occupied with the defence of their homes, have failed to assist the ameer in the formation and maintenance of that indispensable instrument--an organized, well-equipped, easily mobilized army. in regular battle the afghans can have but little hope of success; their strength lies in the petty warfare peculiar to a wild, mountainous country. as auxiliaries, as partisan troops in their own country, they would be of great value to their allies and extremely troublesome to their enemies. for outpost, courier, and scouting purposes, they would doubtless be most efficient. the strength of the organized army in the service of the ameer of afghanistan is about , men of all arms. the traveller vambery, who visited herat in , says: "the afghan's national costume consists of a long shirt, drawers, and dirty linen clothes; or, if he is a soldier, he affects a british red coat. he throws it over his shirt, while he gets on his head the picturesque indo-afghan turban. others again--and these are the _beau-monde_--are wont to assume a half-persian costume. weapons are borne by all. rarely does any one, whether civil or military, enter the bazar without his sword and shield. to be quite _a la mode_ one must carry about one quite an arsenal, consisting of two pistols, a sword, poniard, hand-jar, gun, and shield." m. vambery also describes a drill of some afghan regulars. "the men had a very military bearing, far better than the ottoman army that was so drilled forty years ago. these might have been mistaken for european troops if most of them had not had on their bare feet the pointed kabuli shoe, and had not had their short trowsers so tightly stretched by their straps that they threatened every moment to burst and fly up above the knee." the adventurous o'donovan thus describes an afghan cavalryman whom he met unexpectedly, near herat, in : "he wore a dark-colored turban, one end of the cloth pulled up in front so as to resemble a small cockade. his uniform was blue-black, and he wore long boots. a broad black leather cross-belt, with two very large brass buckles, crossed his breast. he had sabre, pistols, and carbine." [illustration: zool kuddar, an adam khel afreedi. mousa, a kizilbash, born in peshawur.] the actual fighting strength of the army of afghanistan cannot be definitely stated. major lumsden, who has represented the british government in that country in various diplomatic capacities, stated (some years since) that the regular army of the ameer consisted of sixteen regiments of infantry, three of cavalry, and seventy-six field guns. the infantry regiments numbered about men each; the men were obtained by compulsory levy. their uniform consisted of english cast-off clothes purchased at auction. the pay, about five rupees per mensem, was paid irregularly and often in kind; two months' pay was deducted for clothing. the cavalry and artillery were badly horsed; and the horses were sent to graze in summer. a russian report of estimates the infantry at , men. the armament, equipment, and instruction of the troops have doubtless improved since that time, as ten years later the british government supplied the afghan government with , enfield and , snider rifles and one field battery, and very recently ( ) it was announced that a present of martini-henry rifles and improved field guns had been sent to abdurrahman by the indian authorities. besides the regular army there is a paid irregular mounted force of about , men, active and formidable in "hill operations," and known as jezailchis. the late general colin mackenzie, in an account of his experiences in the elphinstone disaster of , says: "the jezailchis are so called from their jezails or long rifles. the afghans are said to be among the best marksmen in the world. they are accustomed to arms from early boyhood, live in a chronic state of warfare with their neighbors, and are most skilful in taking advantage of cover. an afghan will throw himself flat, behind a stone barely big enough to cover his head, and scoop a hollow in the ground with his left elbow as he loads. men like these only require training to make first-rate irregular troops. "as a trait of afghan character, i must mention that whenever the jezailchis could snatch five minutes to refresh themselves with a pipe, one of them would twang a sort of a rude guitar as an accompaniment to some martial song, which, mingling with the notes of war, sounded very strangely." the russian general staff have also estimated the ameer's force, exclusive of the irregulars, at , men with guns. the efficiency of this body, by reason of their peculiar surroundings, must vary with the character of the operations. for defence--particularly of their own section--they form an important consideration; for aggressive purposes their strength lies in partisan operations, in small detachments, requiring great mobility. just as it is difficult to understand the rapidity with which large numbers are assembled in afghanistan for fighting purposes, so the dispersing of an afghan army together with its attendant masses of tribal levies in flight is almost beyond comprehension; men who have been actually engaged in hand-to-hand combat dispose of their arms in the villages they pass through, and meet their pursuers with melons or other fruit in their hands, while they adopt the _role_ of peaceful inhabitants. a brief description of some of the more noted cities of afghanistan may be appropriate here. sir henry rawlinson gives the following details respecting the so-called key of india--the city of herat: "that which distinguishes herat from all other oriental cities, and at the same time constitutes its main defence, is the stupendous character of the earthwork upon which the city wall is built. this earthwork averages feet in width at the base and about feet in height, and as it is crowned by a wall feet high and feet thick at the base, supported by about semicircular towers, and is further protected by a ditch feet in width and feet in depth, it presents an appearance of imposing strength. whether the place is really as strong as it looks has been differently estimated. general ferrier, who resided for some time in herat, in , states that the city is nothing more than an immense redoubt, and gives it as his opinion that, as the line of wall is entirely without flanking defences, the place could not hold out for twenty days against a european army; and m. khanikoff, who, although not a professional soldier, was a very acute observer, further remarks that the whole interior of the city is dominated from the rising ground yards distant and covered with solid buildings at the northeast angle, while the water supply both for the ditch and the city would be at the mercy of an enemy holding the outside country; the wells and reservoirs inside the wall, which could then alone be available--being quite inadequate to the wants of the inhabitants: but on the other hand, all experience testifies to the defensibility of the position. "not to speak of the siege which herat sustained at the hands of genghiz khan, of timur, and of ahmed shah, we have only to remember that in the afghans of herat, under major eldred pottinger, beat off the continuous attacks, for nearly ten months, of a persian army of , regular troops supported by fifty pieces of artillery, and in many cases directed and even commanded by russian officers. the truth seems to be that herat, although in its present state quite unfit to resist a european army, possesses great capabilities of defence, and might by a skilful adaptation of the resources of modern science be made almost impregnable. major saunders, a british engineer officer, calculated in that, at an outlay of l , , which would include the expenses of deepening the ditch, clearing the glacis and esplanade, providing flanking defences, and repairing the walls throughout, herat might be rendered secure against any possible renewal of the attack by persia." the location of this city upon the principal thoroughfare between india, persia, and turkestan gives it a special importance in a military sense. it is also the principal mart of western afghanistan, and comprises extensive manufactures in wool and leather. the natural fertility of the country near herat has been enhanced by irrigation. "the valley, or _julgah_ (as the persians say), in which the city lies is rich in the possession of a river. this valley is about thirty miles long by sixteen in breadth, exclusive of the ground taken up by the fortress and the walls. four of these miles separate the town from the northern and twelve from the southern hills, while at one quarter of the greater distance runs the her-i-rud or herat river, which, rising near the kuh-i-baba, pursues a westerly course till, passing the city, it sweeps, first gradually, then decidedly, to the north, eventually to lose its identity in the environs of sarakhs. it is of political as well as of geographical importance, for it passes between the persian and afghan frontier posts of kahriz and kusun respectively, and may be considered to mark the perso-afghan boundary at the western paropismus. the plain, south of the walls, is watered by a net-work of eight or nine large and many minor ditches. the aqueducts are stated to be superior to those of bokhara, samarcand, and ispahan. the grain produced is abundant--beyond the requirements of town and suburbs together. the bread, the water, and the vines have the merit of special excellence. yet, with all this wealth of means and material, capable of subsisting an army of , men for some time, much of the legacy of past ages is disregarded and nullified by the supineness of a present generation. the ruins visible on all sides are not all useless or obsolete works. as one conclusive instance may be cited the neglected 'pul-i-malan.' this bridge, of twenty-three arches, can scarcely be considered void of purpose or practical benefit. it is, however, rapidly falling into decay, and as the river has changed its bed, part of it remains, barren of object, on dry land. on the rising of the waters this state of things is inconvenient; for the river, at such time, is no longer fordable, and the kandahar caravans, going to and fro, have difficulty in crossing." [footnote: sir f. j. goldsmid, "journeys between herat and khiva."] in conolly was of opinion that the city was one of the dirtiest in the world, being absolutely destitute of drainage; and vambery, thirty-three years afterward, when the city was captured by dost mohammed, says the city was largely a heap of rubbish, having suffered the horrors of a long siege. the city of kabul, from which the surrounding territory of eastern afghanistan takes its name, stands in lat. degrees ' n., and long. degrees ' e., near the point where the kabul river is crossed by three bridges. its altitude is , feet, and, within a short distance to the north, is overtopped by pinnacles of the hindu kush about , feet higher. the winters are severe, but the summers are very temperate--seldom going above degrees. kabul is fortified without and within; being separated into quarters by stone walls: the bala hissar, or citadel proper, being on the east, while the persian quarter of the city is strongly protected on the southwest. in the days of sultan baber, kabul was the capital of the mogul empire. in modern times, it has been the scene of many anglo-indian struggles. it was taken by the british in , and lost by them, through treachery, in ; in the following january, , british soldiers and , camp-followers were massacred while retreating. kandahar, the capital of central afghanistan, is about two hundred miles s. w. of kabul, and three hundred and seventy-one miles e. of herat. it is said to have been founded by alexander of macedon. the city is laid out at right angles, and is watered from the neighboring rivers through canals, which send to every street an ample supply. sir michael biddulph describes the surroundings: "kandahar stands on the western side of a plain, which was originally a barren skirt of the mountain. exactly opposite to the city, and two miles to the westward, there is a wide break in the dividing ridge, through which the road to herat leads, and by which are conducted the many canals and watercourses, taken from the argandab, to supply the town and fertilize its environs. the energy and skill displayed in these extensive water-works cannot be too highly extolled. brought from a point many miles distant in the argandab valley, the chief canal, with its offshoots, conducts a vast body of water, which is dispersed along the contours of the declining plain in innumerable channels, spreading a rich fertility for many miles in a fan-like form to the southeast of the gap. villages cluster around the city on three sides; cornfields, orchards, gardens, and vineyards are seen in luxurious succession, presenting a veritable oasis within the girdle of rugged hills and desert wastes all around. and if we turn to the aspect of the country beyond the gap, we see in the argandab valley, along the canals and the river banks, a fair and beautiful landscape of village and cultivated ground, stretching for many miles in each direction. this productive character of the immediate neighborhood of kandahar, and its commanding position within reach of other fertile districts, would give to this place, under a strong, stable, and just government, as much prosperity and happiness as falls to the lot of any place in the world." [illustration: city of kandahar, afghanistan.] jelalabad stands on the kabul river, about half-way between kabul and the khaiber pass. it was the scene of the stubborn defence by sir robert sale in , referred to elsewhere. it has a floating population of about three thousand souls. our engraving is taken from the south and west. the stream in the west is the kabul river. the jati gate in the south wall is the exit from the hindu quarter. the kabul exit is on the west, while the road to peshawur commences at the gate of that name on the east wall of the city. the northern gate is known as the pheel khana, or elephant quarter. the walls of the town and of its houses are of mud, and the roofs generally of wood. the city is laid out in the form of a parallelogram intersected by two main streets crossing in the centre. the town of ghazni (the ancient ghizni) is another historical landmark in a region famous for its evidences of former grandeur. it stands about miles northeast of kandahar on the road to kabul; it is literally "founded upon a rock" at an elevation of , feet, and its base is feet above the adjacent plain. it has walls thirty-five feet high, and a wet ditch, but is not considered in any sense formidable by modern engineers, as it is commanded by neighboring heights; it will always be a rendezvous for the natives, and forms a station or an important line of communication between the indus and the murghab. in the tenth century it was the seat of an empire comprising the present territory of afghanistan, and which had in the space of seventy years absorbed thirty-eight degrees of longitude and twenty degrees of latitude. its decline dates from the twelfth century, when the seat of government was transferred to lahore. from to it has been occupied alternately by the british and the afghans. the climate is not exceptionally severe, although in winter the mercury drops to degrees below zero at times. the population averages about ten thousand. peshawur is one of the most important towns, both in a military and commercial sense, in the _derajat_. it is the capital of a province of the same name on the n. w. frontier of india, eighteen miles from the khaiber pass and one hundred and fifty miles s.e. of kabul. it has the usual bastioned defences, besides some detached works of more importance. it was once a rich and populous city, but has, like many other like places in that region, fallen from its high estate. it is garrisoned by the british, and can boast of fair trade and a population of about fifty thousand. it is the centre of a fruitful district containing more than one million inhabitants. the fruitful valley and pass of bamian lie on the road leading from kabul to turkestan. the pass, at an elevation of , feet, is the only known defile over the hindu kush practicable for artillery. this valley was one of the chief centres of buddhist worship, as gigantic idols, mutilated indeed by fanatical mussulmans, conclusively prove. bamian, with its colossal statues cut out in the rock, was among the wonders described by the buddhist monks who traversed central asia in the fourth century. the statues are found on a hill about three hundred feet high, in which are a number of cells excavated in the rock, not unlike those found in the zuni country in the western part of the united states. the male figure is about feet, the female feet, in height; they are clothed in light drapery, and a winding stair may be ascended to the head. eight miles eastward of bamian lies the ancient fortress of zohak, attributed to the fabulous persian serpent-king of that name. it is still used as one of the defences of the pass. [illustration: castle of zohak, first march from bamian, on the irak road to kabul.] the animals of afghanistan adapted to military transport purposes are the camel, the _yabu_ (mountain pony), and the donkey. from certain professional papers, on the camel, by captain yaldwyn and other officers of the indian army, we learn that this beast of burden has been often utilized by the british in afghanistan, and the supply of camels raised in that country has generally been augmented by drafts from india, although the last mentioned do not thrive under the transition. the camel is docile, capable of abstinence in an emergency, well adapted for the imposition of loads and for traversing over flat or sandy ground, adapts itself to rough roads, has acute sight and smell, and, during progression, moves both feet on one side, simultaneously. its flesh and milk are wholesome articles of food. it is deficient in muscular power behind, and cannot readily climb hills. those found in afghanistan are of the arabian species. they are strong, thickset, with abundance of hair; are short in the leg, better climbers, and more accustomed to cold than others of the species. their feeding requires as much care as that of cavalry or artillery horses; they are fond of green food, and certain trees and shrubs. in grazing, camels brought from india sometimes are poisoned by eating the oleander bush and other plants which the native camel avoids. elphinstone's ill-fated expedition in lost out of , camels from this cause alone. on the march, or where grazing does not abound, they are fed with grain and _bhoosa_ [footnote: chopped straw.]; this is given them in one ration at the end of the day. the theory that camels do not require much watering is declared a fallacy; the arabian species can take in five or six gallons, sufficient for as many days; they will not drink cold running water; but, where water can be had, they should be watered daily. the load of the camel varies from to pounds, depending upon its condition. it is admirably adapted for carrying long articles, as ladders, tent-poles, and even light mountain guns. the marching power of camels depends on a number of conditions. they are good goers in loose sandy soil, and even over stony ground, if the stones are not too large and sharp; in slippery places they are useless, as they have no hold with their feet. they are very enduring, making the longest marches at an average speed of two miles an hour, and can ford deep rivers with ease if the current is not too rapid. when the bottom of the ford is shifting sand, the passage of a number of camels renders it firm. a string of camels covers about one mile of road; , mules, carrying the same weight of supplies, occupy double the distance. camels must be unladen at ferries. for military purposes these animals are purchased between the ages of five and nine years, and may be used up to the age of sixteen. they average about one thousand pounds in weight, seven feet in height to the top of the hump, and eight feet in length from nose to tail. in camp and when not at work they are arranged in lines facing each other, or in circles heads inward; the latter plan is the favorite formation at night. the allowance of spare camels on service is ten per cent. [illustration: an afghan post-chaise; going to the front. ] lieut. martin, r. e., states that his company, of sappers and miners, was able to get an exceptional percentage of labor from the camels under his charge by attention to certain details; and says further, that "camels are very quarrelsome and bite each other badly when grazing. they can ford four feet of moderately running water, easily, if the bed is good; but a yard of greasy mud, a few inches deep, will throw many camels and delay a convoy for hours. camel-bridges were carried on the leading camels, with a few shovels and picks, in every convoy of the kandahar field force, and all small cuts or obstructions were thus bridged in a few minutes; the camels remaining by their bridges (two gang-boards eight by three feet) until the last baggage camel had passed. in perfectly open country, such as kandahar to girishk, it was found possible to march the camels on a broad front, the whole convoy being a rough square; camels starting at a.m. have been known to arrive at camp ten miles off as late as p.m." captain yaldwyn says: "a camel's carrying-power is equal to that of two and a half mules or ponies, whilst his ration is only about that of one mule or pony. thus camels only eat as much as mules or ponies, and whilst the latter can only carry , _maunds_ [footnote: a _maund_ is pounds.] the former can carry , . again, camels only require attendants to be paid, clothed, and fed, whilst mules or ponies require attendants." but, on the other hand, the immense losses of camels from excessive heat or cold, or over-exertion in mountainous or rough roads, and other causes, greatly neutralize the force of this comparison. the _yabu_ is a hardy mountain pony used by the afghans for the saddle and packing purposes; they are very strong, active, and sure-footed, and have been frequently used by the british forces in their military operations. in captain (afterward general) outram relates that his _yabu_, "although but thirteen hands high, carried me and my saddlebags, weighing altogether upward of sixteen stone, the whole distance from kalat in seven days and a half (an average of nearly forty-seven miles a day), during which time i had passed hours on its back; there was no saddle on the pony, merely a cloth over his back." they will carry from four to five _maunds_ with perfect ease, making journeys of thirty miles a day. those which are ridden and which amble, are called _yurgas_. the afghans tie a knot in the middle of the long tails of their horses, which, they say, strengthens the animal's backbone! the afghan donkey was severely tested in during the operations of sir donald stewart between kabul and kandahar, and this class of carriage was found very useful in the conveyance of provisions. afghan donkeys will march with troops and carry loads of grain or flour, averaging ninety pounds, without difficulty. they keep pace with mules or ponies in a baggage column, as they avoid the frequent checks which retard the larger animals; they browse on the line of march, and find their own forage easily in the neighborhood of camp; they are easily controlled and cared for, and are on all accounts the most inexpensive transport in eastern countries. [footnote: lieut.-col. e. f. chapman, c.b., r.a.] the transport animals found in india and turkestan will be described in the parts of this book devoted to the military resources of those regions. in concluding this sketch of the "threshold of india," a mere glance at the military history of the country will suffice. in fact, only so far as it may have a bearing upon the present, has reference to the past any place in this volume. the early periods of eventful interest to afghanistan have been already noted at the opening of this chapter. its purely oriental experiences were beginning to fade with the death of nadir shah--variously termed the "butcher of delhi," and the "wallace of persia," in . his progress toward india, from which he was to tear its choicest treasure and loot its greatest city, reminds one of the arabian nights. a camp-follower from jelalabad reported as follows: "he has , horsemen with himself . . . after morning prayers he sits on a throne, the canopy of which is in the form of a dome and of gold. one thousand young men, with royal standards of red silk and the lance tops and tassels of silver, are disposed regularly; and, at a proper distance, five hundred beautiful slaves, from twelve to twenty years old, stand--one half on his right and the other on his left. all the great men stand fronting him; and the arzbegi stands between, in readiness to represent whatever he is desired, and everybody has his cause decided at once: bribery is not so much as known here. he has particular information given him of every thing that passes; all criminals, great and small, rich and poor, meet with immediate death. he sits till noon, after which he dines, then reposes a little; when afternoon prayers are over he sits till the evening prayers, and when they are over he shoots five arrows into the _khak tudah_, and then goes into the women's apartments." [footnote: fraser's "nadir shah."] the splendor of the robber king has departed, but his deeds of blood and treachery have often been repeated in the country of the afghans. a succession of struggles between afghan and persian leaders for the control of afghanistan marked the next fifty years. when the project of russian invasion of india, suggested by napoleon, was under consideration in persia, a british envoy was sent, in , to the then shah sujah, and received the most cordial reception at peshawur. but shah sujah was, in , superseded by his brother, mahmud, and the latter was pressed hard by the son of his wazir to such an extent that herat alone remained to him. in his former kingdom passed to dost mohammed, who in governed kabul, kandahar, ghazni, and peshawur. the last-named place fell into the hands of runjeet singh, the "lion of the punjab." dost mohammed then applied to england for aid in recovering peshawur, failing in which he threatened to turn to russia. that power was ( ) engaged in fomenting trouble in the western part of afghanistan, encouraging an attack by , persians, led by russian officers, upon herat. instead of acceding to the request of dost mohammed, the british governor-general--lord auckland--declared war against that potentate, alleging in a proclamation that "the welfare of the english possessions in the east rendered it necessary to have an ally on their western frontier who would be in favor of peace, and opposed to all disorders and innovations." this was the beginning of intrigues relating to afghanistan on the part, alternately, of england and russia, in which john bull has had to pay, literally, "the lion's share" of the cost in blood and treasure. in , sir john cam hobhouse, president of the board of control in india confessed: "the afghan war _was done by myself_; the court of directors had nothing to do with it." the reason already mentioned was alleged as an excuse for hostilities. they were declared, notwithstanding that the british political agent at the court of dost mohammed reported that ruler as "entirely english" in his sympathies. this report was suppressed. twenty years later the facts were given to parliament, russian letters were found implicating the czar's ministers, and the english agent, burnes, was vindicated. the anglo-indian army--consisting of twenty thousand troops, fifty thousand followers, and sixty thousand camels--advanced in two columns, one from bengal, and the other from bombay by the indus. scinde, which had hitherto been independent, like the punjab and lahore, was subjugated _en route_, and nine thousand men were left behind to occupy it. on the d of february, , a simultaneous advance from shikarpur, on the bolan pass, commenced. kandahar was occupied april th, ghazni july d, and kabul august th, and shah sujah was proclaimed ameer by british authority. by the following september the greater part of the english forces returned to india. only five regiments of infantry and one of cavalry remained in afghanistan, where suspicious symptoms of discontent with the new order of things began very soon to show themselves. during the summer of insurrections had to be put down by force in several places. in november of the same year dost mohammed defeated the english in the perwan pass. from that time until the autumn of a sultry calm reigned in the country. the english commanders, although fully aware of the state of mind of the people, neglected to take the most simple measures of precaution. the local control was vested in a mixed military and civil council, consisting of general elphinstone, unfitted by disease and natural irresolution from exercising the functions of command, and sir william mcnaghten, the british envoy, whose self-confidence and trust in the treacherous natives made him an easy victim. in the centre of an insurrection which was extending day by day under their eyes and under their own roofs, these representatives of a powerful nation, with a small but effective force, deliberately buried their heads in the sand of their credulity, not realizing the nature of the danger which for weeks was evident to many of their subordinates. finally a force of the insurgents, under the direction of the son of the deposed ruler, akbar khan, threw off the disguise they had assumed before the english, and taking possession of the khurd kabul pass near the city, entirely cut off the retreat to india which elphinstone had commenced. as there was no intelligent concert of action among the british leaders, the garrison melted away in detail, the afghan auxiliaries refused to fight, or turned their arms against the europeans. sir william mcnaghten was murdered by akbar, at a council in sight of the garrison. a few attempts to force a passage, or to defend themselves, made by certain brave officers of the beleagured force, failed. on january , , an agreement was made by which the afghan leader promised to ensure to the british forces a safe withdrawal to india. this was violated with afghan readiness, and the entire anglo-indian contingent of seventeen thousand souls was destroyed; sacrificed to the murderous brutality of the afghan insurgents, or dying from exposure to one of the most severe winters known to that region. months after, heaps of dead bodies, preserved by the intense cold, obstructed the mountain passes. the horrors of moscow were repeated in the khurd kabul, and the noblest attributes of humanity were exemplified in the acts of the officers and soldiers of the doomed party. only twenty of this entire force survived. the news of this horrible disaster was brought to jelalabad by the only man who penetrated the afghan environment, dr. brydon. on receipt of the news of this overwhelming catastrophe, the indian government endeavored to rescue the garrisons of kandahar and ghazni, as well as that of jelalabad; but the mohammedan troops refused to march against their co-religionists, and the sikhs also showed great unwillingness. the garrison of ghazni, thinking to secure its safety by capitulation, was cut to pieces december , . jelalabad, held by , men under general sale, still withstood the storm like a rock of iron. general nott, the energetic officer commanding at kandahar, on receiving the news of the destruction of the british, blew up the citadel of the town, destroyed every thing not necessary to his object, and started, august , , for ghazni, which he also destroyed, september th. [illustration: gate of the bazaar at kabul.] another british force of twelve thousand men, under general pollock, was organized at peshawur, to punish the afghans, and, so far as might be, retrieve the errors of elphinstone and mcnaghten. pollock's operations were, in the sense of retaliation, successful. an eminent german authority wrote: "kabul and other towns were levelled with the ground; akbar's troops were blown from guns, and the people were collected together and destroyed like worms." general pollock carried the famous khaiber pass, in advancing to the relief of jelalabad in april, . this was the first time that the great defile--twenty-eight miles in length--had ever been forced by arms. timur lang and nadir shah, at the head of their enormous hosts, bought a safe passage through it from the afridis. akbar the great, in , is said to have lost forty thousand men in attempting to force it, and aurangzeb failed to get through. the misfortune of elphinstone's command, great as it was, would have been much more humiliating to england, had it not been for the firmness of the gallant general pollock, who, ordered to withdraw with his command to peshawur, by lord ellenborough, without effecting one of the objects of the expedition--the deliverance of the english captives in akbar's hands at kabul,--protested against such a suicidal act on the part of any englishman or any administration, and, at great personal risk, gained his point. in the forced march to kabul, which pollock made subsequently, the force of about eight thousand men moved in as light order as possible. after loading the commissariat camels to their utmost carrying capacity, the general discovered that the mounted men had in their kit a spare pair of pantaloons apiece, on which he ordered the legs to be filled with grain and carried by the men in front of them, on their saddles. by the middle of december the british had started on their return march, pursued as far as the indus by the afghans, and by this hurried conclusion to the war lessened their prestige in asia to an enormous degree. as sir henry rawlinson wrote: "it was not so much the fact of our retreat; disaster would have been diminished, if not altogether overcome; but retreating as we did, pursued even through the last pass into the plains by an implacable enemy, the impression became universal in india as well as in central asia, that we had simply been driven back across the mountains." a very able hindu gentleman, very loyal to the british, traced the mutiny of in a great measure to the afghan campaign of . he said: "it was a direct breach of faith to take the sepoys out of india. practically they were compelled to go for fear of being treated as mutineers, but the double pay they received by no means compensated them for losing caste. the sepoys mistrusted the government from that time forward, and were always fearing that their caste would be destroyed; besides, the kabul disaster taught them that europeans were not invincible." the departure of the english forces was followed by the reestablishment of dost mohammed's authority in afghanistan. once, at the time of the sikh insurrection, the dost crossed the indian border with two thousand horsemen, and narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the british in the affair of gujrat, february , , where the speed of his horse alone saved him from capture. in a better understanding was effected between the son of dost mohammed and his powerful european neighbor. he reconquered balkh in , and gained kandahar by inheritance in , while he lost herat to the persians in . with the aid of great britain, in , persia relinquished all claims to herat, but the dost had eventually to besiege that city, occupied by a rebellious faction, in , and after a siege of ten months reduced the place, only to find a tomb within its walls. after the usual struggle for the throne, peculiar to a change of dynasty in afghanistan, shere ali, one of the dost's sons, prevailed, and was recognized in . the next decade was notable for a series of diplomatic manoeuvres between england and russia for afghan friendship. shere ali now leaned toward the lion, now in the direction of the bear, with the regularity of a pendulum. the advances were received with presents and promises on the one hand, and promises, powerful embassies, and imposing military expeditions on the other. on september , , a british ambassador was turned back by the afghan commandant of the frontier fort of ali musjid, and on the th of november, of the same year, war was declared against shere ali by the anglo-indian government. at that time the russian general kaufmann was operating on the northern border of afghanistan with a force of fifteen thousand men and sixty guns, and the ameer had reason to think that he could rely on russian cooperation against the english, who, with a force of forty thousand men, promptly invaded his dominion. this force moved into afghanistan in four columns, under the command, respectively, of generals browne, roberts, biddulph, and stewart, with reserves under generals maude and primrose. we shall have occasion later to consider some of the details of the protracted operations which followed. they embraced several admirably conducted marches, exposure to excessively severe winter weather, the successful surmounting of great natural obstacles, the development of the usual weakness in the department of transport, with unnecessary losses in animals, a considerable sick-list, and an inconsiderable proportion of killed and wounded in action. the military benefits were those resulting from a long and arduous field experience in a rough country. the interruption to these actual "field manoeuvres," this "fire-drill," by the enemy, was comparatively feeble,--as a rule, stimulating the anglo-indian force to put its best foot foremost. under this system, at the end of the two years' campaign, all departments of the army had become moulded into the efficient machines essential to success in any military venture. politically, the campaign had been a failure. the fate of the gallant major cavagnari and his mission, murdered at kabul, september , , made a deeper impression on the afghan mind than the british occupation of afghan cities or the afghan losses in battle. in the same year the british secretary for india, in london, wrote to the governor-general that: "it appears that as the result of two successful campaigns, of the employment of an immense force, and of the expenditure of large sums of money, all that has yet been accomplished has been the disintegration of the state which it was desired to see strong, friendly, and independent, the assumption of fresh and unwelcome liabilities in regard to one of its provinces, and a condition of anarchy throughout the remainder of the country." early in the year , the british government prepared to make a dignified withdrawal from afghanistan. that volcanic region was by no means tranquil, although the chief rebel, yakoub khan, had been driven out of kabul by general roberts, and had retired to the distant country of the her-i-rud. at this time appeared the exiled abdurrahman khan, who had long resided at tashkend, and who was welcomed warmly by the local sirdars on the northern frontier of afghanistan. as he approached kabul his authority and influence increased, and the british political officers, acting under instructions, formally recognized him as ameer of that district. in the meanwhile yakoub advanced westward from herat with a strong force, encountered a british brigade, under general burrows, near the helmund, and utterly routed it. the remnant of the european force took refuge in kandahar, where general primrose was in command. surrounding the city, yakoub succeeded in effectually "bottling up" the british garrison for some time. sir frederick roberts, however, made a rapid march from kabul on kandahar, and after a successful and decisive battle with the afghans, completely dispersed the native force, and relieved the beleaguered garrison. soon after, abdurrahman was formally installed as ameer of afghanistan, and the british army withdrew from the country. iii. the british forces and routes. a sketch of the military resources of great britain, more especially those available for field service in afghanistan, with notes upon the strength and composition of the forces, means of transport and supply, nature of important lines of communication, and of certain strategic points in the probable theatre of operations, will be attempted in this chapter. _organization_.--the military system of great britain is based upon voluntary enlistment instead of the usual european plan of universal liability to service. recruits may enlist either for the "short-service" or "long-service" term; the first being for six years in the ranks and six on furlough, and the last for twelve years in the ranks; the furlough of short-service men is passed in the army reserve, and then, in consideration of liability to be recalled to the colors, the men are paid sixpence a day. the troops of the standing army, (united kingdom,) march, , were proportionately distributed as follows: forty-three per cent. in england, two per cent. in scotland, twenty-five per cent. in ireland, and thirty-five per cent. abroad, not including india. [illustration: major-general, sir f. s. roberts, v.c., k.c.b.] available british land forces. [footnote: approximately, from late returns ( ), but short of authorized "establishment" by , .] england. ================================================================== army army militia yeomanry volunteers reserve ================================================================== class: engineers officers men , cavalry officers men , , royal horse artillery officers men , royal artillery officers men , infantry officers , men , aggregate ------- ------- ------- ------ ------- all ranks , , , , , ================================================================== grand aggregate , ================================================================== india. [native contingents, independent states of india, [ ] about , .] ================================================================== army (e'r'p'n) (native) ================================================================== engineers officers men [ ] , cavalry officers men , , royal horse artillery officers men royal artillery officers men , , infantry officers , , men , , ------- ------- aggregate all ranks , , ================================================================= grand aggregate , ================================================================= [footnote : cashmere , , nepaul , , hyderabad , .] [footnote : sappers and miners.] for purposes of administration, instruction, and mobilization, great britain and ireland are partitioned into thirteen military districts commanded by general officers. these are sub-divided as follows: for the infantry one hundred and two sub-districts under regimental commanders; for the artillery there are twelve sub-districts, and for the cavalry two districts. the brigade of an infantry sub-district comprises usually two line battalions, two militia battalions, the brigade depot, rifle volunteer corps, and infantry of the army reserve. of the line battalions one is generally at home and one abroad. in an artillery sub-district are comprised a proportion of the royal artillery and artillery of the militia, volunteers, and army reserve respectively. in like manner a cavalry sub-district includes the yeomanry and army reserve cavalry. the officers on duty in the adjutant-general's and quartermaster's departments of the british army are, as a rule, detailed for a term of five years from the line, but must rejoin their regiments immediately upon orders for foreign service. the royal engineers then were and are organized into forty-three companies. the cavalry is divided into the household cavalry and cavalry of the line. the first named comprises the st and d life guards and royal horse guards,--three regiments. the line is composed of twenty-eight regiments, as follows: seven of dragoon guards, three of dragoons, thirteen of hussars, five of lancers. the strength of regiments varies from to men with from to troop horses each. the artillery--under the title of the royal regiment of artillery--is divided into three classes; the royal horse artillery of two brigades of twelve batteries each, making a brigade total of sixty guns; the field artillery of four, brigades of seventy-six batteries, and the garrison artillery of eleven brigades. for the non-professional reader it may be well to say that, in the horse artillery, all the _personnel_ of a battery is mounted, the better to act with cavalry or mounted infantry; under the general term "field artillery" may be classed mountain batteries (only maintained in india), field batteries proper, in which the guns are somewhat heavier, and served by gunners who are not mounted, but on occasion are carried on the limbers and on seats attached to the axles, and in an emergency may be carried on the "off" horses of teams. under the class "field artillery," also, would come such large guns as are required in war for siege or other heavy operations, and which in india or afghanistan would be drawn by bullocks. the infantry is composed of the guards, the line, and the rifles. the guards consist of three regiments--grenadier guards, coldstream guards, and scots fusilier guards; in all seven battalions. the line comprises regiments ( battalions); the rifles four battalions. besides these there are two regiments of colonial (west india) colored troops. the militia is intended for local defence, but can be ordered anywhere within the united kingdom, and is available for garrison duty in the mediterranean. enlistment in the militia is for six years. the officers are commissioned by the queen, and, as before noted, all the details of control and recruitment are entrusted to district commanders. for instruction this force may be called out, for a period not to exceed eight weeks annually, with regular officers as instructors. there are battalions of infantry, brigades of garrison artillery, and regiments of engineers comprised in this force. the militia reserve, limited to one fourth of the active militia, is liable to army service in case of an emergency, and for the term of six years is entitled to l per annum. the volunteers represent "the bulwark" in case of invasion; they are organized principally as garrison artillery and infantry. the officers are commissioned by the county lieutenants, subject to the approval of the queen. the men are recruited, armed, and instructed by the government. recruits are required to attend thirty drills, and afterward not less than nine drills annually. the volunteer force is composed of battalions of infantry, brigades of garrison artillery and battalions of engineers. the yeomanry cavalry are equipped as light cavalry, drill eight days per year, and are subject to call in case of riot and insurrection, when each man with a horse receives seven pence a day. there are thirty-eight regiments. the army of india differs from that of the united kingdom, not only in its composition, but in the character of its organization. this organization dates from , when the government passed from the east india company to the crown. the european regiments serving in india are in all respects organized and maintained, as in england. in each presidency forming the three political subdivisions, and among which the anglo-indian army is distributed, exists a staff corps which supplies all european officers, permitted to serve with native troops. these officers must pass certain examinations before they can be assigned to any of the following vacancies in any native regiment. indian regiment. europeans commandant, second-in-command and wing officer, wing-officer, wing-subalterns, adjutant, quartermaster, medical officer. natives subadars (captains), st class, " " d " " " d " jemandars (lieuts.), st " " " d " havildar (sergt.-major), havildars (sergeants), naicks (corporals), drummers, sepoys (privates). the duties of the commandant of a native regiment correspond in general to those of a similar officer in a european corps. three times a week he holds a "durbar," for the trial of offenders and transaction of general regimental business. the men are paid by the native officers in presence of the european "wing-officer," who is responsible for all public property issued to his half battalion, or wing. the native officers are commissioned by the indian government, and, as a rule, are promoted from the ranks, and are of the same caste as the privates. certain native officers of the engineers and artillery may be eligible to appointment in the corresponding european corps; one is always assigned as an aide-de-camp to the viceroy. when on detailed service, a native officer is allowed to command his company, but "no battalion parades should take place without the presence of a british officer." [footnote: indian army regulations.] in each regiment there is a drill-sergeant and drill-corporal, who receive extra pay for their services. corporals are promoted from privates who know how to read and write in at least one character, or who have displayed extraordinary courage. the pay per month of a sepoy is equal to $ . ; havildar, $ ; jemandar, $ . ; subadar, $ . to $ . european officers with native regiments: commandant, $ ; wing-officers, $ to $ ; adjutant, $ . ; quartermaster, $ . ; medical officers, $ , monthly. the annual pay-roll of a native regiment of combatants and non-combatants amounts to about $ , . in consideration of the pay each sepoy is required to provide his rations and clothing, except one coat and one pair of trousers issued by the government every two years; in consequence, each regiment is accompanied by a native village called a bazaar, containing tradesmen of all kinds; this bazaar is under strict discipline and is managed by the quartermaster. the entire outfit follows the regiment into the field. colonel gordon of the indian army testifies: "with regard to native troops under a cannonade i may say that i saw our native infantry twice under the fire of the afghan mountain guns, and they behaved very steadily and coolly. ammunition was economically expended. i attributed much the small loss sustained by the troops in afghanistan to our excellent straight shooting." the cavalry of india has in certain instances borne an excellent reputation for efficiency in action, is well set up, and in its instruction and discipline is modelled after the british system. the artillery comprises well-instructed native organizations, but its principal experience has been with light field guns against irregular troops. the achilles heel of the indian army consists in this, that there are but eight european officers to each regiment, and of these but six would be available to lead in battle: the quartermaster and surgeon being at such a time otherwise engaged. the native officers, seldom having an opportunity to command in peace, would be unreliable leaders in such an emergency. at the action of ali musjid, november , , the day before the occupation of that fort, six british officers of a native battalion were placed _hors de combat_, so that on the first day after crossing the afghan frontier there was but one european officer to manage the regiment. besides the regular establishment there are about , european volunteers (including , railway officials and employes) available for local defence. the feudatory chiefs of india enjoy an aggregate revenue of some l , , , equal to more than one third of the income of the british government of india. they maintain forces aggregating , men with , guns to perform the duties of court ceremonial, garrison, military police, guards, and escorts, throughout territories aggregating nearly , square miles with , , of inhabitants. these forces are unreservedly held at the disposal of the crown by the native princes. _transport and supply_.--this essential feature of all wars will be briefly considered in the light of the anglo-afghan war of - . large quantities of supplies were transported from the main base of operations on the indus, and distributed to the troops in the field over four or five distinct lines of communication, and over roads, and mountain paths of varied degrees of ruggedness. the country on both sides of the indo-afghan frontier was severely taxed to furnish the necessary animals. part of the transport was hired--and as in the case of the brahuis camels--with the services of the owners, who were easily offended and likely to decamp with their property in a night. during the first year the system was under the direct control of the commissariat department; but as this proved unsatisfactory, in the subsequent campaign it was entirely reorganized and superintended by an officer of engineers, with a large number of officers from the line to assist. this gave better satisfaction. immense numbers of camels died from heat, [footnote: of a train of eighteen hundred unloaded camels on the road from dadur to jacobabad, for six days in june, six hundred died of exhaustion. in march, col. green, c.b., lost one hundred and seventeen horses out of four hundred, from the heat, during a march of thirty miles.] overwork, irregular food, and neglect. owing to the dryness of the climate and intense heat of the summer the bullock-carts were perpetually falling to pieces. the mules, donkeys, and ponies gave the best results, but do not abound in sufficient quantities to enable an army in afghanistan to dispense with camels. a successful experiment in rafting, from jelalabad to dakka, was tried. the rafts consisted of inflated skins lashed together with a light framework; between june - , seven thousand skins were used, and, in all, soldiers and one thousand tons of stores were transported forty miles down the kabul river, the journey taking five hours. a great deal of road-making and repairing was done under the supervision of the transport corps. a system of "stages" or relays of pack-animals or carts was organized, by which a regular quantity of supplies was forwarded over the main lines, daily, with almost the regularity, if not the speed, of rail carriage. the great number of animals employed required a corresponding force of attendants, inspectors, and native doctors, all of whom served to make up that excessive army of "followers" for which anglo-indian expeditions are famous. drivers were required at the following rate: one driver for each pair of bullocks, every four camels, every three mules and ponies, every six donkeys. [footnote: the average carrying power of certain kinds of transport, in pounds, is as follows: _bullock-carts_ (with two pairs), on fairly level ground, , ; on hilly ground, , ; (with one pair) on fairly level ground, ; on hilly ground, ; _camels_, ; _mules_, ; _ponies_, ; _men_, .] [illustration: khelat-i-ghilzi, between kandahar and ghazni.] the great obstacle to the satisfactory operation of the transport system was its novelty and experimental character, and that its organization had to be combined with its execution. besides which, cholera broke out in june and swept away three hundred employes. grazing camps were established in the neighborhood of the bolan pass for the bullocks, and aqueducts built for the conveyance of a water supply; one of these was of masonry, more than a mile in length, from dozan down to the bolan. it has been stated that grazing was scarce in the region of the bolan: in more than four thousand bullocks were grazed there during the summer, and large quantities of forage were cut for winter use. any prolonged military operations in afghanistan must, to a certain extent, utilize hired transport, although there are many objections urged. sir richard temple said ( ): "that the amount of transport required for active service, such as the late campaign in afghanistan, is so great that to hire transport is synonymous to pressing it from the people of the district from which it is hired, and impressment of the means of transport must lead to impressment of drivers, who naturally (having no interest whatever in the campaign in which they are called upon to serve) render the most unwilling service and take the earliest opportunity of rendering their animals unserviceable in hopes of escaping a distasteful duty. this service is frequently so unpopular that, sooner than leave the boundaries of their native country, the impressed drivers desert, leaving their animals in the hands of the transport authorities or take them away with them. . . . for the above reasons i should recommend that all transport for a campaign should be the property of government." in commenting on this subject, lord wolseley relates that when serving in china with indian troops he "awoke one morning and found that all our drivers had bolted. our transport consisted of carts supplied by the chinese government, by contractors, and by the country generally. i do not think that the carts had been carried away, but all the mules and men had disappeared except three drivers who belonged to me. i was very much astonished that these men had not bolted also. i had a small detachment of cavalry with me and a very excellent duffadar in charge of it. i asked him how he had managed to keep these drivers--having some time before said that unless he looked after them well he would never get to pekin. he replied, with some hesitation: 'i remember what you told me, and the fact is i tied the tails of those three men together, overnight, and then tied them to the tent pole, and put a man over them.'" the elephant, like the stage coach, finds his field of usefulness, as a means of transport, growing smaller by degrees. he is still a feature in india, and has been used for military purposes to some extent in the eastern part of afghanistan. he will doubtless form part of the means of transportation employed by the british forces near their present base, and in rear of the kabul-kandahar line, and for that reason is noticed here. [footnote: the use of elephants in transporting field guns in afghanistan is emphatically discouraged by those who served with it last; very few flankers were employed to protect the elephant artillery used in the kuram valley, and its success can only be interpreted by supposing the direct interposition of providence or the grossest stupidity to our feeble enemy.] the superintendent of the government elephant kheddahs at dakka has given us, in a recent paper, much information concerning the elephant in freedom and captivity. he does not claim a high order of intelligence, but rather of extraordinary obedience and docility for this animal very large elephants are exceptional. twice round the forefoot gives the height at the shoulder; few females attain the height of eight feet; "tuskers," or male elephants, vary from eight to nine feet; the maharajah of nahur, sirmoor, possesses one standing ten feet five and one half inches. the age varies from to years, according to the best authorities, and it is recorded that those familiar with the haunts of the wild elephant have never found the bones of an elephant that had died a natural death. in freedom they roam in herds of thirty to fifty, always led by a female; mature about twenty-five. in india the males only have tusks; in ceylon only the females. they are fond of the water, swim well, [footnote: elephants have been known to swim a river three hundred yards wide with the hind legs tied together.] but can neither trot nor gallop; their only pace is a walk, which may be increased to a _shuffle_ of fifteen miles an hour for a very short distance; they cannot leap, and a ditch eight by eight feet would be impassable. [illustration: elephant with artillery; on the road to ali musjid.] in bengal and southern india elephants particularly abound, and seem to be increasing in numbers. in the billigurungan hills, a range of three hundred square miles on the borders of mysore, they made their appearance about eighty years ago; yet prior to that time this region was under high cultivation, traces of orchards, orange groves, and iron-smelting furnaces remaining in what is now a howling wilderness. elephants are caught in stockades or kraals. the government employs hunting parties of natives trained to the work, and more than animals are sometimes secured in a single drive. new elephants are trained by first rubbing them down with bamboo rods, and shouting at them, and by tying them with ropes; they are taught to kneel by taking them into streams about five feet deep, when the sun is hot, and prodding them on the back with sharp sticks. the total number of elephants maintained is eight hundred, of which one half are used for military purposes. they consume about pounds of green, or pounds of dry fodder daily, and are also given unhusked rice. an elephant is expected to carry about , pounds with ease. in the abyssinian expedition elephants travelled many hundreds of miles, carrying from , to , pounds (including their gear), but out of forty-four, five died from exhaustion; they are capable of working from morning to night, or of remaining under their loads for twenty hours at a stretch. [footnote: there is no "elephant gun-drill" laid down in the imperial regulations, but when the gun goes into action the elephant is made to kneel, and long "skids" are placed against the cradle upon which the gun rests, so as to form an inclined plane to the ground. the gun is then lifted off the cradle and down the skids by levers and tackle.] an elephant's gear consists of a _gaddela_, or quilted cloth, - / inches thick, reaching half-way down his sides and from the neck to the croup. on this is placed the _guddu_, or pad, x feet and inches thick, formed of stout sacking stuffed with dried grass. the whole is girthed with a long rope passed twice around the body, round the neck as a breast-strap, and under the tail as a crupper. the whole weighs pounds. an improvement upon this has been made by our authority (mr. sanderson), which seems to bear the same relation to the old gear that the open mcclellan saddle does to the ordinary british hunting saddle. it consists (see illustration) of two pads entirely detached, each feet long, inches wide, and inches thick, made of blanket covered with tarpaulin, and encased in stout sacking. one is placed on each side of the elephant's spine, and retained there by two iron arches. there is no saddle-cloth, the load rests on the ribs; the breast-strap and crupper hook into rings on the saddle; there are rings to fasten the load to; it weighs pounds. with foot-boards it is convenient for riding; a cradle can also be attached for carrying field guns. recent experiments have shown the practicability of conveying elephants by rail in ordinary open cattle-trucks; they were indifferent to the motion, noises, or bridges; it is said that elephants could be thus carried on one train. [illustration: detail of elephant saddle.] the excellent railway facilities for moving troops and supplies to the indo-afghan frontier were described in , by traffic manager ross, of the scinde, punjab, and delhi railway, before the united service institution of india. he stated that experiments had been made by the military and railway authorities in loading and disembarking troops and war _materiel_, and that much experience had been afforded by the afghan operations of - . the movement of troops to and from the frontier commenced in october, , and ended june, . during that period were conveyed over his road , men, , animals, guns, , , pounds of military stores. the maximum number carried in any one month was in november-- , men, , animals, and , , pounds of stores. the greatest number of special trains run in one day was eight, carrying , men, animals, and , pounds of stores. as an instance of rapid loading, when the both bengal cavalry left for malta, horses were loaded on a train in minutes appears to have been clean forgotten. the politicals were by no means silent, and the amount of knowledge they possessed of border statistics was something marvellous. did any step appear to the military sense advisable, there was a much better, though less comprehensible, _political_ reason why it should not be undertaken. the oracle has spoken and the behest must be obeyed. an enemy in sight who became afterwards hostile, must not be kept at a distance; through political glasses they appear as 'children of nature,' while the country out of sight must not be explored, the susceptibilities of the sensitive 'tammizais' having to be respected. that much valuable service was performed by political officers there can be no doubt, but that they caused great exasperation among soldiers cannot be denied, and the example of the war of - causes them to be looked upon as a very possible source of danger. _anglo-afghan operations_.--the observations of a participant [footnote: lieut. martin, r. e. (_journal u. s. i. of india_).] in the last british campaign in afghanistan will be found of value in the study of future operations in that country. of the afghan tactics he says: "the enemy (generally speaking, a race of highlanders) vastly preferred the attack, and usually obtained the advantage of superior numbers before risking an attack; . . . being able to dispense (for the time) with lines of communication and baggage and commissariat columns, the afghan tribes were often able to raise large gatherings on chosen ground. they could always attack us; we were rarely able (except when they chose) to find them at home." this observer says the regular troops of the ameer were not so formidable as the tribal gatherings. the presence of a tactically immovable artillery hinders the action of an asiatic army. the mounted men are usually the first to leave when the fight is going against their side in a general engagement. one of the best specimens of their tactics was at ahmed-kheyl, on the ghazni-kandahar road, when the british division was one hundred miles from any support. the afghans assembled a force outnumbering the british ten to one. the attack was made in a series of rushes, twice dispersing the british cavalry, and once driving back the infantry. exposed to a constant fire of field guns, the afghans stood their ground, although poorly armed with a variety of obsolete weapons--from an enfield to a handjar or a stick. trouble may always be expected from the night attacks of certain tribes like the alizais and waziris. the english infantry formation was an objectionably close one, and lieut. martin says that the bayonets and rifle-barrels of the front rank were sometimes struck and jammed _by bullets from the rear rank_. the action of the english cavalry, as at ahmed-kheyl, was suicidal in receiving the enemy's charge--practically at a halt. occasionally shelter trenches were used, but disapproved. in the kuram valley column, under general roberts, the cavalry (principally native, with one regular squadron and a battery of horse artillery) formed a brigade, but was never used independently, nor was it instructed (although well equipped) for modern cavalry work. the opposition to dismounted cavalry duty is still so great, in the british army, that the mounted arm is paralyzed for effective service. very little was done by the horse artillery with the kuram column. in the case of the field artillery it was found necessary on two occasions to transfer the ammunition boxes from the bullock-carts to the backs of elephants, on account of the steepness of the hills. the mountain artillery (native) was the most serviceable; a gatling battery, packed on ponies, and in charge of a detachment of highlanders, was never used however. the armament of the infantry included both martini and snider rifles, requiring two kinds of ammunition, but, as the service by pack-mules was ample, no confusion ensued, although lieut. martin says: "in one case i heard a whisper that a regimental reserve of ammunition was found to be _blank cartridges_, but this must be a heavy joke." intrenching tools were carried on camels. a mixture of military and civil-engineer administration and operation is mentioned as unsatisfactory in results. there was great difficulty in getting tools and materials at the opening of the campaign--particularly those required for road and bridge work, although a railroad within two hundred miles had a large stock on hand. [illustration: noah's valley, kunar river.] the art of camping and rough fortification was well practised. the best defended camp was surrounded by bush abatis and flanked by half-moon _sungas_ of boulder-stone work, which held the sentries. the most approved permanent camps or "posts" were mud _serais_ flanked by bastions at the alternate angles and overlooking a yard or "kraal." these were established about ten miles apart, to protect communications, and furnished frequent patrols. during the latter part of the campaign these outposts were manned by the native contingents of the punjab who volunteered. the rapid march of general roberts from kabul to kandahar in august, , and the final dispersion of the forces of ayoub khan, illustrated british operations in afghanistan under the most favorable circumstances. the forces included , european and , indian troops; no wheeled artillery was taken; one regiment of native infantry, trained to practical engineering work, did the work of sappers and miners; for the transportation of sick and wounded , doolie-bearers, ponies, and donkeys; for transport of supplies a pack-train of , yabus, , mules, , indian ponies, donkeys--a total of , troops, , native followers, and , animals, including cavalry horses; days' rations, of certain things, and dependence on the country for fresh meat and forage. the absence of timber on this route rendered it difficult to obtain fuel except by burning the roofs of the villages and digging up the roots of "southern-wood" for this purpose. the manner of covering the movement rested with the cavalry commander. usually the front was covered by two regiments, one regiment on each flank, at a mile from the column, detaching one or more troops as rear-guard; once movement had commenced, the animals, moving at different gaits were checked as little as possible. with such a number of non-combatants the column was strung out for six or seven miles, and the rear-guard leaving one camp at a.m. rarely reached the next--fifteen to twenty miles distant--before sundown. [illustration: watch-tower in the khaiber pass.] _routes_.--for operations in afghanistan the general british base is the frontier from kurrachee to peshawur. these points are connected by a railway running east of the indus, which forms a natural boundary to the indian frontier, supplemented by a line of posts which are from north to south as follows: jumrud, baru, mackeson, michni, shub kadar, abazai, and kohut; also by fortified posts connected by military roads,--thull, bunnoo, and doaba. from the indus valley into the interior of afghanistan there are only four lines of communication which can be called military roads: first, from _peshawur_ through the khaiber pass to _kabul_; second, from _thull_, over the peiwar and shuturgurdan passes to _kabul_; third, from _dera ismail khan_ through the guleir surwandi and sargo passes to _ghazni_; fourth, by _quetta_ to kandahar and thence to _herat_, or by ghazni to _kabul_. besides these there are many steep, difficult, mule tracks over the bleak, barren, sulimani range, which on its eastern side is very precipitous and impassable for any large body of troops. [illustration: fort of ali musjid, from the heights above lala cheena in the khaiber pass.] the peshawur-kabul road, miles long, was in improved and put in good order. from peshawur the road gradually rises, and after miles reaches jumrud ( , feet elevation), and miles further west passes through the great khaiber pass. this pass, miles long, can, however, be turned by going to the north through the absuna and tartara passes; they are not practicable for wheels, and the first part of the road along the kabul river is very difficult and narrow, being closed in by precipitous cliffs. as far as fort ali musjid the khaiber is a narrow defile between perpendicular slate rocks , feet high; beyond that fort the road becomes still more difficult, and in some of the narrowest parts, along the rocky beds of torrents, it is not more than feet wide. five miles further it passes through the valley of lalabeg - / miles wide by miles long, and then after rising for four miles it reaches the top of the pass, which from both sides offers very strong strategical positions. from thence it descends for - / miles to the village of landi khana ( , feet), which lies in a gorge about a quarter of a mile wide; then on to dakka (altitude , feet). this pass, to feet wide and feet long, is shut in by steep but not high slopes, overgrown with bushes. [illustration: fort of dakka, on the kabul river.] on the eleven miles' march from dakka to hazarnao, the khurd khaiber is passed, a deep ravine about one mile long, and in many places so narrow that two horsemen cannot pass each other. hazarnao is well cultivated, and rich in fodder; miles farther is chardeh ( , feet altitude), from which the road passes through a well-cultivated country, and on through the desert of surkh denkor ( , feet altitude), which is over - / miles from jelalabad. from this city (elsewhere described) onward as far as gundamuck the route presents no great difficulties; it passes through orchards, vineyards, and cornfields to the surkhab river; but beyond this three spurs of the safed koh range, running in a northeastern direction, have to be surmounted. [illustration: the ishbola tepe, khaiber pass.] between jelalabad [footnote: the heat at jelalabad from the end of april is tremendous-- degrees to degrees in the shade.] and kabul two roads can be followed: the first crosses the range over the karkacha pass ( , feet alt.) at the right of which is assin kilo, thence through the kotul defile, and ascending the khurd kabul [footnote: the khurd kabul pass is about five miles long, with an impetuous mountain torrent which the road ( ) crossed twenty-eight times.] ( , feet alt.) to the north reaches the high plateau on which kabul is situated; the other leads over the short but dangerous jagdallak pass to jagdallak, from which there are three roads to kabul--the northernmost over the khinar and the third over the sokhta passes; all these, more difficult than the khaiber, are impassable during the winter. it was here, as already related, that the greater part of elphinstone's command, in , perished. there is a dearth of fuel and supplies by this line of communication. the second, or thull-kuram-kabul, route, was taken by general roberts in - . it extends from thull, one of the frontier posts already mentioned, some forty miles into the kuram valley, and then inclining towards the west leads to the kuram fort (mohammed azim's), a walled quadrangular fortress with flanking towers at an elevation of , feet. the kuram valley is, up to this point, well cultivated and productive; wood, water, and forage abound. winter only lasts with any severity for six weeks, and the spring and autumn are delightful. a short distance above the fort commences the ascent toward the peiwar pass ( , feet alt.), twenty-four miles distant. the road, thickly bordered with cedar and pine trees, is covered with boulders and is very difficult, and from the village of peiwar--one of many _en route_, of the usual afghan fortified type--it leads through a winding defile to the top of the pass. here the road is confined by perpendicular chalk rocks, the summits of which are covered with scrub timber and a luxurious growth of laurel. on the farther side of the pass the road ascends to the height of the hazardarakht, (which is covered with snow in the winter), and then climbs to the shuturgurdan pass ( , feet alt.), reaching a plateau on which the snow lies for six months of the year; thence it descends into the fertile logar valley and reaches akton khel, which is only fifty-one miles from kabul. the total length of this route is about miles. the third, or dera-ismail-khan-sargo-ghazni, route passes through a region less frequented than those mentioned, and is not thought sufficiently difficult for detailed description. passing due west, through seventy miles of mountain gorges destitute of supplies or forage, it debouches, through the gomal pass, into a more promising country, in which forage may be obtained. at this point it branches to ghazni, kandahar, and pishin respectively. a road exists from mooltan, crossing the indus at dera-ghazi-khan, mithunkot, rajanpur, rojan, lalgoshi, dadur to quetta, and was utilized by general biddulph, from whose account of his march from the indus to the helmund, in , is gleaned the following. the main point of concentration for the british forces, either from india or from england via kurrachee is thus minutely described. "the western frontier of india is, for a length of miles, bounded by biluchistan and territories inhabited by biluch tribes, and for miles biluch country intervenes between our border and afghanistan. the plains of the punjab and sind run along the boundary of biluchistan, and at a distance of from to miles the indus pursues a course, as far down as mithunkot, from north to south, and then winds south-west through a country similar to that of egypt. a belt of cultivation and beyond that the desert . . . this line of hills (the eastern sulimani) extends as a continuous rampart with the plains running up to the foot of the range, and having an elevation of , feet at the tukl-i-suliman, and of , near fort munro (opposite dera-ghazi-khan), gradually diminishes in height and dwindles away till it is lost in the plains near kusmore, at a point miles from the indus. the strip of low-land country on the west bank of the indus up to the foot of the hills is called the _derajat_. it is cut up and broken by torrents, the beds of which are generally dry wastes, and the country is, except at a few places where permanent water is found, altogether sterile and hot. if we view the physical aspect looking north and north-west from jacobabad, we notice a wide bay of plains extending between the broken spur of the sulimani, and a second range of hills having a direction parallel to the outer range. this plain is called the kachi, extends in an even surface for miles from the indus at sukkur, and is bounded on the north by successive spurs lying between the two great ranges. the kachi, thus bounded by barren hills on all sides but the south, is one of the hottest regions in the world. except where subject to inundations or within reach of irrigation it is completely sterile--a hard clay surface called _pat_,--and this kind of country extends around to the east of the spur of the suliman into the derajat country. subject to terrific heats and to a fiercely hot pestilential wind, the kachi is at times fatal even to the natives." [illustration: entrance to the bolan pass, from dadur.] the range of mountains bounding the kachi to the westward is a continuous wall with imperceptible breaks only, and it bears the local names of gindari, takari, and kirthar. through this uniform rampart there are two notable rents or defiles, viz.: the _mulla_ opening opposite gundana, leading to kelat; and the _bolan_ entering near dadur, leading to quetta, kandahar, and herat. the bolan is an abrupt defile--a rent in the range,--the bottom filled with the pebbly bed of a mountain torrent. this steep ramp forms for sixty miles the road from dadur, elevation feet, to the dasht-i-bedowlat, elevation , feet. this inhospitable plateau and the upper portion of the bolan are subject to the most piercingly cold winds and temperature; and the sudden change from the heat of the kachi to the cold above is most trying to the strongest constitutions. notwithstanding the difficulties of the road, the absence of supplies and fuel, and the hostile character of the predatory tribes around, this route has been always most in favor as the great commercial and military communication from persia, central asia, and khorassan to india. the causes which led to the establishment of a british garrison at quetta are not unlike those which are urged as good russian reasons for the occupation of territory in certain parts of central asia. briefly stated, it seems that after the conquest of the punjab, the proximity of certain disturbed portions of biluchistan, and the annoyance suffered by various british military expeditions, in - , from certain tribes of biluchis--notably the maris and bugtis,--made it desirable that more decisive measures should be adopted. in a force of british troops was marched to kelat, and by mutual agreement with the khan a political agency was established at quetta, ostensibly to protect an important commercial highway, but at the same time securing a military footing of great value. but the character of the lords of the soil--the maris, for instance--has not changed for the better, and the temporary general european occupation of the country would afford an opportunity to gratify their predatory instincts, which these bandits would not hesitate to utilize. the maris can put , men into the field and march miles to make an attack. when they wish to start upon a raid they collect their wise men together and tell the warriors where the cattle and the corn are. if the reports of spies, sent forward, confirm this statement, the march is undertaken. they ride upon mares which make no noise; they travel only at night. they are the most excellent outpost troops in the world. when they arrive at the scene of action a perfect watch is kept and information by single messengers is secretly sent back. every thing being ready a rush of horsemen takes place, the villages are surrounded, the cattle swept away, the women and children hardly used--fortunate if they escape with their lives. the villagers have their fortlets to retreat to, and, if they reach them, can pull the ladders over after them and fire away from their towers. dadur is an insignificant town at the foot of the bolan. from here the kandahar road leads for sixty miles through the pass--a gradual ascent; in winter there is not a mouthful of food in the entire length of the defile. quetta, compared with the region to the south, appears a very garden of eden. it is a small oasis, green and well watered. from quetta to pishin the road skirts the southern border of a vast plain, interspersed with valleys, which extend across the eastern portion of afghanistan toward the russian dominion. a study of the pishin country shows that it is, on its northwestern side supported on a limb of the western sulimani. this spur, which defines the west of the barshor valley, is spread out into the broad plateau of toba, and is then produced as a continuous ridge, dividing pishin from the plains of kadani, under the name of khoja amran. the barshor is a deep bay of the plain, and there is an open valley within the outer screen of hills. a road strikes off here to the ghilzai country and to ghazni. though intersected by some very low and unimportant hills and ridges, the pishin plains and those of shallkot may be looked upon as one feature. we may imagine the shall valley the vestibule, the kujlak-kakur vale the passage, the gayud yara plain an antechamber, and pishin proper the great _salle_. surrounded by mountains which give forth an abundant supply of water, the lands bordering on the hills are studded with villages, and there is much cultivation; there is a total absence of timber, and the cultivation of fruit-trees has been neglected. the lora rivers cutting into the plain interferes somewhat with the construction of roads. [illustration: entrance to the khojak pass, from pishin, on the road to kandahar.] the plain of pishin possesses exceptional advantages for the concentration and rendezvous of large bodies of troops, and has already been utilized for that purpose by the british. from the khoja amran, looking toward kandahar, the plains, several thousand feet below, are laid out like a sea, and the mountains run out into isolated promontories; to the left the desert is seen like a turbulent tide about to overflow the plains. the rivers on the quetta-kandahar route do not present much impediment to the passage of troops in dry weather, but in flood they become serious obstacles and cannot be passed until the waters retire. the ascent from the east through the khojak pass is easy, the descent on the west very precipitous. a thirteen-foot cart road was made, over the entire length of twenty miles, by general biddulph in - , by which the first wheeled vehicles, which ever reached khorassan from india, passed. from kandahar (elsewhere described)--which is considered by general hamley and other authorities, one of the most important strategic points in any scheme of permanent defence for india--diverge two main roads: one a continuation of the quetta-herat route bearing n.w., and one running n.e. to kabul. gen. biddulph says: "the position of kandahar near to the slopes of the range to the westward of the city renders it impossible to construct works close at hand to cover the road from herat. the high ridge and outlying hills dividing kandahar and its suburbs from the argandab valley completely command all the level ground between the city and the pass. beyond the gap a group of detached mountains extends, overlooking the approaches, and follows the left bank of the argandab as far down as panjwai, fifteen miles distant. positions for defensive works must be sought, therefore, in front of that place on the right bank of the river. to the n.e. of kandahar the open plain affords situations for forts, well removed from the hills, at a short distance, and at akhund ziarut, thirty miles on the road to ghazni, there is a gorge which would, if held, add to security on that quarter." the country between kandahar and the helmund has the same general characteristics--plains and mountain spurs alternately,--and while generally fit for grazing is, except in a few spots, unfit for cultivation. according to the eminent authority just quoted, the great natural strategic feature of this route is the elevated position of atta karez, thirty-one miles from kandahar. he says: "on the whole road this is the narrowest gateway, and this remarkable feature and the concentration of roads [footnote: the roads which meet at atta karez are: the great herat highway passing through kokeran and crossing the argandab opposite sinjari, whence it lies along the open plain all the way to atta karez; the road which crosses the argandab at panjwai; and the road from taktipul towards herat.] here, give to atta karez a strategic importance unequalled by any other spot between india and central asia." general biddulph examined this position carefully in , and discovered a site for a work which would command the valley of the argandab and sweep the elevated open plain toward the west and northwest. abbaza is a village at the crossing of the herat road over the helmund, forty-six miles west of atta karez. on the west bank lies the ancient castle of girishk. the country between the argandab and the helmund is rolling and inclining gradually from the hills toward the junction of these rivers. the plateau opposite girishk is feet above the river, which it commands. the helmund has already been described. there are numerous fords, but, at certain times, bridges would be required for military purposes. the land in the vicinity of the helmund is very fertile and seamed with irrigating canals. from girishk a road _via_ washir runs through the hills to herat; this is said to be cool, well supplied with water and grazing, and is a favorite military route. a road, parallel, to the south, goes through farrah, beyond which both roads blend into one main road to the "key." still another road, by bost, rudbar, and lash, along the course of the river, exists. although not so direct, it is an important route to herat; upon this road stand the ruins of the ancient city of bost in a wonderful state of preservation; here, as elsewhere in this region, the remains of fortifications testify to the former military importance of the spot. the citadel of bost is built on the debris of extensive works and rises feet above the river. _british generals_.--perhaps the most prominent of modern british commanders, next to lord wolseley--is the young and successful soldier, lieutenant-general sir frederick roberts, g.c.b., c.i.e., commanding the anglo-indian army of the madras presidency. he has already seen service in afghanistan and elsewhere, and has been appointed to the command of one of the principal divisions of the british forces intended to oppose the threatened advance of the russians on herat. it was said of him by one of the most brilliant military leaders of the age,--skobeleff: "for general roberts i have a great admiration. he seems to me to possess all the qualities of a great general. that was a splendid march of his from kabul to kandahar. i think more highly of him than i do of sir garnet wolseley, but there is this to be said of _all_ your generals, they have only fought against asiatic and savage foes. they have not commanded an army against a european enemy, and we cannot tell, therefore, what they are really made of." the commander-in-chief of the army of india, general sir donald m. stewart, g.c.b., c.i.e., to whom has been intrusted the conduct of the british forces in afghanistan, is also a very distinguished and experienced officer--probably more familiar with the nature of the probable field of operations than any other in her majesty's service. like the united states, the great latent power of england is indisputable, and so long as superiority at sea is maintained, time is given to render that latent power active. for the first year of the coming struggle england must lean heavily upon her navy. nearly all the regiments of infantry are below the average peace limit, and if filled up simultaneously to a maximum war strength will include more than fifty per cent, of imperfectly trained men, and as the practice has been to fill up those corps ordered abroad with men transferred from other small regiments, it may come to pass that so-called "regular" regiments will consist largely of raw material. colonel trench of the british army says "the organization of the regular cavalry is very defective," and especially complains of the maladministration we have just noted. demands for cavalry for the soudan were met by a heavy drain on the already depleted strength of regiments in england. the fifth dragoon guards, which stood next on the roster for foreign service, gave away nearly two hundred horses and one hundred men. colonel trench says that the reserve cavalry have no training, and that there is no reserve of horses. it is doubtful if more than seventy per cent. of the enlisted strength and fifty per cent. of the horses, on paper, could be put in the field now. allusion has already been made to the notorious weakness of the british transport system. [footnote: captain gaisford, who commanded the khaiber levies in the afghan campaign, recommended reforms in the system of transport and supply. he advocated certain american methods, as wind and water-mills to crush and cleanse the petrified and gravelled barley, often issued, and to cut up the inferior hay; the selection of transport employes who understand animals; and more care in transporting horses by sea.] if this has been the case in the numerous small wars in which her forces have been engaged for the last twenty-five years, what may be expected from the strain of a great international campaign. on the other hand, great britain can boast of an inexhaustible capital, not alone of the revenues which have been accumulating during the last quarter of a century, but of patriotism, physical strength, courage, and endurance, peculiar to a race of conquerors. iv. the russian forces and approaches. a mere glance at the ponderous military machine with which russia enforces law and order within her vast domain, and by which she preserves and extends her power, is all that we can give here. no army in the world has probably undergone, within the last thirty years, such a succession of extensive alterations in organization, in administrative arrangements, and in tactical regulations, as that of russia. the crimean war surprised it during a period of transition. further changes of importance were carried out after that war. once more, in , the whole military system was remodelled, while ever since the peace of san stefano, radical reforms have been in progress, and have been prosecuted with such feverish haste, that it is difficult for the observer to keep pace with them. [footnote: sir l. graham (_journal royal u. s. institution_).] the military system of russia is based upon the principles of universal liability to serve and of territorial distribution. this applies to the entire male population, with certain exemptions or modifications on the ground, respectively, of age or education. annually there is a "lot-drawing," in which all over twenty, who have not already drawn lots, must take part. those who draw blanks are excused from service with the colors, but go into the last reserve, or "opoltschenie." the ordinary term of service is fifteen years,--six with the colors and nine with the reserves; a reduction is made for men serving at remote asiatic posts; the war office may send soldiers into the reserve before the end of their terms. reduction is also made, from eleven to thirteen years and a half, for various degrees of educational acquirement. exemptions are also made for family reasons and on account of peculiar occupation or profession. individuals who personally manage their estates or direct their own commercial affairs (with the exception of venders of strong liquors) may have their entry into service postponed two years. men are permitted to volunteer at seventeen (with consent of parents or guardians); all volunteers serve nine years in the reserve; those joining the guards or cavalry must maintain themselves at their own expense. the total contingent demanded for army and navy in was , , and , were enrolled; of this deficit of , , the greater number, , , were jews. _organization_.--the emperor is the commander-in-chief, who issues orders through the war ministry, whose head is responsible for the general efficiency of the army. there is also the "imperial head-quarters," under a general officer who, in the absence of the war minister, takes the emperor's orders and sees to their execution. the war council, presided over by the war minister, supervises all financial matters in connection with the army. there are also a high court of appeals, and the head-quarters staff, who supervise the execution of all military duties. commissariat, artillery, engineer, medical, military education, cossack, and judge-advocate departments complete the list of bureaus. the military forces are arranged into nineteen army corps: five comprise three divisions of infantry; one, two divisions of cavalry; the remainder, two divisions of cavalry and one of infantry; with a due proportion of light artillery and engineers the war strength of an army corps is , combatants, , horses, and guns. when war is declared an army is formed of two or more corps. the general commanding exercises supreme control, civil and military, if the force enters the enemy's country. his staff are detailed much as usual at an american army head-quarters in the field. there are in the active army--_infantry_: battalions ( regiments, divisions), batt. riflemen. _cavalry_: regular regiments ( cuirassiers, uhlans, hussars, dragoons); regt. cossacks, divided into divisions, kept in time of peace at men ( with sub-officers) per regiment. _artillery_: brigades, or batteries of guns each; horse-batteries of guns each; besides batteries with cossack divisions. fifty "parks" and sections of "parks" supply each infantry brigade and cavalry division with cartridges. the land forces of russia. [footnote: approximately from latest ( - ) returns. (combatants only.)] europe. field troops peace. engineers. , cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. , war. total. , horses. , guns. , reserve, fortress, and depot troops peace. engineers. - cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. war. total. , horses. , guns. , caucasus. field troops peace. engineers. , cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. war. total. , horses. , guns. reserve fortress troops peace. engineers. - cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. war. total. , horses. , guns. turkestan. peace. engineers. cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. war. total. , horses. , guns. siberia. peace. engineers. cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. war. total. , horses. , guns. _grand aggregate of the empire_. peace. engineers. , cavalry. , infantry. , artillery. , total. , horses. , guns. , war. total. , , horses. , guns. , during the engineer corps was reorganized. henceforward the peace establishment will consist of seventeen battalions of sappers; eight battalions of pontoniers; sixteen field-telegraph companies, each of which is mounted, so as to maintain telegraphic communication for forty miles, and have two stations; six engineering parks or trains, each ten sections, carrying each sufficient tools and material for an infantry division; four battalions of military railway engineers; four mine companies; two siege trains, and one telegraph instruction company. the whole is divided into six brigades, and provisions are taken for training recruits and supplying the losses during war. the fortress troops, for the defence of fortresses, consist of forty-three battalions of twelve hundred men each in time of war, and nine companies of three hundred men each. the depot troops, for garrison service, consist of thirteen battalions and three hundred detachments. the reserve troops supply battalions of infantry, squadrons of cavalry, batteries of artillery, and companies of sappers. if mobilized, they are intended to supply battalions, squadrons, batteries, and companies of engineers. the second reserve, or "zapas," consists of "cadres" for instruction, organized in time of war. the training of the russian infantry comprises that of skirmishing as of most importance; the whistle is used to call attention; the touch is looser in the ranks than formerly; squares to resist cavalry are no longer used; [footnote: a british officer, who has had good opportunities, says the infantry drill is second to none.] the berdan breech-loader is the infantry arm; sergeant-majors wear officers' swords, and together with musicians carry revolvers. a great stimulus has been given to rifle practice in the russian army, with fair results, but complaint is made of want of good instructors. the dress and equipment of the infantry is noted for an absence of ornament, and hooks are substituted for buttons. every thing has been made subordinate to comfort and convenience. woollen or linen bandages are worn instead of socks. the entire outfit of the soldier weighs about fifty pounds. the guards, alone, are yet permitted to wear their old uniform with buttons. the arms of the turkestan troops are mixed berdan and bogdan rifles. the field clothing is generally linen blouse with cloth shoulder-straps, chamois-leather trousers, dyed red, and a white kepi. officers wear the same trousers in the field. cossacks wear gray shirts of camel's hair. the artillery is divided into field artillery and horse artillery, of which the strength is given elsewhere. the horse batteries have the steel four-pound gun. col. lumley, of the british army, says: "in russia it is believed that the field artillery is equal to that of any other power, and the horse artillery superior." lieut. grierson, r.a., from his personal observation, confirms this opinion. it is not too much to say that, in any european conflict in the near future, the russian cavalry will be conspicuous and extraordinarily effective. in a war with england, in asia, the use of large bodies of cavalry, organized, instructed, and equipped after the american plan, must become the main feature. from the wonderful reforms instituted by russia in her huge army of horsemen, which have put her before all other nations, not excepting germany, we may expect to hear of wonderful mobility, stunning blows at the enemy's depots, and the appropriation of choice positions under his nose: of stubborn contests with the anglo-indian infantry, the only weapon a berdan carbine; of communications destroyed by high explosives: especially, of the laying waste smiling afghan valleys, inexpedient to occupy:--these are a few of the surprises to which we may be treated if russia gets the chance. in this manner she is doubtless prepared to take the initiative in her next war. [footnote: the bold operations of general gourko in the russo-turkish war of , afford the best illustration of the versatile qualities of the progressive military horseman since the american war, - . an austrian officer says: "the russian cavalry reconnoitred boldly and continuously, and gave proof of an initiative very remarkable. every one knows that russian dragoons are merely foot soldiers mounted, and only half horsemen: however, that it should come to such a point as making dragoons charge with the bayonet, such as took place july th near twardista, seems strange. cossacks and hussars dismounted on the th, formed skirmishing lines, coming and going under the fire of infantry, protecting their battery, and conducting alone an infantry fight against the enemy. at eski zagra, july st, the dragoons did not leave the field until all their cartridges were exhausted. on the other hand, the _offensive_ action, and the spirit of enterprise and dash, which are the proper qualifications of cavalry, were not wanting in the russians."] the whole of the regular cavalry of the line has been converted into dragoons armed with berdan rifle and bayonet; the guard regiments must adopt the same change when ordered into the field, and the cossacks have been deprived of the lance (excepting for the front rank); new musketry regulations have been prescribed. great stress is now laid upon the training of both horses and men in the direction of long marches, and the passage of obstacles. forced marches are also made to cover the greatest possible distances in the shortest possible time. [footnote: among other experiments are noted that of officers and men of the orenburg cossacks who in november last in bad weather travelled versts between niji novgorod and moscow in days--about miles a day; then covering versts from moscow to st. petersburg in days-- miles a day; on arrival an inspector reported horses fresh and ready for service; the party was mentioned in orders, and presented to the czar. a month before, in snow and intense cold, officers and men of the cavalry school covered versts in days-- miles a day. it is asserted that the best russian cavalry can travel miles a day, continuously, without injury. general gourko recently inspected two sotnias of don cossacks who had cleared versts in days, or miles a day.] swimming was practised in the warsaw, odessa, and moscow districts, the horses being regularly taught with the aid of inflated bags tied under them. the suprasl was crossed by the entire th cavalry division swimming. in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of pioneer duty, both the officers and non-commissioned officers of cavalry are attached to the engineer camp for a short course of instruction. in one division a regular pioneer squadron has been formed for telegraphic and heliographic duty. the mounted force, provided for in the russian establishment, comprises twenty-one divisions of , sabres and guns each, or an aggregate of , men and field guns. a feature of the russian cavalry equipment is the pioneer outfit, consisting of tools for construction or destruction, as they desire to repair a bridge or destroy a railroad; this outfit for each squadron is carried on a pack-mule; dynamite is carried in a cart with the ammunition train. the cossack (except of the caucasus) is armed with a long lance (front rank only), a sabre without guard, and a berdan rifle. those of the caucasus have in addition pistol and dagger, besides a _nagaska_ or native whip. the uniform is blue, high boots, fur cap, cloak with cape. the snaffle-bit is universally used, even by the officers, although the average russian troop-horse is noted for his hard mouth. in the mounted drill of the cossacks there is a charge as skirmishers (or "foragers") called the "lava," which is executed at a great pace and with wild yells of "hourra!" lieut. grierson, of the british army, writes that: "a big fine man mounted on a pony, with his body bent forward and looking very top-heavy, always at a gallop, and waving his enormous whip, the cossack presents an almost ludicrous appearance to one accustomed to our stately troopers. but this feeling is dashed with regret that we possess no such soldiers." _transport and supply_.--the russian system of transport is in a very experimental and unsatisfactory state. it is the only army which provides regimentally for the _personnel_ and _materiel_ of this department. in each regiment is a non-combatant company, in which all men required for duty without arms are mustered. all military vehicles required for the regiment are under charge of this company. the intention of the system now developing is to reduce the quantity of transportation required. [footnote: in the head-quarters baggage of the grand duke nicholas required five hundred vehicles and fifteen hundred horses to transport it.] besides the wagons and carts used for ordinary movements of troops, russia will, in afghanistan, depend upon the animals of the country for pack-trains and saddle purposes. after the _camel_, of which large numbers exist in the region bordering afghanistan on the north, the most important aid to russian military mobility is the remarkable _kirghiz horse_. the accounts of the strength, speed, endurance, and agility of this little animal are almost incredible, [footnote: in a russian detachment of five hundred men, mounted on kirghiz horses, with one gun and two rocket-stands, traversed in one month one thousand miles in the orenburg steppe, and only lost three horses; half of this march was in deep sand. in october, m. nogak (a russian officer) left his detachment _en route_, and rode one horse into irgiz, - / miles in hours.] but they are officially indorsed in many instances. he is found in turkestan, and is more highly prized than any other breed. the kirghiz horse is seldom more than fourteen hands, and, with the exception of its head, is fairly symmetrical; the legs are exceptionally fine, and the hoofs well formed and hard as iron. it is seldom shod, and with bare feet traverses the roughest country with the agility of a chamois, leaping across wide fissures on the rocks, climbing the steepest heights, or picking its way along mere sheep-tracks by the side of yawning precipices, or covering hundreds of versts through heavy sand, with a heavier rider, day after day. its gaits are a rapid and graceful walk of five and one half to six miles an hour, and an amble [footnote: moving both feet on a side almost simultaneously.] at the maximum rate of a mile in two minutes. this animal crosses the most rapid streams not over three and one half feet deep, lined with slippery boulders, with ease. they are good weight carriers. [footnote: the mounted messengers (pony express) over the steppes, use these horses, and carry with them, over stages of miles in days, an equipment and supplies for man and horse of nearly pounds.] with a view of stimulating horse-breeding in turkestan, the government in offered prizes for speed. [footnote: the greatest speed recorded ( .) was - / miles (on a measured course) in minutes and seconds.] kirghiz horses have been thoroughly tested in the russian army. for modern cavalry and horse-artillery purposes they are unsurpassed. the average price is l , but an ambler will bring l . great britain is said to possess , , horses, while russia, in the kirghiz steppes alone, possesses , , saddle or quick-draught horses. the supply of the russian army is carefully arranged under the central intendance. the ration in the field was, in , . ounces of meat, . black bread, preserved vegetables and tea, with an issue of brandy in the winter. immense trains follow each division, at intervals, forming consecutive mobile magazines of food. a division provision train can carry ten days' supply for , men. forage is now supplied for transport in compressed cakes, of which , , were used by russia in her last war. [footnote: a compressed ration of forage was extensively used by the russians in , weighing - / pounds; days' supply could be carried on the saddle with ease.] clothing is furnished by the supply bureau of certain regions in which there are large government factories; it is usual to keep on hand for an emergency , sets of uniform clothing. _routes_.--having devoted a share of our limited space to an account of the roads leading to herat, from india, we may consider, briefly, certain approaches to afghanistan or india from the northwest. this subject has been so clearly treated in a recent paper read before the royal united service institution by captain holdich, r.e., who surveyed the region referred to, in , that we quote liberally as follows: in improving our very imperfect acquaintance, both with the present military resources and position of russia in central asia, and of the difficulties presented both geographically and by the national characteristics of the races that she would have to encounter in an advance south of the oxus, a good deal has been already learned from the afghans themselves. among the turbulent tribes dwelling in and around kabul, whose chief and keenest interest always lies in that which bears, more or less directly, on their chances of success in mere faction fights, which they seem to regard as the highest occupation in life, the russian factor in the general game must be a matter of constant discussion. thus it may possibly arise from their individual interest in their national position that there is no better natural geographer in the world than the afghan of the kabul district. there is often an exactness about his method of imparting information (sometimes a careful little map drawn out with a pointed stick on the ground) which would strike one as altogether extraordinary, but for the reflection that this one accomplishment is probably the practical outcome of the education of half a lifetime. russia's bases of military operations towards india are two: one on the caspian sea at krasnovodsk, and chikishliar, with outposts at chat and kizil arvat; and the other on the line of khiva, bokhara, samarcand, and margillan, which may roughly be said to represent the frontier held (together with a large extent of boundary south of kuldja) by the army of tashkend, under general kaufmann. but between this latter line and the oxus, russia is undoubtedly already the dominant power. the mere fact of russia having already thoroughly explored all these regions, gives her the key to their future disposal. there is no doubt that in all matters relating to the acquirement of geographical knowledge, where it bears on possible military operations, russian perceptions are of the keenest. her surveying energies appear to be always concentrated on that which yet lies beyond her reach, rather than in the completion of good maps to aid in the right government of that which has already been acquired. with what lies north of the oxus we can have very little to say or to do; therefore it matters the less that in reality we know very little about it. the oxus is not a fordable river. at khoja saleh, which is the furthest point supposed to have been reached by the aral flotilla, it is about half a mile wide, with a slow current. at charjui it is about the same width, only rapid and deep. at karki it is said to be one thousand yards wide, and at kilif perhaps a quarter of a mile. but at all these places there are ferries, and there would be ample means of crossing an army corps, if we take into account both the aral flotilla and the native material, in the shape of large flat-bottomed boats, capable of containing one hundred men each, used for ferrying purposes, of which there are said to be three hundred between kilif and hazarasp. these boats are drawn across the river by horses swimming with ropes attached to their manes. but under any circumstances it seems about as unlikely that any british force would oppose the passage of a russian army across the oxus as that it would interfere with the russian occupation of the trans-oxus districts; but once south of the oxus, many new conditions of opposition would come into play, arising principally from the very different national characteristics of the southern races to those farther north. it would no longer be a matter of pushing an advance through sandy and waterless deserts, or over wild and rugged mountains, difficulties which in themselves have never yet retarded the advance of a determined general, but there would be the reception that any christian foe would almost certainly meet at the hands of a warlike and powerful people, who can unite with all the cohesion of religious fanaticism, backed up by something like military organization and a perfect acquaintance with the strategical conditions of their country. most probably there would be no serious local opposition to the occupation by russia of a line extending from balkh eastwards through khulm and kunduz to faizabad and sarhadd, all of which places can be reached without great difficulty from the oxus, and are connected by excellent lateral road communications. but the occupation of such a line could have but one possible object, which would be to conceal the actual line of further advance. each of these places may be said to dominate a pass to india over the hindoo kush. opposite sarhadd is the baroghil, leading either to kashmir or to mastuj and the kunar valley. faizabad commands the nuksa pass. khulm looks southwards to ghozi and the parwan pass into kohistan, while from balkh two main routes diverge, one to bamian and kabul, the other to maimana and herat. it would be a great mistake to suppose that this short list disposes of all the practicable passes over the hindoo kush. the range is a singularly well-defined one throughout its vast length; but it is not by any means a range of startling peaks and magnificent altitudes. it is rather a chain of very elevated flattish-topped hills, spreading down in long spurs to the north and south, abounding in warm sheltered valleys and smiling corners, affording more or less pasture even in its highest parts, and traversed by countless paths. many of these paths are followed by kuchis in their annual migrations southward, with their families and household goods piled up in picturesque heaps on their hardy camels, or with large herds of sheep and goats, in search of fresh pasturage. south of the hindoo kush we find most of the eastern routes to our northwest frontier to converge in one point, very near to jelalabad. there are certain routes existing between the russian frontier and india which pass altogether east of this point. there is one which can be followed from tashkend to kashgar, and over the karakoram range, and another which runs by the terek pass to sarhadd, and thence over the baroghil into kashmir; but these routes have justly, and by almost universal consent, been set aside as involving difficulties of such obvious magnitude that it would be unreasonable to suppose that any army under competent leadership could be committed to them. the same might surely be said of the route by the nuksan pass into the valley of chitral and the kunar, which joins the khyber route not far from jelalabad. its length and intricacy alone, independently of the intractable nature of the tribes which border it on either side, and of the fact that the nuksan pass is only open for half the year, would surely place it beyond the consideration of any general who aspired to invade india after accomplishing the feat of carrying an army through it. west of kafirstan across the hindoo kush are, as we have said, passes innumerable, but only three which need be regarded as practicable for an advancing force, all the others more or less converging into these three. these are the khak, the kaoshan (or parwan, also called sar alang), and the irak. the khak leads from kunduz _via_ ghori and the valley of the indarab to the head of the panjshir valley. its elevation is about thirteen thousand feet. it is described as an easy pass, probably practicable for wheeled artillery. the panjshiris are tajaks, and, like the kohistanis generally, are most bigoted suniu mohammedans. the rich and highly cultivated valley which they inhabit forms a grand highway into kohistan and koh dahman; but all this land of terraced vineyards and orchards, watered by snow-cold streams from the picturesque gorges and mountain passes of the hindoo kush and paghman mountains,--this very garden of afghanistan, stretching away southwards to the gates of kabul, is peopled by the same fierce and turbulent race who have ever given the best fighting men to the armies of the amirs, and who have rendered the position of kabul as the ruling capital of afghanistan a matter of necessity; with their instincts of religious hostility, it will probably be found that the kohistani, rather than the hindoo kush, is the real barrier between the north and the south. the sar alang or parwan pass leads directly from kunduz and ghori to charikar and kabul. it is the direct military route between afghan turkestan and the seat of the afghan government, but is not much used for trade. it cannot be much over eleven thousand feet elevation, and it is known to be an easy pass, though somewhat destitute of fuel and forage. the next route of importance is that which leads from balkh, _via_ bamian, to the irak pass on the hindoo kush, and into the upper watercourse of the helmund river, and thence by the unai over the paghman range to kabul. this is the great trade route from the markets of turkestan and central asia generally to kabul and india. the irak, like the parwan, is not nearly so high as has been generally assumed, while the unai is a notoriously easy pass. this route is at present very much better known to the russians, who have lately frequently traversed it, than to ourselves. like the parwan and the khak, it is liable to be closed for three or four months of the year by snow. during the winter of - they were open till late in december, and appear to be again free from snow about the middle of april. between these main passes innumerable tracks follow the "durras," or lines of watercourse, over the ridges of the hindoo kush and paghman, which afford easy passage to men on foot and frequently also to "kuchi" camels. these passes (so far as we can learn) could, any of them, be readily made available for mountain artillery with a very small expenditure of constructive labor and engineering skill. in koh dahman nearly every village of importance lying at the foot of the eastern slopes of the paghman (such as beratse, farza, istalif, etc.) covers a practicable pass over the paghman, which has its continuation across the shoreband valley and over the ridge of the hindoo kush beyond it. but between the khak pass and the irak, the various routes across the hindoo kush, whether regarded as routes to india or to kandahar, although they by no means converge on kabul city, must necessarily pass within striking distance of an army occupying kabul. such a force would have, first of all, thoroughly to secure its communication with the oxus, and a strong position at kabul itself. having the official statement of a military engineer with reference to the oxus-hindu-kush line, as a barrier or base or curtain, we may pass to the principal approach to herat from the northwest. there are four distinct lines by which russia could move on herat: i. from the _caspian_ base a trans-caucasian army corps could move (only with the concurrence and alliance of persia) by the mashed route direct; ii. or it could move outside persian territory, from _chikishliar_ by the bendessen pass to asterabad, and would then have to pass through persian territory to sarakhs, or across the desert to merv; iii. from the _tashkend-bokhara_ base a route exists _via_ charjui, the oxus, direct to merv; and there is iv. also the well-known road by _balkh_ and mamiana, direct to herat. routes iii. and iv. having just been discussed, let us look at routes i. and ii. referring to the small outline map of the trans-caspian region, herewith, it will be seen that troops could embark from odessa in the fleet of merchant steamers available, and, if not molested _en route_ by hostile cruisers, would reach batum in from to days, thence by rail to baku in hours, another hours through the caspian sea to krasnovodsk, a transfer in lighters to the landing at michaelovsk, and the final rail transportation to the present terminus of the track beyond kizil arvat; this, it is said, will soon reach askabad, miles from herat. the secretary of the royal asiatic society, mr. cust, with his wife, passed over this route in , and testifies to the ease and comfort of the transit and to the great number of vessels engaged in the oil trade, which are available for military purposes, both on the black and caspian seas. he estimates that they could easily carry , men at a trip. [footnote: mr. cust says: "there are three classes of steamers on the caspian. , the imperial war steamers with which russia keeps down piracy; , the steamers of the caucasus and mercury company, very numerous and large vessels; , petroleum vessels--each steamer with a capacity of men."] general hamley [footnote: lecture before r. u. s. institution (london), .] says: "we may assume that if on the railway (single track) the very moderate number of trains a day can run at the rate of miles an hour, the journey would occupy hours. the successive detachments would arrive, then, easily in two days at sarakhs. a division may be conveyed, complete, in trains. thus, in six days a division would be assembled at sarakhs ready to move on the advanced guard. an army corps, with all its equipments and departments, would be conveyed in trains in days. it would then be miles--another days' march--from herat. thus, adding a day for the crossing of the caspian, the army corps from baku would reach herat in days. also the advance of a corps from turkestan upon kabul is even more practicable than before." [footnote: in his plan of invasion, skobeleff thought , men might undertake the enterprise without fear of disaster. this force could be doubled from the caucasus alone.] the route from tchikishliar _via_ asterabad (where it strikes the main teheran-mashed-herat road) would be an important auxiliary to the railway line, _via_ asterabad. there is also a more direct caravan track running south of this across the khorassan, from asterabad (through shahrud, aliabad, khaf, gurian) to herat; or, at shahrud, an excellent road running between the two already described straight (_via_ sabzawar and nishapar) to mashed. from sarakhs to merv the road is said to be good and fairly supplied with water. from merv to herat the well-worn expression "coach and four" has been used to denote the excellent condition of the road. [footnote: for the first miles the road follows the murghab, which abbott describes as "a deep stream of very pure water, about feet in breadth, and flowing in a channel mired to the depth of feet in the clay soil of the valley; banks precipitous and fringed with lamarisk and a few reeds."] yalatun is described as fertile, well populated, and unhealthy. [footnote: band-i-yalatun, or "bank which throws the waters of the murghab into the canal of yalatun."] from penjdeh, where the river is sometimes fordable, the road follows the khusk river, and, ascending the koh-i-baber pass, descends into the herat valley, immediately beneath it. [footnote: before closing the chapter on the "russian forces," a brief description of the order of march customary in central asia may be proper. from a translation by major clarke, r.a., from kotensko's "turkestan," it appears that the horses accompanying central asian detachments are so considerable that the latter form, as it were, the escort of the former. as an asiatic enemy nearly always attacks from every side, the distribution of the troops, during the march, must be such that they may be able to repulse the enemy no matter where he may appear. usually, a half sotnia ( men) of cavalry marches in advance at a distance from / to - / miles, so as to be in view of main body. immediately in front of main body marches a detachment of sappers and a company or two of infantry; then part of the artillery; then more infantry; the train; behind the train, remainder of artillery and infantry; as a rear guard, a sotnia of cavalry. bivouacs in the steppe are usually chosen at wells, and are, in many respects, similar to those customary in the indian country in america. first, an outer line of carts or wagons; then the troops; and inside, all the animals. the accompanying diagram is from _the journal royal united service institution_ (london).] [illustration: normal order of march in central asia. normal bivouac in central asia.] v. review of the military situation. the purpose of this volume has been to give as much reliable information upon the cause of the anglo-russian dispute, the nature of the probable theatre of operations in case of war, and of the armies of the powers concerned, as could be obtained and printed within a single fortnight. the richness of the available material made this especially difficult, comprising as it did the record of recent campaigns in afghanistan, as well as the opinions of those who, like vambery, veniukoff, rawlinson, napier, and cust, are authorities upon asiatic topics. as these lines are written [footnore: april , .] the civilized nations of the world await with bated breath the next scene upon the afghan stage. seldom when two gladiators, armed and stripped, enter the arena does a doubt exist as to their purpose. yet such an exceptional uncertainty attends the presence of england and russia on the border of afghanistan. [illustration: gorge in the tirband-i-turkestan through which the murghab flows.] at least , british soldiers are drawn up in front of the indus awaiting a signal from their queen. nearly twice that number of russian troops are massed on or near the northwestern angle of the ameer's country. [footnote: since the events noted in our first chapter (page ) transpired, another page has been added to afghanistan's blood-stained record. after confronting each other on the khusk river for some weeks a large russian force under general komaross attacked (march , ) the afghan troops at penjdeh, and after a gallant resistance on the part of the native garrison it was utterly routed and the town occupied by the victors. the russian casualties were inconsiderable, but the afghans lost nearly , men.] it is impossible to eliminate, altogether, from a study of the present military situation, certain political elements. it is apparent that the russians near herat stand practically at "the forks of the road"; it is a three-pronged fork--one branch running due south to the sea and two branches due east to india. the first-named requires but passing comment and only as it relates to herat, planted on a route which cannot be controlled without its possession, for military and commercial reasons well understood. as already explained, the routes to india, available to russia, enable her to move from her base on the merv-herat line, both _via_ balkh and kabul, for the purpose of flanking a british column moving from quetta westward, or of raiding the rich valley of the helmund; from turkestan above this route, a british force moving from kabul to balkh could also be threatened. by the main herat-kandahar route an advance from the east could also be directly opposed; the crossing of the helmund by either army would probably be contested. in case of war, whether anglo-russian or russo-afghan, the first great battle would doubtless be fought on the kandahar-ghazni-kabul line. [illustration: jelalabad from piper's hill.] general hamley, the leading british military authority, [footnote: lieut.-general sir. e. hamley, k.c.b.] shows that this line is, of all proposed, at once the most practicable and desirable line for the defence of india. [footnote: three lines had been considered: first, the line of the eastern sulimani, but this would leave the seaport of kurrachee unprotected; second, from pishin northeast to kabul.] he says: "we should have a strong british governor in kandahar, and a strong british force on the helmund and on the road to kabul; the railway completed to kandahar, and, in case of a movement from turkestan against kabul, a force on our side on its way to occupy that city, and new recruiting grounds open to us amid warlike populations. surely there can be no question as to which of these two sets of circumstances would give us most influence in afghanistan, most power to oppose russia and to maintain confidence in india." [footnote: gen. hamley's remarks were made before the royal united service institution (may , ), and, in the discussion which followed, colonel malleson said: "recently in india some influential natives said to me: 'russia will continue her advance; she will not stop until she has gained the fertile country of herat, and then she will intrigue with the native princes behind the indus, and when you send an army to meet her, you will find those native princes rising in your rear.' i may fortify my own experience by what was told me by an austrian gentleman who visited india about seven years ago. he paid a visit to the maharaja, of cashmere, who said to him: 'from you i hope to get the truth; you are not an englishman nor a russian. tell me which is the stronger--the english power or the russian; because it will be necessarily my duty, if russia should advance, and if i should find russia stronger than england, to go for the defence of my throne on the side of russia.'"] the same authority approves sir michael biddulph's recommendation to utilize the strong natural positions near girishk on the helmund. as to afghanistan he testifies: "with a power like russia closing on it, holding persia and persian resources subject to its will, it is in vain to think that afghanistan will be long independent even in name. it is between hammer and anvil, or, to use a still more expressive metaphor, between the devil and the deep sea. bound to us by no traditions, by no strong political influences such as might have been used to constrain them, the afghan tribes, mercenary and perfidious to a proverb, an aggregate of tribes--not a nation,--will lose no time, when the moment occurs, in siding with the great power which promises most lavishly, or which can lay strongest hold on them." the burning words with which general hamley closed his lecture one year ago are singularly true to-day, and form a fitting termination to this sketch: "i do not undervalue the many influences which will always oppose any policy entailing expense. but if the present question is found to be--how shall we guard against a terrible menace to our indian empire? any cost to be incurred can hardly be admitted as a reason which ought to influence our course. magnanimous trustfulness in the virtue and guilelessness of rival states; distrust and denunciation of all who would chill this inverted patriotism by words of warning; refusal of all measures demanding expense which do not promise a pecuniary return:--such is the kind of liberality of sentiment which may ruin great nations. the qualities of the lamb may be very excellent qualities, but they are specially inapplicable to dealings with the wolf. do those who shrink from expense think that the presence of russia in afghanistan will be inexpensive to us? will the weakness which will be the temptation and the opportunity of russia be less costly than effectual defence? when we enter the councils of europe to assert our most vital interests, shall we speak as we have been accustomed to speak, when our free action is fettered by the imminent perpetual menace to india? these are questions which, now put forth to this limited audience, will, perhaps, within the experience of most of us, be thundered in the ears of the nation. england is just now not without serious perplexities, but none are so fraught with possibilities of mischief as the storm which is now gathering on the afghan frontier." list of authorities. [footnote: unless otherwise designated, the authors named are officers of the british army, and nearly all the works are in the library of the military service institution of the united states, (governor's island, n. y. h.).] [source : journal royal united service institution (london).] [source : journal of the united service institution of india (simla).] anderson, capt. "a scheme for increasing the strength of the native armies," etc. [ ] army list, british official, . biddulph, gen. "the march from the indus to the helmund." [ ] bellew, h. w., c.s.i. "a new afghan question." [ ] bengough, lieut-col. "mounted infantry." [ ] (from the russian.) bischoff, major. "the caucasus and its significance to russia." (ger.) [ ] blundell, col. "british military power with reference to war abroad." [ ] baker, col. "the military geography of central asia." [ ] colquhoun, capt. "on the development of the resources of india in a military point of view." [ ] cantley, major. "reserves for the indian army." [ ] callen, major. "the volunteer force of india," etc. [ ] cavenagh, gen. "our indian army." [ ] chapman, lieut-col. "the march from kabul to kandahar in ." [ ] clarke, capt, "recent reforms in the russian army." [ ] cust, r., sec. r.a.s. "the russians on the caspian and black seas." [ ] davidson, major. "the reasons why difficulty is experienced in recruiting for the native army." [ ] dalton, capt. "skobeleff's instructions for the reconnaisance and battle of geok-tepe." [ ] (from the french.) elias, capt. "a streak of the afghan war." [ ] esme-forbes, lieut. "cavalry reform." [ ] furse, major. "various descriptions of transport." [ ] gaisford, capt. "new model transport cart for ponies and mules." [ ] gloag, col. "military reforms in india." [ ] gowan, major. "progressive advance of russia in central asia." [ ] "the army of bokhara." [ ] "russian military manoeuvres in the province of jaxartes." [ ] (from the russian.) graham, col. "the russian army in ." [ ] gordon, capt. "bengal cavalry in egypt." [ ] grierson, lieut. "the russian cavalry," and "the russian mounted troops in ." [ ] greene, capt. "sketches of army life in russia." (new york, .) griffiths, major. "the english army." (london.) grey, major. "military operations in afghanistan." [ ] gerard, capt. "rough notes on the russian army in ." [ ] goldsmid, gen. "from bamian to sonmiani." [ ] "on certain roads between turkistan and india." [ ] heyland, major. "military transport required for rapid movements." [ ] holdich, capt. "between russia and india." [ ] henneken, gen. "studies on the probable course and result of a war between russia and england." [ ] (from the russian.) hildyard, lieut.-col. "the intendance, transport, and supply service in continental armies." [ ] haskyns, capt. "notice of the afghan campaigns in - . from an engineer's view." [ ] hamley, lieut.-gen., sir e. "russia's approaches to india." ( .) [ ] journal of the military service institution of the united states. keltie, j. s. "the statesman's year-book." (london, .) kirchhammer, a. "the anglo-afghan war." [ ] (from the german.) kotensko. "the horses and camels of central asia." [ ] "turkestan." [ ] (from the russian.) little, col. "afghanistan and england in india." [ ] (from the german.) leverson, lieut. "march of the turkistan detachment across the desert," etc. [ ] (from the russian.) martin, capt. "tactics in the afghan campaign," [ ] "notes on the operations in the kurrum valley." [ ] "horse-breeding in australia and india." [ ] "notes on the management of camels in the th company sappers and miners on field service." [ ] "british infantry in the hills and plains of india." [ ] morgan, d. "a visit to kuldja, and the russo-chinese frontier." [ ] morton, capt. "gourko's raid." [ ] (from the french.) mackenzie, lieut.-gen. "storms and sunshine of a soldier's life." mosa, p. "the russian campaign of ," etc. [ ] (from the russian.) medley, col. "the defence of the northwest frontier." [ ] newall, lieut.-col. "on the strategic value of cashmere in connection with the defence of our northwest frontier." [ ] o'donovan, e. "the merv oasis." (new york, .) price, capt. "notes on the sikhs as soldiers for our army." [ ] pitt, lieut. "a transport service for asiatic warfare," etc. [ ] ross, d., (delhi railway). "transport by rail of troops, horses, guns, and war materials." [ ] st. john, major. "persia: its physical geography and people." [ ] strong, capt. "the education of native officers in the indian army." [ ] steel, veterinary-surgeon. "camels in connection with the south african expedition, - ." [ ] shaw, major. "army transport." [ ] sanderson, g. p. "the elephant in freedom and in captivity." [ ] temple, lieut. "an historical parallel--the afghans and mainotes." [ ] tyrrell, lieut.-col. "the races of the madras army." [ ] trotter, capt. "the tribes of turkistan." [ ] trench, col. "cavalry in modern war." (london, .) upton, gen. "the armies of asia and europe." (new york, .) veniukoff, col. "the progress of russia in central asia." [ ] (from the russian.) yaldwyn, capt. "notes on the camel." [ ] index. a abazai, mil. post abbaza, village abdurrahman, the ameer absuna, pass abul-khair afghanistan: territory; mountains; rivers; roads, animals; people; army; cities; military history ahmed-kheil, city ahmed-shah akbar khan akbar, the great akhunt ziarut, city akton khel, city alexander i. alexander, czar alexander of macedon ali musjid, fort altai, river aliabad amu daria (oxus), river aral, sea argandab, valley; river army, british: strength; organization; transport; supply; routes; operations indian army, russian: strength; organization; transport; supply; routes aryan, race askabad assin killo, city asterabad atta karez, mountain attreck, river auckland, lord aulicata, city auran, mountain aurangzeb ayoub khan b baber khan baku balkash, mountain balkh, city bamian, pass baroghil, pass barshor, valley baru, military post batum bekovitch, gen. beloochistan, state bendessen, pass bengal, city beratse, village berlin, city biddulph, sir m. billigarungan, hills bolan, pass bokhara, province bombay, city bori, valley bost, city broadfoot, capt. browne, gen. brydon, dr. bunnoo, mil. post burnes, agent burrows, gen. c calmucks camel cashmere, maharaja caspian, sea catharine ii. cavagnari, major ceylon, island chapman, col. charikar, town chat, town charjui, town chelmsford, lord chemkent, city chikishliar, town chitral, town clarke, major conolly, m. cossacks cust, mr. d dadur, city dakka, city dasht-i-bedowlat, mountain delhi, city dera ghazi khan, village dera ismail khan, city derajat, district djungaria, province doaba, military post dost, mohammed dozan, city e elephant ellenborough, lord elphinstone, gen. eski zagra, town f faizabad, city farrah, town farza, village fergana, province ferrier, gen. g gaisford, capt. gayud yara, plain geok tepe, fort genghiz khan ghazgar, valley ghazni, city ghilzai, district ghori, valley gilan, province gindari, mountain girishk, city gordon, col. gourko, gen. graham, sir l. green, col. grierson, lieut. guikok, range gujrat, city guleir surwandi, pass gundamuck, city gundana, town gurian, city h haines, sir f. hamley, gen. har-i-rud hazaristan, river hazarasp, city hazardarakht, mountain hazarnao, city helmund, river herat, city; river himalayas, mountain hindu kush, mountain hobhouse, sir j. c. hodjeni, province holdich, capt. horse, yabu; khirgiz i inderabad, river india, on the threshold of indus, river irak, pass irgiz, fort irtish, river ispahan, city istalif, village j jacobadad, city jagdallack, pass jamrud, city jelalabad, city jizakh, province jumrud, military post k kabul, city; river kachi, plains kadani, plains kafristan, province kabriz, fort kalat, city kandahar, city karakoran, mountain karkacha, pass karki, town kash, river; city kashgar kashmir, city kaufmann, gen. kelat, town khaiber, pass khanikoff, m. khaf khak, pass khinar, pass khiva, province khoja-saleh, city khokand, province khoja-amran, mountain ridge khorassan, province khulm, city khurd-kabul, pass khurd-khaiber, pass khusk', river khirtar, mountain kilif, city kizil arvat, city koh daman, mountain kohut, mil. post kohistan, province koh-i-baber, mountain kokiran, district komaroff, gen. kotensko krasnovodsk, city kuh-i-baba, mountain kujlak-kekur, valley kuldja, city kunar valley kunduz, city kurrachee, city kuram, river; valley; fort kusmore, village kussun, fort l lalaberg, valley lalgoshi, village lahore, city landi khana, village lash jowain, city lakhareff, gen. logar, valley london, city lora, river lumsden, sir p. lumley, col. m mackenzie, gen. c. mackeson, fort mcnaghten, sir w. mahmoud, sultan mahomet mahommed azim maimana, town malleson, col. malta margilan, town maris, tribe martin, lieut. marvin, c. mashed, city mastuj, town maude, gen. mazanderan, province mcclellan, saddle merv, province michaelovsk, town michni, fort mithunkot, town mogul mooktur valley mooltan, city moscow, city mulla, pass munro, fort murchat, town murghab, river mysore, province n nadir, shah nahur, maharajah of napier, lord napoleon nicholas, grand duke nijni novgorod, town nishuper, town-- nogak, m. nott, gen. nuksan, pass o odessa, city o'donovan, m. orenburg, province orloff, gen. outram, capt. oxus, (see amer. daria) p paghman, mountains panjshir, valley panjwai, town paropismus, mountains parwan, pass pat, clay paul, emperor peiwar, pass pekin penjdeh, town persia perwan, pass perovsky, fort peter the great petropanlovsk, province peshawur, city pishin, village; plain pollock, gen. pottinger, major primrose, gen. q quetta, city r raganpur, city rawlinson, sir h. roberts, gen. rogan, village ross, railway manager rudbar, town russian army: strength; organization; transport; supply; routes s sabzawar, city sale, sir r. samarcand, city samson san stefano sarahks, town sargo, pass sarhadd, town saunders, major scinde, province seistan, district shahrud, town shere ali shikapur, town shul kadar, fort shurtargurdan, pass singh runjit sirpul, town skobeleff, gen. stewart, sir d. stolietoff, gen. st. petersburg sufed koh, mountain sujah shah sulimani, mountains suprasl, river surkh denkor surkhab river t takwir, mountain taktipul, town targai, fort tartara, pass tashkend, city teheran tehernayeff, gen. tejend, river temple, sir r. terek, pass timwi trench, col. troitsk, province turkestan turnak, valley twarditsa, town u unai, river ural, mountains v vambery, m. veniukoff, m. vernoye, fort volga, river w warsaw, city washir, town wolseley, lord y yakoub, khan yalatun, town yaldwin, capt. yaxartes, river z zurmat, district zohak, fort the author's press series of the works of elinor glyn the point of view elinor glyn chapter i the restaurant of the grand hotel in rome was filling up. people were dining rather late--it was the end of may and the entertainments were lessening, so they could dawdle over their repasts and smoke their cigarettes in peace. stella rawson came in with her uncle and aunt, canon and the honorable mrs. ebley, and they took their seats in a secluded corner. they looked a little out of place--and felt it--amid this more or less gay company. but the drains of the grand hotel were known to be beyond question, and, coming to rome so late in the season, the reverend canon ebley felt it was wiser to risk the contamination of the over-worldly-minded than a possible attack of typhoid fever. the belief in a divine protection did not give him or his lady wife that serenity it might have done, and they traveled fearfully, taking with them their own jaeger sheets among other precautions. they realized they must put up with the restaurant for meals, but at least the women folk should not pander to the customs of the place and wear evening dress. their subdued black gowns were fastened to the throat. stella rawson felt absolutely excited--she was twenty-one years old, but this was the first time she had ever dined in a fashionable restaurant, and it almost seemed like something deliciously wrong. life in the cathedral close where they lived in england was not highly exhilarating, and when its duties were over it contained only mild gossip and endless tea-parties and garden-parties by way of recreation. canon and the honorable mrs. ebley were fairly rich people. the uncle erasmus' call to the church had been answered from inclination--not necessity. his heart was in his work. he was a good man and did his duty according to the width of the lights in which he had been brought up. mrs. ebley did more than her duty--and had often too much momentum, which now and then upset other people's apple carts. she had, in fact, been the moving spirit in the bringing about of her niece stella's engagement to the bishop's junior chaplain, a young gentleman of aesthetic aspirations and eight hundred a year of his own. stella herself had never been enthusiastic about the affair. as a man, eustace medlicott said absolutely nothing at all to her--though to be sure she was quite unaware that he was inadequate in this respect. no man had meant anything different up to this period of her life. she had seen so few of them she was no judge. eustace medlicott had higher collars than the other curates, and intoned in a wonderfully melodious voice in the cathedral. and quite a number of the young ladies of exminster, including the bishop's second daughter, had been setting their caps at him from the moment of his arrival, so that when, by the maneuvers of aunt caroline ebley, stella found him proposing to her, she somehow allowed herself to murmur some sort of consent. then it seemed quite stimulating to have a ring and to be congratulated upon being engaged. and the few weeks that followed while the thing was fresh and new had passed quite pleasantly. it was only when about a month had gone by that a gradual and growing weariness seemed to be falling upon her. to be the wife of an aesthetic high church curate, who fasted severely during lent and had rigid views upon most subjects, began to grow into a picture which held out less and less charm for her. but aunt caroline was firm--and the habit of twenty-one years of obedience held. perhaps fate was looking on in sympathy with her unrest. in any case, it appeared like the jade's hand and not chance which made uncle erasmus decide to take his holiday early in the year and to decide to spend it abroad--not in scotland or wales as was his custom. stella, he said, should see the eternal city and florence before settling down in the autumn to her new existence. miss rawson actually jumped with joy--and the knowledge that eustace medlicott would be unable to accompany them, but might join them later on, did not damp her enthusiasm. every bit of the journey was a pleasure, from the moment they landed on french soil. they had come straight through to rome from paris, where they had spent a week at a small hotel; because of the lateness of the year they must get to their southern point first of all and return northward in a more leisurely manner. and now anyone who is reading this story can picture this respectable english family and understand their status and antecedents, so we can very well get back to them seated in the agreeable restaurant of the grand hotel at rome--beginning to partake of a modest dinner. mrs. ebley (i had almost written the reverend mrs. ebley!) was secretly enjoying herself--she had that feeling that she was in a place where she ought not to be--through no fault of her own--and so was free to make the most of it, and certainly these well-dressed people were very interesting to glance at between mouthfuls of a particularly well-cooked fish. stella was thrilling all over and her soft brown eyes were sparkling and her dazzlingly pink and white complexion glowing with health and excitement, so that even in the exminster confection of black grenadine she was an agreeable morsel for the male eye to dwell upon. there were the usual company there: the younger diplomats from the embassies; a sprinkling of trim italian officers in their pretty uniforms; french and austrian ladies; as well as the attractive-looking native and american representatives of the elite of roman society. the tables began to fill up before the ebleys had finished their fish, and numbers of the parties seemed to know one another and nod and exchange words en passant. but there was one table laid for a single person which remained empty until the entrees were being handed, and stella, with her fresh interest in the whole scene, wondered for whom it was reserved. he came in presently--and he really merits a descriptive paragraph all to himself. he was a very tall man and well made, with broad shoulders and a small head. his evening clothes, though beautifully pressed, with that look which only a thoroughly good valet knows how to stamp upon his master's habiliments as a daily occurrence, were of foreign cut and hand, and his shirt, unstarched, was of the finest pleated cambric. these trifles, however, were not what rendered him remarkable, but that his light brown hair was worn parted in the middle and waved back a la vierge with a rather saintly expression, and was apparently just cut off in a straight line at the back. this was quite peculiar-looking enough--and in conjunction with a young, silky beard, trimmed into a sharp point with the look of an archaic greek statue, he presented a type not easily forgotten. the features were regular and his eyes were singularly calm and wise and blue. it seemed incredible that such an almost grotesque arrangement of coiffure should adorn the head of a man in modern evening dress. it should have been on some byzantine saint. however, there he was, and entirely unconcerned at the effect he was producing. the waiters, who probably knew his name and station, precipitated themselves forward to serve him, and with leisurely mien he ordered a recherche dinner and a pint of champagne. stella rawson was much interested and so were her uncle and aunt. "what a very strange-looking person," mrs. ebley said. "of what nation can he be? erasmus, have you observed him?" canon ebley put on his pince-nez and gave the newcomer the benefit of a keen scrutiny. "i could not say with certainty, my dear. a northerner evidently--but whether swedish or danish it would be difficult to determine," he announced. "he does not appear to know he is funny-looking," stella rawson said, timidly. "do you notice, aunt caroline, he does not look about him at all, he has never glanced in any direction; it is as if he were alone in the room." "a very proper behavior," the aunt caroline replied severely, "but he cannot be an englishman--no englishman would enter a public place, having made himself remarkable like that, and then be able to sit there unaware of it; i am glad to say our young men have some sense of convention. you cannot imagine eustace medlicott perfectly indifferent to the remarks he would provoke if he were tricked out so." stella felt a sudden sympathy for the foreigner. she had heard so ceaselessly of her fiance's perfections! "perhaps they wear the hair like that in his country," she returned, with as much spirit as she dared to show. "and he may think we all look funny, as we think he does. only he seems to be much better mannered than we are, because he is quite sure of himself and quite unconscious or indifferent about our opinion." both her aunt and uncle looked at her with slightly shocked surprise--and she saw it at once and reddened a little. but this incident caused the remarkable looking foreigner to crystallize in interest for her, especially when, in raising his glass of champagne, she saw that on his wrist there was a bracelet of platinum with a small watch set with very fine diamonds. she could hardly have been more surprised if he had worn a ring in his nose, so unaccustomed was she to any type but that of the curates and young gentlemen of exminster. canon and mrs. ebley finished their dinner in disdainful silence and sailed from the room with chilling glances, but as stella rawson followed them demurely she raised her soft eyes when she came to the object of her relatives' contempt, and met his serene blue ones--and for some reason thrilled wildly. there was a remarkable and powerful magnetism in his glance; it was as if a breath of some other world touched her, she seemed to see into possibilities she had never dreamed about. she resented being drawn into a far corner on the right hand of the hall, and there handed an english paper to read for half an hour before being told to go to bed. she was perfectly conscious that she was longing for the stranger to come out of the restaurant, that she might see him again. but it was not until she was obediently following her aunt's black broche train to the lift up the steps again that the tall man passed them in the corridor. he never even glanced in their direction, and went on as though the space were untenanted--but had hardly got beyond, when he turned suddenly, and walked rapidly to the lift door, passing them again. so that the four entered it presently, and were taken up together. stella rawson was very close to the remarkable looking creature. and again a wild nameless attraction crept over her. she noticed his skin was faintly browned with the sun, but was otherwise as fine as a child's--finer than most children's. and now she could see that three most wonderful pearls were his shirt-studs. he got out on the second floor, one beneath them, and said, "pardon," as he passed, but not as a french word, nor yet as if it were english. during these few seconds stella was quite aware that he had never apparently looked at her. "i call such an appearance sacrilegious," mrs. ebley said. "a man has no right to imitate one of the blessed apostles in these modern days; it is very bad taste." chapter ii stella rawson woke the next day with some sense of rebellion. there came with the rest of her post a letter from her betrothed. and although it was just such a letter as any nice girl engaged of her own free will to the bishop's junior chaplain ought to have been glad to receive, stella found herself pouting and criticizing every sentence. "i do wish eustace would not talk such cant," she said to herself. "even in this he is unable to be natural--and i am sure i shall not feel a thing like he describes when i stand in st. peter's. i believe i would rather go into the pantheon. i seem to be tired of everything i ought to like to-day!" and still rebellious she got up and was taken by her uncle and aunt to the vatican--and was allowed to linger only in the parts which interested them. "i never have had a taste for sculpture," mrs. ebley said. "people may call it what names they please, but i consider it immoral and indecent." "a wonder to me," the uncle erasmus joined in, "that a prelate--even a prelate of rome--should have countenanced the housing of all these unclothed marbles in his own private palace." stella rawson stopped for a second in front of an archaic apollo of no great merit--because it reminded her of the unknown; and she wished with all her might something new and swift and rushing might come into her humdrum life. after luncheon, for which they returned to the hotel, she wearily went over to the writing-table in the corner of the hall to answer her lover's chaste effusion--and saw that the low armchair beside the escritoire was tenanted by a pair of long legs with singularly fine silk socks showing upon singularly fine ankles--and a pair of strong slender hands held a newspaper in front of the rest of the body, concealing it all and the face. it was the english times, which, as everybody knows, could hide gargantua himself. she began her letter--and not a rustle disturbed her peace. "dearest eustace," she had written, "we have arrived in rome--" and then she stopped, and fixed her eyes blankly upon the column of births, marriages, and deaths. she was staring at it with sightless eyes, when the paper was slowly lowered and over its top the blue orbs of the stranger looked into hers. her pretty color became the hue of a bright pink rose. "mademoiselle," a very deep voice said in english, "is not this world full of bores and tiresome duties; have you the courage to defy them all for a few minutes--and talk to me instead?" "monsieur!" miss rawson burst out, and half rose from her seat. then she sat down again--the unknown had not stirred a muscle. "good," he murmured. "one has to be courageous to do what is unconventional, even if it is not wrong. i am not desirous of hurting or insulting you--i felt we might have something to say to each other--is it so--tell me, am i right?" "i do not know," whispered stella lamely. she was so taken aback at the preposterous fact that a stranger should have addressed her at all, even in a manner of indifference and respect, that she knew not what to do. "i observed you last night," he went on. "i am accustomed to judge of character rapidly--it is a habit i have acquired during my travels in foreign lands--when i cannot use the standard of my own. you are weary of a number of things, and you do not know anything at all about life, and you are hedged round with those who will see that you never learn its meaning. tell me--what do you think of rome--it contains things and aspects which afford food for reflection, is it not so?" "we have only been to the vatican as yet," stella answered timidly--she was still much perturbed at the whole incident, but now that she had begun she determined she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and she was conscious that there was a strong attraction in the mild blue eyes of the stranger. his manner had a complete repose and absence of self-consciousness, which usually is only to be found in the people of race--in any nation. "you were taken to the sistine chapel, of course," he went on, "and to the loggia and bramant's staircase? you saw some statues, too, perhaps?" "my uncle and aunt do not care much for sculpture," miss rawson said, now regaining her composure, "but i like it--even better than pictures." the stranger kept his steady eyes fixed upon her face all the time. "i have a nymph in my house at home," he returned. "she came originally from rome; she is not greek and she is very like you, the same droop of head--i remarked it immediately--i am superstitious--i suppose you would call what i mean by that word--and i knew directly that some day you, too, would mean things to me. that is why i spoke--do you feel it, too?" stella rawson quivered. the incredible situation paralyzed her. she--the aunt caroline's niece, and engaged to eustace medlicott, the bishop's junior chaplain, to be listening to a grotesque-looking foreigner making subtle speeches of an insinuating character, and, far from feeling scandalized and repulsed, to be conscious that she was thrilled and interested--it was hardly to be believed! "will you tell me from where you come?" she asked with sweet bashfulness, raising two eyes as soft as brown velvet. "you speak english so very well--one cannot guess." "i am a russian," he said simply. "i come from near moscow--and my name is sasha roumovski, count roumovski. yours, i am aware, is rawson, but i would like to know how you are called--mary, perhaps? that is english." "no, my name is not mary," she answered, and froze a little--but the russian's eyes continued to gaze at her with the same mild frankness which disarmed any resentment. she felt they were as calm as deep pools of blue water--they filled her with a sense of confidence and security--which she could not account for in any way. her color deepened--something in his peaceful expectancy seemed to compel her to answer his late question. "my christian name is stella," she said, rather quickly, then added nervously: "i am engaged to mr. eustace medlicott, an english clergyman--we are going to be married in september next." "and this is may," was all count roumovski replied; then, for the first time since he had addressed her, he turned his eyes from her face, while the faintest smile played round his well-cut mouth. "a number of things can happen in four months. are you looking forward to your life as the wife of a priest--but i understand it is different in england to in my country--there i could not recommend the situation to you." stella found absolutely no answer to this. she only felt a sudden, wild longing to cry out that the idea of being a curate's wife--even the bishop's junior young gentleman with eight hundred a year of his own--had never appeared a thrilling picture, and was now causing her a feeling of loathing. she thought she ought to talk no longer to this stranger, and half rose from her seat. he put out a protesting hand, both had been clasped idly over the times until then without a movement. "no--do--not go--i have disturbed you--i am sorry," he pleaded. "listen, there is a great reception at your embassy to-morrow night--for one of our royal family who is here. you will go, perhaps. if so, i will do so also, although i dislike parties--and there i will be presented to you with ceremony--it will appease that english convention in you, and after that i shall say to you a number of things--but i prefer to sit here and speak behind the times." at this instant he raised the paper, and appeared again the stranger almost entirely hidden from view. and stella saw that her uncle erasmus was rapidly approaching her with an envelope in his hand. she seized her pen again and continued her broken sentence to eustace--her betrothed. canon ebley viewed the times and its holder with suspicion for an instant, but its stillness reassured him, and he addressed his niece. "very civil of the embassy to send us a card for the reception to-morrow night, stella; i am glad we wrote names when we arrived. your aunt caroline bids you accept, as her spectacles are upstairs." miss rawson did as she was bid, and her uncle waited, fidgeting with his feet. he wished the stranger to put down the times, which he wanted himself--or, at all events, remove his long legs and hidden body from such a near proximity to his niece; they could not say a word that he could not overhear, canon ebley mused. however, the unknown remained where he was, and turned a page of the paper with great deliberation. "your aunt will be ready to go out again now," the uncle erasmus announced, as stella placed her acceptance in the envelope. "you had better go up and put your hat on, my dear." the times rustled slightly--and stella replied a little hurriedly: "i was just finishing a letter, uncle, then i will come." "very well," said canon ebley, not altogether pleased, as he walked away with the note. the newspaper was lowered a few inches again, and the wise blue eyes beneath the saintly parted hair twinkled with irresistible laughter, and the deep voice said: "he would greatly disapprove of our having conversed--the uncle--is it not so? how long are you going to stay in rome?" stella smiled, too--she could not help it. "a week--ten days, perhaps," she answered, and then rapidly addressed an envelope to the rev. eustace medlicott. "perhaps, in that case, i can afford to wait until to-morrow night; unless it amuses you, as it does me, to circumvent people," count roumovski said. "we are all masters of our own lives, you know, once we have ceased to be children--it is only convention which persuades us to submit to others' authority." stella looked up startled. was this indeed true? and was it simply convention which had forced her into an engagement with eustace medlicott, and now forced her to go up and put on her hat and accompany her uncle and aunt to see the lateran, when she would have preferred to remain where she was and discuss abstract matters with this remarkable stranger. "the notion surprises you, one sees," count roumovski went on, "but it is true--" "i suppose it is," said stella lamely. "i submit to no authority--i mean, as to the controlling of my actions and wishes. we must all submit to the laws of our country, to do so is the only way to obtain complete personal freedom." "that sounds like a paradox," said stella. "i have just been thinking," he went on, without noticing the interruption, "it would be most agreeable to take a drive in my automobile late this after-noon, when your guardians have returned and are resting. if you feel you would care to come i will wait in this hall from five to six. you need not take the least notice of me, you can walk past, out of the hotel, then turn to the left, and there in the square, where there are a few trees, you will see a large blue motor waiting. you will get straight in, and i will come and join you. not anyone will see or notice you--because of the trees, one cannot observe from the windows. my chauffeur will be prepared, and i will return you safely to the same place in an hour." stella's brown eyes grew larger and larger. some magnetic spell seemed to be dominating her, the idea was preposterous, and yet to agree to it was the strongest temptation she had ever had in all her life. she was filled with a wild longing to live, to do what she pleased, to be free to enjoy this excitement before her wings should be clipped, and her outlook all gray and humdrum. "i do not know if they will rest--i cannot say--i--" she blurted out tremblingly. the stranger had put down the times, and was gazing into her face with a look almost of tenderness. "there is no need to answer now," he said softly. "if fate means us to be happy, she will arrange it--i think you will come." miss rawson started to her feet, and absently put her letter to her fiance--which contained merely the sentence that they had arrived in rome--into its envelope and fastened it up. "i must go now--good-bye," she said. "it is not good-bye," the russian answered gravely. "by six o'clock, we shall be driving in the borghese gardens and hearing the nightingales sing." as stella walked to the lift with a tumultuously beating heart, she asked herself what all this could possibly mean, and why she was not angry--and why this stranger--whose appearance outraged all her ideas as to what an english gentleman should look like--had yet the power to fascinate her completely. of course, she would not go for a drive with him--and yet, what would be the harm? after september she would never have a chance like this again. there would be only eustace medlicott and parish duties--yes--if fate made it possible, she would go! and she went on to her room with exhilarating sense of adventure coursing through her veins. "i have found out the name of the peculiar-looking foreigner who sat near us last night," canon ebley said, as they drove to the lateran in a little roman victoria, "it is count roumovski; i asked the hall porter--reprehensible curiosity i fear you will think, my dear caroline, but there is something unaccountably interesting about him, as you must admit, although you disapprove of his appearance." "i think it is quite dreadful," mrs. ebley sniffed, "and i hear from martha that he has no less than two valets, and a suite of princely rooms and motor cars, and the whole passage on the second floor is filled with his trunks." martha had been mrs. ebley's maid for twenty-five years, and as stella well knew was fairly accurate in her recounting of the information she picked up. this luridly extravagant picture, however, did not appal her. and she found herself constantly dwelling upon it and the stranger all the time she followed her relations about in the gorgeous church. fate did not seem to be going to smile upon the drive project, however--for mrs. ebley, far from appearing tired, actually proposed tea in the hall when they got in--and there sat for at least half an hour, while stella saw count roumovski come in and sit down and leisurely begin a cigarette, as he glanced at an italian paper. he was so intensely still, always peace seemed to breathe from his atmosphere, but the very sight of him appeared to exasperate the aunt caroline more and more. "i wonder that man is not ashamed to be seen in a respectable place," she snapped, "with his long hair and his bracelet--such effeminacy is perfectly disgusting, erasmus." "i really cannot help it, my dear," canon ebley replied, irritably, "and i rather like his face." "erasmus!" was all mrs. ebley could say, and prepared to return to her room. dinner would be at a quarter to eight, she told stella at her door, and recommended an hour's quiet reading up of the guide-book while resting to her niece. it was quarter after six before miss rawson descended the stairs to the hall again. she had deliberately made up her mind--she would go and drive with the count. she would live and amuse herself, if it was only for this once in her life, come what might of it! and since he would be presented with all respectable ceremony at the english embassy the following night, it could not matter a bit--and if it did--! well, she did not care! he was sitting there as immovable as before, and she thrilled as she crossed the hall. she was so excited and frightened that she could almost have turned back when she reached the street, but there, standing by the trees, was a large blue motor car, and as she advanced the chauffeur stepped forward and opened the door, and she got in--and before she had time to realize what she had done, count roumovski had joined her and sat down by her side. "you have no wrap," he said. "i thought you would not have, so i had prepared this," and he indicated a man's gray russian, unremarkable-looking cloak, which, however, proved to be lined with fine sable, "and here, also, is a veil. if you will please me by putting them on, we can then have the auto open and no one will recognize you--even should we meet your uncle and aunt; that is fun, is it not?" stella had thrown every consideration to the winds, except the determination to enjoy herself. years of rebellion at the boredom of her existence seemed to be urging her on. so she meekly slipped into the cloak, and wrapped the veil right over her hat, and they started. her heart was thumping so with excitement she could not have spoken for a moment. but as they went rapidly on through the crowded streets, her companion's respectful silence reassured her. there seemed to be some rapport between them, she was conscious of a feeling that he understood her thoughts, and was not misjudging her. "you are like a little frightened bird," he said presently. "and there is nothing to cause you the least fear. we shall soon come to the lovely gardens, and watch the lowering sun make its beautiful effects in the trees, and we shall hear the nightingales throbbing out love songs--the world is full of rest and peace--when we have had enough passion and strife and want its change--but you do not know anything of it, and this simple drive is causing you tumults and emotions--is it not so?" "yes," said stella, with a feeling that she had burnt all her ships. "it is because you have never been allowed to be you, i suppose," he went on softly. "so doing a natural and simple thing seems frightful--because it would seem so to the rigid aunt. now, i have been me ever since i was born--i have done just what seemed best to me. do you suppose i am not aware that the way my hair is cut is a shock to most civilized persons; and that you english would strongly disapprove of my watch and my many other things. but i like them myself--it is no trouble for one of my valets to draw a straight line with a pair of scissors--and if i must look at the time, i prefer to look at something beautiful. i am entirely uninfluenced by the thoughts or opinions of any people--they do not exist for me except in so far as they interest me and are instructive or amusing. i never permit myself to be bored for an instant." "how good that must be," stella ventured to say--her courage was returning. "civilized human beings turn existence into a prison," he went on, meditatively, "and loaded themselves with shackles, because some convention prevents their doing what would give them innocent pleasure. if i had been under the dominion of these things we should not now be enjoying this delightful drive--at least, it is delightful to me--to be thus near you and alone out of doors." stella did not speak, she was altogether too full of emotion to trust herself to words just yet. they had turned into the corso by now, and, as ever, it appeared as though it were a holiday, so thronged with pedestrians was the whole thoroughfare. count roumovski seemed quite unconcerned, but miss rawson shrank back into her corner, a new fear in her heart. "do not be so nervous," her companion said gently. "i always calculate the chances before i suggest another person's risking anything for me. they are a million to one that anyone could recognize you in that veil and that cloak; believe me, although i am not of your country, i am at least a gentleman, and would not have persuaded you to come if there had been any danger of complications for you." stella clasped her hands convulsively--and he drew a little nearer her. "do put all agitating ideas out of your mind," he said, his blue eyes, with their benign expression, seeking hers and compelling them at last to look at him. "do you understand that it is foolish to spoil what we have by useless tremors. you are here with me--for the next hour--shall we not try to be happy?" "yes," murmured miss rawson, and allowed herself to be magnetized into calmness. "when we have passed the piazza del popolo and the entrance to the pincio, i will have the car opened; then we can see all the charming young green, and i will tell you of what these gardens were long ago, and you shall see them with new eyes." stella, by some sort of magic, seemed to have recovered her self-possession as his eyes looked into hers, and she chatted to him naturally, and the next half hour passed like some fairy tale. his deep, quiet voice took her into realms of fancy that her imagination had never even dreamed about. his cultivation was immense, and the rome of the caesars appeared to be as familiar to him as that of . the great beauty of the borghese gardens was at its height at the end of the day, the nightingales throbbed from the bushes, and the air was full of the fresh, exquisite scents of the late spring, as the day grew toward evening and all nature seemed full of beauty and peace. it can easily be imagined what this drive meant, then, to a fine, sensitive young woman, whose every instinct of youth and freedom and life had been crushed into undeveloped nothingness by years of gray convention in an old-fashioned english cathedral town. stella rawson forgot that she and this russian were strangers, and she talked to him unrestrainedly, showing glimpses of her inner self that she had not known she possessed. it was certainly heaven, she thought, this drive, and worth all the aunt caroline's frowns. count roumovski never said a word of love to her: he treated her with perfect courtesy and infinite respect, but when at last they were turning back again, he permitted himself once more to gaze deeply into her eyes, and stella knew for the first time in her existence that some silences are more dangerous than words. "you do not care at all now for the good clergy-man you are affianced to," he said. "no--do not be angry-i am not asking a question, i am stating a fact--when lives have been hedged and controlled and retenu like yours has been, even the feelings lose character, and you cannot be sure of them--but the day is approaching when you will see clearly and--feel much." "i am sure it is getting very late," said stella rawson, and with difficulty she turned her eyes away and looked over the green world. count roumovski laughed softly, as if to himself. and they were silent until they came to the entrance gates again, when the chauffeur stopped and shut the car. "we have at least snatched some moments of pleasure, have we not?" the owner whispered, "and we have hurt no one. will you trust me again when i propose something which sounds to you wild?" "perhaps i will," stella murmured rather low. "when i was hunting lions in africa i learned to keep my intelligence awake," he said calmly, "it is an advantage to me now in civilization--nothing is impossible if one only keeps cool. if one becomes agitated one instantly connects oneself with all other currents of agitation, and one can no longer act with prudence or sense." "i think i have always been very foolish," admitted stella, looking down. "i seem to see everything differently now." "what we are all striving after is happiness," count roumovski said. "only we will not admit it, and nearly always spoil our own chances by drifting, and allowing outside things to influence us. if you could see the vast plains of snow in my country and the deep forests--with never a human being for miles and miles, you would understand how nature grows to talk to one--and how small the littlenesses of the world appear." then they were silent again, and it was not until they were rushing up the via nazionale and in a moment or two would have reached their destination, that count roumovski said: "stella--that means star--it is a beautiful name--i can believe you could be a star to shine upon any man's dark night--because you have a pure spirit, although it has been muffled by circumstances for all these years." then the automobile drew up by the trees, at perhaps two hundred yards from the hotel, near the baths of diocletian. "if you will get out here, it will be best," count roumovski told her respectfully, "and walk along on the inner side. i will then drive to the door of the hotel, as usual." "thank you, and good-bye," said stella, and began untying the veil--he helped her at once, and in doing so his hand touched her soft pink cheek. she thrilled with a new kind of mad enjoyment, the like of which she had never felt, and then controlled herself and stamped it out. "it has been a very great pleasure to me," he said, and nothing more; no "good-bye" or "au revoir" or anything, and he drew into the far corner as she got out of the car, letting the chauffeur help her. nor did he look her way as he drove on. and stella walked leisurely back to the hotel, wondering in her heart at the meaning of things. no one noticed her entrance, and she was able to begin to dress for dinner without even martha being aware that she had been absent. but as she descended in the lift with her uncle and aunt it seemed as if the whole world and life itself were changed since the same time the night before. and when they were entering the restaurant a telegram was put into canon ebley's hand--it was from the rev. eustace medlicott, sent from turin, saying he would join them in rome the following evening. "eustace has been preparing this delightful surprise--i knew of it," the aunt caroline said, with conscious pride, "but i would not tell you, stella, dear, in case something might prevent it. i feared to disappoint you." "thank you, aunt," miss rawson said without too much enthusiasm, and took her seat where she could see the solitary occupant of a small table, surrounded by the obsequious waiters, already sipping his champagne. he had not looked up as they passed. nor did he appear once to glance in their direction. his whole manner was full of the same reflective calm as the night before. and, for some unaccountable reason, stella rawson's heart sank down lower and lower, until at the end of the repast she looked pale and tired out. eustace, her betrothed, would be there on the morrow, and such things as drives in motor cars with strange russian counts were only dreams and not realities, she now felt. chapter iii next morning it fell about that stella rawson was allowed to go into the musso nazionale in the diocletian baths, accompanied only by martha, her uncle and aunt having decided they would take a rest and write their english letters. the museum was so near, a mere hundred yards, there could be no impropriety in their niece's going there with martha, even in an exhibition year in rome. stella was still suffering from a nameless sense of depression. eustace's train would get in at about five o'clock, and he would accompany them to the embassy. a cousin of her own and aunt caroline's was one of the secretaries, and had already been written to about the invitation. so that even if count roumovski should be presented to her, and make the whole thing proper and correct, she would have no chance of any conversation. the brilliant sunlight felt incongruous and hurt her, and she was glad to enter the shady ancient baths. she had glanced furtively to right and left in the hotel as she came through the hall, but saw no one who resembled the russian, and they had walked so quickly through the vestibule she had not remarked a tall figure coming from the staircase, nor had seen him give some rapid order to a respectful servant who was waiting about, and who instantly followed them: but if she had looked up as she paid for the two tickets at the barrier of the museum, she would have seen this same lean man turn swiftly round and retreat in the direction of the hotel. martha was sulky and comatose on this very warm morning; she took no interest in sculpture. "them naked creatures," she called any masterpiece undraped--and she resented being dragged out by miss stella, who always had fancies for art. they walked round the cloisters first, a voyage of discovery to miss rawson, who looked a slim enough nymph herself in her lilac cambric frock and demure gray hat shading her big brown eyes. then suddenly, from across the garden in the center, she became aware that an archaic apollo clad in modern dress had entered upon the scene, and the blood rushed to her cheeks, and her heart beat. martha puffed with the heat and exercise, and glanced with longing eyes at a comfortable stone bench in the shade. "would you like to rest here, martha, you old dear?" miss rawson said. "there is not a creature about, and i will walk round and join you from the other side." the aunt caroline's elderly maid easily agreed to this. it was true there did not seem to be anyone adventurous-looking, and miss stella would be more or less under her eye--and she was thoroughly tired with traveling and what not. so stella found herself happily unchaperoned, except by baedecker, as she strolled on. the russian had disappeared from view, the bushes and vases in the center of the garden plot gave only occasional chances to see people at a distance. but when stella had entered the ludovici collection she perceived him to the right, gazing at the statue of the beautiful mars. he turned instantly, as though some one told him she was near--and his calm eyes took in the fact that she was alone. the small room was empty but for the two, and he addressed her as he removed his hat. "good morning, mademoiselle," he said gravely. "mars is a strong attraction. i knew i should presently find you here--so when i caught sight of your spiritual outline across the garden, i came and--waited." "he is most splendid-looking, is he not," stella returned, trying to suppress the sudden tingle of pleasure that was thrilling her, "and look how much character there is in his hands." "shall we go and study the others, or shall we find a bench in the garden and sit down and talk?" count roumovski asked serenely, and then smiled to himself as he noticed his companion's apprehensive glance in the direction where, far away, martha dozed in peace. "it would be nice out of doors--but--" and stella faltered. "do not let us be deprived of pleasure by any buts--there is one out there who will warn us when your maid wakes. see--" and he advanced toward the entrance door, "there is a bench by that rose tree where we can be comparatively alone." stella struggled no more with herself. after all, it was her last chance--eustace medlicott's train got in at five o'clock! she had a sense of security, too, the complete serenity of her companion inspired confidence. she almost felt she would not care if aunt caroline herself slept instead of the elderly maid. there was some slight change in count roumovski's manner to-day--he kept his eyes fixed upon her face, and the things he said were less abstract and more personal. after an entrancing half hour she felt she had seen vivid pictures of his land and his home. but he was a great traveler it appeared, and had not been there often in later years. "it is so agreeable to let the body move from place to place, and remain in a peaceful aloofness of the spirit all the time," he said at last. "to watch all the rushing currents which dominate human beings when they do not know how to manipulate them. if they did, the millennium would come,--but, meanwhile, it is reserved for the few who have learned them to enjoy this present plane we are on." "you mean you can control events and shape your life as you please, then?" stella asked surprised, while she raised her sweet shy eyes to his inquiringly. "i wish i knew how!" "shall i try to teach you, mademoiselle?" he said. "yes, indeed." "then you must not look down all the time, even though the contemplation of your long eyelashes gives me a pleasure--i would prefer the eyes themselves--the eyes are the indication of what is passing in the soul, and i would study this moving panorama." stella's color deepened, but she met his blue orbs without flinching--so he went on: "i had the fortune to be born a russian, which has given me time to study these things. my country does not require my work beyond my being a faithful servant of my emperor. since i am not a soldier, i can do as i choose. but you in england are now in a seething caldron, and it would be difficult, no doubt, for you to spend the hours required--although the national temperament would lend itself to all things calm if it were directed." "but for myself," stella demanded, "i am not a man, and need not interest myself in the nation's affairs--how can i grow to guide my own--as you seem to do?" "never permit yourself to be ruffled by anything to commence with," count roumovski began gravely, while the pupils of his eyes appeared to grow larger. "whatever mood you are in, you connect yourself with the cosmic current of that mood--you become in touch, so to speak, with all the other people who are under its dominion, and so it gains strength because unity is strength. if you can understand that as a basic principle, you can see that it is only a question of controlling yourself and directing your moods with those currents whose augmentation can bring you good. you must never be negative and drift. you can be drawn in any adverse way if you do." "i think i understand," said stella, greatly interested. "then you must use your critical faculties and make selections of what is best--and you must encourage common sense and distrust altruism. sanity is the thing to aim at." "yes." "the view of the world has become so distorted upon almost every point which started in good, that nothing but a cultivation of our individual critical faculties can enable us to see the truth--and nine-tenths of civilized humanity have no real opinion of their own at all--they simply echo those of others." "i feel that is true," said stella, thinking of her own case. "it is not because a thing is bad or good that it succeeds--merely how much strength we put into the desire for it," he went on. "but surely we must believe that good will win over evil," and the brown eyes looked almost troubled, and his softened as he looked at her. "the very fact of believing that would make it come to pass by all these psychic laws. whatever we really believe we draw," he said almost tenderly. "then, if i were to believe all the difficulties and uncertainties would be made straight and just go on calmly, i should be happy, should i?" she asked, and there was an unconscious pathos in her voice which touched him deeply. "certainly," he answered. "you have not had a fair chance--probably you have never been allowed to do a single thing of your own accord--have you?" "n--no," said stella. "in the beginning, were you engaged to this good clergyman of your own wish?" and his eyes searched her face. she stiffened immediately, the training of years took offense, and she answered rather stiffly: "i do not think you have the right to ask me such a question, count roumovski." he was entirely unabashed--he stroked his pointed silky beard for a moment, then he said calmly: "yes--i have, you agreed that i should teach you how to shape your life as you pleased, you must remember. it is rather essential that i should know the truth of this matter before i can go further--you must see that." "we can avoid the subject." "it would be hamlet without hamlet, then," he smiled. "one could draw up no scheme of rules and exercises, unless one has some idea of how far the individual was responsible for the present state of things. if it was your wish in the beginning, or if you were coerced makes all the difference." stella was silent--only she nervously plucked an offending rose which grew upon a bush beside them: she pulled its petals off and kept her eyes lowered, and sasha roumovski smiled a wise smile. "you have unconsciously answered me," he said, "and your agitation proves that not only are you aware that you did not become engaged of your own wish, but that you are afraid to face the fact and admit that its aspect appals you. you must remember, in your country, where, i understand, divorce is not tres bien vu, especially among the clergy, the affair is for life, and the joy or the gall of it could be infinite." she raised two beseeching eyes to his face at last. "oh, do not let us talk about it," she pleaded. "it is so warm and pleasant here--i want to be happy." he looked at her for a while with penetrating eyes, then he said gently: "it is a man's province to take care of a woman," and his attractive voice filled with a new cadence. "i see you are in need of direction. leave all to me--and forget there is any one else in the world for the moment but our two selves. did you know that i thought you looked particularly sweet last night, but rather pale?" "you never looked at me at all," said stella before she was aware of it, and then blushed crimson at the inference of her speech. he would be able to understand perfectly that she must have been observing him all the time to be conscious of this. a gleam of gladness came into his eyes. "i would like to watch you always openly, if i might," he whispered. "your little face is like a flower in its delicate tints, and your eyes are true and tender and asking so many questions of life,--and sometimes they are veiled and misty, and then they look wise and courageous. i am beginning to know all their changes." "then, in that case, monotony will set in," stella was almost arch--the day was so glorious! "i am not afraid of that," he said. "i always know what i want and what is worth while. i do not value my three matchless pearls the less because i know their every iridescence--on the contrary, i grow more fond of them and wear them every night in preference to any others." they were silent for a moment after this. he was examining her minutely with his wise, calm eyes. he was noting the sensitive curve of the pretty full lips, the tender droop of the set of her head, the gracious charm of her little regular features, and the intelligence of her broad brow. with all her simplicity, she looked no fool or weakling. and to think that the narrow code of those who surrounded her should force this sweet young creature into the gray walls of a prison house, when she became the english clergyman's wife; it was too revolting to him. count roumovski suddenly made up his mind, trained to instantaneous decision by his bent of studies, and sure and decided in its action. and if stella had looked up then she would have seen a keen gleam in the peaceful blue of his eyes. he drew her on to talk of her home and her tastes--she loved many things he did, he found--and she was so eager to hear and to learn their meaning. he grew to feel a sort of pride and the pleasure of a teacher when directing an extremely intelligent child. there were no barriers of stupidity into whatever regions the subjects might wander. they spent an hour of pure joy investigating each other's thoughts. and both knew they were growing more than friends. then stella rose suddenly to her feet. a clock struck twelve. "you said one must not be negative and drift," she announced demurely, "so i am being decided and must now go to martha again." "ivan has not warned us that she is thinking of stirring," count roumovski said. "i told him to, and he will let us know in plenty of time; you surely do not breakfast until half-past twelve, do you?" "ivan?--who is ivan?" stella asked. "he is a servant of mine who does what he is bid," her companion answered. "to have peace to enjoy oneself one must calculate and arrange for events. had we only trusted to the probability of your maid's sleeping, i should have had to be on the lookout, and my uneasiness would have communicated itself to you, and we should have had no happy hour--but i made a certainty of safety--and unconsciously you trusted me to know, and so we have been content." stella was thrilled. so he had taken all this trouble. he must be a good deal interested in her, then; and feeling sure of this, womanlike, she immediately took advantage of it to insist upon leaving him. "very well," he said, when he could not dissuade her. "to-night the wheel of fortune will revolve for us all, and it remains to be seen who will draw a prize and who a blank." then he walked by her side to where they saw the quiet servant standing, a motionless sentinel, and here count roumovski bowed and turned on his heel, while stella advanced to the bench on which the comfortable martha slept. this latter was full of defence when she awoke. she had not closed an eye, but thought miss stella was enjoying "them statues" better without her, which was indeed true, if she had guessed! miss rawson ate very little luncheon--the russian did not appear--and immediately after it she was taken as a treat to see the borghese gardens by her uncle and aunt! it behooved her not to be tired by more sightseeing, since her betrothed would arrive when they returned for tea, and would expect her to be bright and on the alert to please him, aunt caroline felt. as for stella, as that moment approached it seemed to her that the end of all joy had come. chapter iv the rev. eustace medlicott, when the stains of travel had been removed from his thin person, came down to tea in the hall of the grand hotel with a distinct misgiving in his heart. he did not approve of it as a place of residence for his betrothed. another and equally well-drained hostelry might have been found for the party he thought, where such evidences of worldly occupations and amusements would not so forcibly strike the eye. music with one's meals savored of paganism. he was still very emaciated with his lenten fast. it took him until july, generally, to pick up again; and he was tired with his journey. stella was not there to greet him, only the aunt caroline, and he felt a sense of injury creeping over him. she might have been in time. nancy ruggles, the bishop's second daughter, had given him tea and ministered to his wants in a spirit of solicitous devotion every day since the ebleys had left exminster, but nancy's hair was not full of sunlight, nor did her complexion suggest cream and roses. things which, to be sure, the rev. eustace medlicott felt he ought not to dwell upon; they were fleshly lusts and should be discouraged. he had been convinced that celibacy was the only road to salvation for a priest, until stella rawson's fair young charms had unconsciously undermined this conviction. but even if he had been able to arrange his conscience to his liking upon the vital point, he felt he must fight bravely against allowing himself or his betrothed to get any pleasure out of the affair. it was better to marry than to burn, he had st. paul's authority for this--but when he felt emotion toward stella because of her loveliness, he was afterward very uncomfortable in his thoughts, and it took him at least an hour to throw dust in his own eyes in regard to the nature of his desire for her, which he determined to think was only of the spirit. love, for him, was no god to be exalted, but a too strong beast to be resisted, and every one of his rites were to be succumbed to shamefacedly and under protest. thus did he criticize the scheme of his creator like many another before him. he sat now in the hall of the grand hotel at rome feeling ill at ease and expressed some mild disapproval of the surroundings to mrs. ebley, who fired up at once. she was secretly enjoying herself extremely, and allowed the drains to assume gigantic proportions in her reasons for their choice of abode. so there was nothing more to be said, and stella, looking rather pale, presently came down the steps from the corridor where their lift was situated, and joined the group in the far corner of the large hall. she was so slender and fresh and graceful, and, even in the week's sight-seeing in paris, she seemed to have picked up a new air, though she wore the same gray sunday dress her fiance was accustomed to see at home--it appeared to be put on differently, and she had altered the doing of her hair. there was no doubt about it, his future wife was a most delectable-looking creature, but these tendencies toward adornment of the person which he observed must be checked at once. they shook hands with decorous cordiality, and stella sat down demurely in the vacant chair. she felt as cold as ice toward him, and looked it more or less. it made mr. medlicott nervous, although she answered gently enough when he addressed her. inwardly she was trying to overcome the growing revulsion she was experiencing. tricks of speech, movements of hands--even the way eustace's hair grew--were all irritating her. she only longed to contradict every word the poor man said, and she felt wretched and unjust and at war with herself and fate. at last things almost came to a point when he moved his chair so that he should be close to her and a little apart from the others, and whispered with an air of absolute proprietorship: "my little stella has changed her sweetly modest way of hairdressing. i hardly think the new style is suitable to my retiring dove." "why, it is only parted in the middle and brushed back into a simple knot," miss rawson retorted, with sparkling eyes. "how can you be so ridiculous, eustace--it is merely because it is becoming and more in the fashion that you object, there is nothing the least remarkable in the style itself." mr. medlicott's thin lips grew into a straight line. "it is that very point--the suggestion of fashion that i object to--the wife of a clergyman cannot be too careful not to make herself attractive or remarkable in any way," he said sententiously, his obstinate chin a little forward. "but i am not a clergyman's wife yet," said stella with some feeling, "and can surely enjoy a few things of my age until i am--and doing my hair how i please is one of them." mr. medlicott shrugged his shoulders, he refused to continue this unseemly altercation with his betrothed. he would force her to see reason when once she should be his wife, until then he might have to waive his authority, but should show her by his manner that she had offended him, and judging from the attitudes of the adoring spinsters he had left at exminster that should be punishment enough. he turned to the aunt caroline now and addressed her exclusively and stella rebelliously moved her seat back a few inches and looked across the room; and at that moment the tall, odd-looking russian came in, and retired to a seat far on the other side, exactly opposite them. here he ordered a hock and seltzer with perfect unconcern, and smoked his cigarette. miss rawson could hardly bear it. "there is that extraordinary man again, stella," mrs. ebley turned to her and said. "i thought he had gone as he was not at luncheon to-day. i am sure your fiance will agree with me that such an appearance is sacrilegious--he must know he looks like a saint--and i am quite sure, from what i have heard from martha, he is not one at all. he lives in the greatest luxury, eustace," she continued, turning to the rev. mr. medlicott, "and probably does no good to anyone in the world." "how can you suppose that, aunt caroline," stella answered with some spirit, "it is surely very uncharitable to judge of people by their appearances and--and what martha repeats to you." mrs. ebley gasped--never in her whole life had her niece spoken to her in this tone. she to be rebuked! it was unspeakable. she could only glare behind her glasses. what had come to the girl in the last two days--if this manner was the result of travel, far better to have stayed at home! here canon ebley joined in, hoping to bring peace: "you have told eustace what is in store for him to-night, have you not, caroline, my dear?" he asked. "we have to put on our best and take our ladies to the embassy to a rout, eustace," he went on, genially. "there are a russian grand duke and duchess passing through, it appears, who are going to be entertained." "there will be no dancing, i suppose," said mr. medlicott primly, "because, if so, i am sorry, but i cannot accompany you--it is not that i disapprove of dancing for others," he hastened to add, "but i do not care to watch it myself. and i do not think it wise for stella to grow to care for it, either." "it is merely a reception," mrs. ebley said, "and it will be a very interesting sight." stella sat silent; she was overcome with the whole situation; and her fiance grew more distasteful to her every moment--how had she ever been persuaded to be engaged to such a person!--while the attraction of the strange-looking russian seemed to increase. in spite of the grotesque hair and unusual beard, there was an air of great distinction about him. his complete unconsciousness and calm were so remarkable. you might take him for an eccentric person, but certainly a gentleman, and with an extraordinary magnetism, she felt. when once you had talked to him, he seemed to cast a spell over you. but, beyond this, she only knew that she was growing more unhappy every moment, and that by her side one man represented everything that was tied and bound in sentiment and feeling and existence, and that across the hall another opened the windows of her reason and imagination, and exhorted her to be free, and herself. presently she could bear it no more. she got up rather suddenly, and, saying she was very tired and had letters to write, she left them and went toward the lift. "stella is not at all like herself," mr. medlicott said, when she had disappeared from view. "i trust she is not sickening with roman fever." meanwhile, miss rawson had reached her room and pulled her writing case in front of her. there were one or two girl friends who ought to be written to, but the sheets remained blank--and in about ten minutes there was a gentle knock at the door, and, on opening it, she saw count roumovski's discreet-looking servant, who handed her a note respectfully, and then went on his way without a word. how agreeable it must be to have well-trained servants to do one's bidding like that! she thought, and then went back eagerly to her window to read the missive. it had no beginning or date, and was just a few lines. i have observed the whole situation, and judged of the character of your fiance. i know how you feel. do not be depressed--remain calm and trust me, circumstances can always be directed in the hands of a strong man. i will have the honor to be presented to you and to your family soon after you arrive at the embassy to-night. all is well. there was no signature, and the writing was rather large and unlike any she had seen before. suddenly her feeling of unrest left her, and a lightness of heart took its place. she was living, at all events, and the horizon was not all gray. it seemed almost delightful to be putting on a real evening dress presently, even though it was a rather homely white thing with a pink sash, and to be going down to the restaurant in it with aunt caroline in front in her best black velvet and point lace. that lady's desire to be in time at the party alone determined her to this breach of the rules--and there were eustace and uncle erasmus in their stiff clerical evening coats awaiting them in the corridor--while, as luck would have it, the lift stopped at the second floor to admit the russian. he got in with his usual air of being unaware that he was not alone--though stella could feel that he was touching her hand--perhaps unconsciously. he seemed to radiate some kind of joy for her always, and the pink grew to that of a june rose in her cheeks, and her brown eyes shone like two stars. "that was the man you spoke of in the hall, mrs. ebley, was it not?" eustace medlicott's intoning voice said, as they went along to the restaurant. "he certainly is a most remarkable person to look at close--but i do not dislike his face, it has noble lines." "really, how condescending of you!" stella almost said aloud. but the aunt caroline answered serenely: "perhaps i am prejudiced, eustace, but want of convention always shocks me to such a degree that i cannot appreciate anything else." stella almost enjoyed her dinner, she was so excited with the prospect of some unknown coming events, and she had the satisfaction of observing that once count roumovski actually turned his head in their direction and met her eyes. his were full of a whimsical smile for the instant he looked, and then he relapsed into his habitual indifference. the crowd had begun to thicken when they got to the embassy, and they waited among them for the royalties' arrival; stella looking at everything with fresh, interested eyes. when this ceremony was over people began to disperse about the large rooms, and miss rawson was conscious that her strange secret acquaintance was in conversation with the grand duke and duchess; she had not seen him come in. the aunt caroline noticed this, too, and drew her attention to the fact. "look, stella, that dreadful man is talking to royalty!" she said. "i suppose he must be a gentleman, after all--one never can tell with foreigners, as their titles mean nothing, and half of them are assumed. your uncle carford had a valet once who afterward was arrested for posing as a polish count." "i should think anyone could see this man was a gentleman, aunt caroline," stella answered, "even without his talking to royalties." they were soon joined by the secretary cousin, who was charmed to welcome so pretty a relation to rome, and was profuse in his apologies for not having been able to do more than leave cards upon them as yet. "we should so like to know the names of the celebrities," mrs. ebley said, "especially can you tell us about the very curious-looking person now conversing with her imperial highness; he is at our hotel." "that--oh! that is by far the most interesting man here--it is the famous count roumovski. he is a most celebrated traveler; he has been all over the world and africa and asia in unaccessible places. he is a fabulously rich russian--a real muscovite from near moscow, and he does everything and anything he pleases; he gives enormous sums for the encouragement of science. he is immensely intelligent--he lunched at the embassy to-day." "really!" said the aunt caroline, somewhat impressed. "his appearance is greatly against him." "oh, do you think so?" said the cousin. "i think it adds to his attraction, it is such superlative audacity. no englishman would have the nerve to cut his hair like that." "i should hope not," said mrs. ebley severely, and dropped the subject. "to think of this charming rosebud of a girl going to marry eustace medlicott--insufferable, conceited prig, i remember him at oxford," the cousin was musing to himself. "lord carford is an old stick-in-the-mud, or he would have prevented that. she is his own niece, and one can see by her frock that the poor child never even goes to london." at this moment they saw the russian count putting his heels together and bowing himself out of the circle of his royalties; and straight as a dart he came over to where their group was standing, and whispered in the cousin's--mr. deanwood's ear--who then asked if he might present count roumovski to the aunt caroline and the rest. when this ceremony was over mrs. ebley found herself conversing with her whilom object of contempt, and coming gradually under the influence of his wonderful charm, while stella stood there trembling with the wildest excitement she had yet known. the words of eustace, her betrothed, talking to her, carried no meaning to her brain, her whole intelligence was strung up to catch what the others were saying. with great dexterity the russian presently made the conversation general, and drew her into it, and then he said with composure that the gardens were illuminated--and, as it was such a very hot night, would mademoiselle like to take a turn that way, to have some refreshment? at the same moment, mr. deanwood gave mrs. ebley his arm, and they all moved forward--followed by canon ebley and the rev. eustace medlicott, with no great joy upon his face. stella, meanwhile, felt herself being drawn rapidly ahead, and so maneuvered that in a moment or two they had completely lost sight of the rest of the relations, and were practically alone in a crowd. "at last!" count roumovski whispered, "even i, who am generally calm, was beginning to feel i should rush over, throw prudence to the winds and--" then he stopped abruptly, and stella felt her heart thump in her throat, while her little hand on his arm was pressed against his side. they made the pretense of taking some refreshment at the buffet, and then went toward the open doors of the garden. the part all round the house was illuminated, and numbers of people strolled about, the night was deliciously warm. count roumovski seemed to know the paths, for he drew his companion to a seat just beyond the radius of the lights, and they sat down upon a bench under a giant tree. he had not spoken a word, but now he leaned back and deliberately looked into her eyes, while his voice, with vibrations of feeling in it which thrilled stella, whispered in her ear: "it cannot go on, of course--you agree with me about that, do you not?" "what cannot go on?" she asked, to gain time to recover her composure. "this situation," he answered. "i am sure now that i love you--and i want to teach you a number of things, first in importance being that you shall love me." "oh, you must not say this," stella protested feebly. "yes, i must, and you will listen to me, little star." he drew nearer to her, and the amazing power of propinquity began to assert itself. she felt as if the force to resist him were leaving her, she was trembling all over with delicious thrills. "i made up my mind almost immediately i saw you, sweet child," he went on, "that you were what i have been waiting for all my life. you are good and true--and balanced--or you will be that when i have made your love education. stella, look at me with those soft eyes, and tell me that i mean something to you already, and that the worthy mr. medlicott does not exist any more." "i--i--but i have only known you for two days," stella answered confusedly: she was so full of emotion that she dared not trust herself further. "does time count, then, so much with conventional people?" he demanded. "for me it has no significance in relation to feeling. if you would only look at me instead of down at those small hands, then you would not be able to tell me these foolish things!" this was so true that stella could not deny it, her breath came rather fast; it was the supreme moment her life had yet known. "you are frightened because the training of your education still holds you and not nature. your acquired opinion tells you you are engaged to another man, and ought not to listen to me." "of course i ought not to," she murmured. "of course you ought--how else can you come to any conclusion if you do not hear my arguments--sweet, foolish one!" she did look at him now with two startled eyes. "listen attentively, darling pupil, and sweet love," he said. he was leaning with one arm on the back of the bench supporting his head on his hand, turned quite toward her, who sat with clasped nervous fingers clutching her fan. his other hand lay idly on his knee, his whole attitude was very still. the soft lights were just enough for him to see distinctly her small face and shining hair; his own face was in shadow, but she could feel the magnetism of his eyes penetrating through her very being. "you were coerced by those in charge of you," he went on in a level voice of argument, which yet broke into notes of tenderness, "you were influenced into becoming engaged to this man who is ridiculously unsuited to you. you, so full of life and boundless joy! you, who will learn all of love's meaning presently, and what it makes of existence, and what god meant by giving it to us mortals. you are intended by nature to be a complete woman if you did but know it--but such a life, tied to that half fish man, would atrophy all that is finest in your character. you would grow really into what they are trying to make you appear--after years of hopelessness and suffering. do you not feel all this, little star, tell me?" "yes," stella answered, "it is true--i have seemed to feel the cords and the shackles pulling at me often, but never that they were unbearable until i--spoke with you--and you put new thoughts into my head." "i did well, then. and because of a silly convention you would ruin all your life by going on with these ways--it is unthinkable!" and his deep voice vibrated with feeling. "it is a mistake, that is all, and can be rectified,--if you were already married to this man i would not plead so, because then you would have crossed the rubicon, and assumed responsibilities which you would have to accept or suffer the consequences. but this preliminary bond can be broken without hurt to either side. a man of the good clergyman's type will not suffer in his emotions at the loss of you--he suffices unto himself for those; his vanity will be wounded--that is all. and surely it is better that should gall for a little than that you should spoil your life. sweet flower, realize yourself these things--that sunny hair and that beautiful skin and those velvet eyes were made for the joy and glory of a man--not for temptations to a strict priest, who would resent their power as a sin every time he felt himself influenced by their charm. gods above! he would not know what to do with you, heart of me!" stella was thrilling with exquisite emotion, but the influence of her strict and narrow bringing up could not be quite overcome in these few moments. she longed to be convinced, and yet some altruistic sentiment made her feel still some qualms and misgivings. if she should be causing eustace great pain by breaking her engagement; if it were very wrong to go against her uncle and aunt--especially her aunt caroline, her own mother's sister. she clasped her little hands nervously, and looked up in this strong man's face with pathetic, pleading intensity. "oh, please tell me, what ought i to do, then--what is right?" she implored. "and because i want so much to believe you, i fear it must be wrong to do so." he leaned nearer to her and spoke earnestly. his stillness was almost ominous, it gave the impression of such immense self-control, and his voice was as those bass notes of the priests of st. isaac's in his own northern land. "dear, honest little girl," he said tenderly, "i worship your goodness. and i know you will presently see the truth. love is of god and is imperious, and because she loves him is the only reason why a woman should give her life to a man. quite apart from the law, which proclaims that each individual must be the arbiter of his own fate, and not succumb to the wishes of others, it would be an ethical sin for you to marry the worthy mr. medlicott--not loving him. surely, you can see this." "yes--yes, it would be dreadful," she murmured, "but aunt caroline--she caused me to accept him--i mean, she wanted me to so much. i never really felt anything for him myself, and lately--ever since the beginning, in fact, i have been getting more and more indifferent to him." "then, surely, it is plain that you must be free of him, darling. throw all the responsibility upon me, if you will. i promise to take every care of you. and i want you only to promise you will follow each step that i explain to you--" then he broke off, and the seriousness of his tone changed to one of caressing tenderness. "but first i must know for certain, little star, shall i be able to teach you to love me--as i shall love you?" "yes," was all stella could utter, and then, gaining more voice, she went on, "i did not know--i could not guess what that would mean--to love--but--" he answered her with fond triumph: "now you are beginning to understand, darling child--that is enough for me to know for the present. in your country, a man asks a woman to marry him: he says, 'will you marry me?'--is it not so? of course, i need not say that to you, because you know that is what i mean. when these wearisome thongs are off your wrists you will belong to me, and come with me into my country and be part of my life." "ah!" whispered stella, the picture seemed one of heaven, that was all. "you must have freedom to assert your individuality, stella," he continued. "i can but show you the way and give you a new point of view, but i will never try to rule you and drag you to mine. i will never put any chains upon you but those of love. do they sound as if they would be too heavy, dearest?" "i think not," she said very low. "i feel as though i were looking into a beautiful garden from the top of an ugly, barren, cold mountain. i shall like to come down and go in among the unknown flowers." "it will be so glorious for us," he said exultantly, "because we have still all the interesting things to find out about each other,--" and then, her sweet face so very near him, the temptation to caress her became too intense; he quivered and changed his position, clasping his hands. "darling," he said hoarsely, "we must soon go back to the company, because, although i count always upon my will to make my actions obey it, still i can hardly prevent myself from seizing you in my arms and kissing your tender lips--and that i must not do--as yet." stella drew herself together, the temptation was convulsing her also, though she did not guess it. she looked up into his blue eyes there in the shadow, and saw the deep reverence in them, and she understood and loved him with her soul. he did not so much as touch her dress; indeed, now that he had won his fight, he moved a little further from her--and resumed his calm voice: "the first thing we shall do is to stroll back through the people and find the aunt--i will then leave you with her, and soon it will be time to go home. do not make much conversation with any of them to-night--leave everything to me. i will see the rev. mr. medlicott when we return to the hotel. whatever they say to you to-morrow, remain firm in your simple determination to break your engagement. argue with them not at all. i will see your uncle in the morning and demand your hand; they will be shocked, horrified, scandalized--we will make no explanations. if they refuse their consent, then you must be brave, and the day after to-morrow you must come to my sister. she will have arrived by then; she was in paris, and i telegraphed for her to join me immediately; the princess urazov she is called. she will receive you with affection, and you will stay with her until the formalities can be arranged, when we shall be married, and--but i cannot permit myself to think of the joy of that--for the moment." stella's eyes, with trust and love, were now gazing into his, and he rose abruptly to his feet. "you may, when you are alone, again think that it is heartless to go quite contrary to your relations like this, because they have brought you up, but remember that marriage is an act which can mean almost life or death to a woman, and that no human beings have any right to coerce you in this matter. you are of age and so am i, and we are only answerable to god and to the laws of our countries, not to individuals." "i will try to think of it like that," said stella, greatly moved, and then, with almost childish irrelevance, which touched him deeply, she asked, "what must i call you, please?" "oh, you sweetest star!" he exclaimed, "do not tempt me too strongly--i love you wildly and i want to fold you in my arms--and explain everything with your little head here on my breast--but i must not--must not yet. call me sasha--say it now that i may hear its sound in your tender voice--and we must fly, fly back to the lights--or i cannot answer for myself." she whispered it softly, and a shiver ran through all his tall frame--and he said, with tender masterfulness: "say, 'sasha, i love,'" and this she did, also--and then he almost brusquely placed her hand upon his arm, and led her among the people, and so to her frowning relations, and then he bowed a correct good-night. chapter v no one could have been more surprised than the reverend eustace medlicott at the behavior of his betrothed. far from showing any contrition for her unseemly absence upon the arm of a perfect stranger, and a foreigner to boot, stella had returned to the fold of her relations' group with a demure and radiant face, and when eustace had ventured some querulous reproaches, she had cut him short by saying she had done as she wished and did not intend to listen to any remarks about it. "you will have to learn more humbleness of mind, my dear child," he retorted sternly. "i cannot allow you to reply to your future husband in this independent tone." "i shall just answer as i please," said stella, and felt almost inclined to laugh, he looked so cross and amazed. then she turned and talked to the cousin, mr. deanwood, and took no further notice of him. mr. medlicott burned with annoyance. stella would really have to be careful or he would not go on with the match--he had no intention of taking to wife a woman who would defy him--there was nancy ruggles ready to be his slave--and others besides her. and his career could be just as well assisted by the bishop's daughter as by canon ebley's niece, even though her uncle was a crotchety and unknown lord, patron of two fat livings. but stella, with a rebellious little curl loosened on her snowy neck and a rebellious pout upon her cherry lips, was so very alluring a creature to call one's own, the desire of the flesh, which he called by any other name, fought hard with his insulted spirit, though to give in would be too ignominious; she must say she was sorry first, and then he could find it in his heart to forgive her. but the opportunity to show this magnanimity was not vouchsafed to him by fate--for other people were introduced to the party by mr. deanwood, and he did not exchange a word alone with his erring fiancee until she said a cold good-night in the hall of the grand hotel. "stella, remain for a moment, i wish to speak to you," he said in the voice in which he was accustomed to read the burial service. but she feigned not to hear and followed her aunt caroline's black velvet train on to the lift and at that same moment a discreet-looking foreign servant came up and handed him a note. he read it in surprise--who could be sending him a note at a quarter past twelve at night? dear sir [it ran], i shall be greatly obliged if you can spare to me half an hour before retiring to your rest to converse upon a matter of importance. i had the honor of making your acquaintance to-night at your embassy. if you will grant me this favor i will wait upon you immediately in the hall, or, if you prefer, my sitting-room; my servant could conduct you here, and we shall have the advantage of being entirely undisturbed. i remain, sir, yours truly. sasha roumovski. eustace medlicott gasped with astonishment. this russian gentleman was evidently in need of his ministrations and perhaps advice. he would go to his room, certainly, there were still some people in the hall having late coffee and refreshment after the theater. he indicated by a condescending movement that he was ready to follow the waiting servant, and soon found himself being shown into count roumovski's sitting-room. it was luxuriously appointed and represented every appearance of manly comfort. there were quantities of books and papers about and the smell of excellent cigars, and put carelessly aside were various objets d'art which antique dealers had evidently sent for his grand seigneur's approval. count roumovski was standing by the mantelpiece and looked very tall and commanding in his evening dress. "it is most good of you to come," he said, while he indicated a big arm-chair for his visitor to sit in--he did not offer to shake hands. "it was certainly my duty to have called upon you, my only apology for getting you to ascend here is that the subject i wish to converse with you is too serious for both of us to admit of interruptions." "indeed," said mr. medlicott, pompously--growing more surprised each moment. "and may i ask the nature of your trouble?" count roumovski did not change his position by the mantelpiece and he kept still as a bronze statue as he spoke in a courteous tone: "it is not a trouble at all," he began, gravely, "on the contrary, it is a great joy and honor for me. i will state the facts immediately. i understand that for a short while you have been engaged to be married to miss stella rawson, the niece of the respected english clergyman, the reverend ebley--" "pardon me," interrupted mr. medlicott acidly, "but i do not see how my private affairs can interest you, sir, i cannot--" but the host in turn interrupted him. "if you will be so good as to listen patiently, you will find that this matter is of vital importance--may i proceed?" mr. medlicott bowed; what more could he do? count roumovski went on: "i understand that miss rawson never showed very strong affection for you or great desire for this union--so what i have to ask now is, if you, as a gentleman, will release her from her promise to you and set her free." "upon my word, sir, this is too much," mr. medlicott exclaimed, starting to his feet, "by what authority do you say these preposterous things? you were only introduced to miss rawson and myself to-night. you must be mad!" "no, i am quite sane. and i say them upon the best authority," count roumovski continued, "because i love miss rawson myself, and i am deeply honored by believing that in return she loves me--not you at all. therefore, it is common sense to ask you to release her, and let her be happy with the person she prefers--is it not so?" eustace medlicott had grown white with anger and astonishment as he listened, and now broke in hotly, forgetful of his intoning voice or anything but his outraged dignity. "when have you had the opportunity to try and undermine the faith of my betrothed, may i ask? supposing you are saying this seriously and not as some ill-timed jest." count roumovski lifted his eyebrows a little and looked almost with pity at his adversary. "we are not talking in the heroic manner," he replied, unmoved by the other's taunt, "we are, i presume, two fairly intelligent men discussing this affair together--there has been no question of undermining. miss rawson and myself found we understood each other very soon after we first met. surely, you must realize, sir, that love cannot be commanded, it will not come or go at one's bidding. these ridiculous bonds of convention, holding to a promise given when the spirit to keep it is no longer there, can ruin people's lives." mr. medlicott drew himself up, he was not quite so tall as the russian, but of no mean height, and his intense, ascetic face, emaciated to extreme leanness, now reddened with passion, while the veins stood out upon his high, narrow forehead. he was always very irritable when crossed, and his obstinate nature was strongly combative. "you forget, sir," he said angrily, "you are insulting my honor." "not the least in the world--you do not understand the point," count roumovski returned calmly. "listen for a minute--and i will explain. if miss rawson were already your wife i should be, and you would have the right to try and kill me, did your calling permit of that satisfaction of gentlemen, because there is a psychological and physiological reason involved in that case, producing the instinct in man which he is not perhaps conscious of, that he wishes to be sure his wife's legitimate offspring are his own--out of this instinct, civilization has built up the idea of a man's honor--which you can see has a basic principle of sense and justice." mr. medlicott with difficulty restrained himself from interrupting and the russian went on. "the situation of betrothed is altogether different: in it there have merely been promises exchanged, promises, for the most part, which no man or woman can honestly engage with any certainty to keep, because feeling toward the other is not within his or her control--both are promising upon a sentiment, not a reality." "i totally disagree with you," eustace medlicott answered angrily, "when men and women make promises to one another they should have wills strong enough to keep them." "for what sensible reason?" count roumovski asked. "in a case where the happiness of both is involved, and where no damage has been incurred by either--" mr. medlicott clasped his hands convulsively but he did not reply--so the russian went on: "surely, you must see that a woman should be free to marry--that is, to give herself and her power to become a mother where she loves--not to be forced to bestow these sacred gifts when her spirit is unwilling--just because she has made the initial mistake of affiancing herself to a man, often through others' influence, who she discovers afterward is distasteful to her. cannot you realize that it is wise for himself as well as for her that this man release her, before a life of long misery begins for them both?" mr. medlicott never analyzed reasons, and never listened to other people's logic, and if he had any of his own he was too angry to use it. he was simply conscious now that a foreigner had insulted him and appeared to have stolen the affections of his betrothed, and his sacred calling precluded all physical retaliation--which, at the moment, was the only kind that would have given him any satisfaction. he prepared to stalk furiously from the room after he should receive an answer to an all-important question. "the whole thing is disgraceful," he said, "and i shall inform miss rawson's uncle and aunt of your highly insulting words to me, that they may guard her from further importunity upon your part. but i should like to know, in fairness, how far you are stating you have been able to persuade my fiancee to agree to your view?" "i am sorry you should have become so heated and angry," count roumovski returned, "because it stops all sensible discussion. i deeply regret having been forced to inflict pain upon you, but if you would give yourself time to think calmly you would see that, however unfortunate the fact may be for you of miss rawson's affections having become fixed on me--these things are no one's fault and beyond human control--miss rawson has left the breaking off of her engagement to you in my hands, and has decided that she desires to marry me, as i desire to marry her, as soon as she is free." "i refuse to listen to another word," mr. medlicott flashed, "and i warn you, sir, that i will give no such freedom at your bidding--on the contrary, i shall have my marriage with miss rawson solemnized immediately, and try, if there is a word of truth in your preposterous assertion that she loves you, to bring her back to a proper sense of her duty to me and to god, repressing her earthly longings by discipline and self-denial, the only true methods for the saving of her soul. and i and her natural guardians, her uncle and her aunt, will take care that you never see her again." count roumovski raised his eyebrows once more and prepared to light a cigar. "it is a pity you will not discuss this peacefully, sir," he said, "or apparently even think about it yourself with common sense. if you would do so, you would begin by asking yourself what god gave certain human beings certain attributes for," he blew a few whiffs of smoke, "whether to be wasted and crushed out by the intolerance of others,--or whether to be tended and grow to the highest, as flowers grow with light and air and water." "what has that got to do with the case?" asked mr. medlicott, tapping his foot uneasily. "everything," went on the russian, mildly, "you, i believe, are a priest, and therefore should be better able to expound your deity's meaning than i, a layman--but you have evidently not the same point of view--mine is always to look at the facts of a case denuded of prejudice--because the truth is the thing to aim at--" "you would suggest that i am not aiming at the truth," the clergyman interrupted, trembling now with anger, so that he fiercely grasped the back of a high chair, "your words are preposterous, sir." "not at all," count roumovski continued. "look frankly at things; you have just announced that you would constitute yourself judge of what is for miss rawson's salvation." "leave her name out, i insist," the other put in hotly. "to be concrete, unfortunately, i cannot do so," the russian said. "i must speak of this lady we are both interested in--pray, try to listen to me calmly, sir, for we are here for the settling of a matter which concerns the happiness of our three lives." "i do not admit for a moment that you have the right to speak at all," mr. medlicott returned, but his adversary went on quietly. "you must have remarked that miss rawson possesses beauty of form, sweet and tender flesh, soft coloring, and a look of health and warmth and life. all these charms tend to create in man a passionate physical love. that is cause and effect. for the sake of the present argument we will, for the moment, leave out all more important questions of the soul and things mental and spiritual. well, who gave her these attributes? did you or i--or even her parents, consciously? or did the supreme being, whom you call god, endow her so? admitted that he did--have you, then, or anyone else, the right to crush out the result of his endowment in a woman; crush her joy of them, force her into a life where their possession is looked upon as a temptation? seek to marry her--remember that marriage physically means being certainly actuated to do so by their attraction--and yet believing that you sin each time you allow them to influence you." count roumovski's level voice took on a note of deep emotion and his blue eyes gleamed. "why, the degradation is horrible to think of, sir, if you will face the truth--and this is the fate to which you would condemn this young and tender girl for your own selfishness, knowing she does not love you." eustace medlicott walked up and down rapidly for a moment; he then picked up a book and threw it aside again in agitation. he was very pale now. "i refuse to have the woman i have decided to marry snatched from me by any of your sophistries," he said breathlessly. "i am better able than you to save her soul, and she owes me honor and obedience--it is most unseemly to even mention the aspects you have done in a bond which is a sacrament of holy church and should be only approached in a spiritual frame of mind, not a carnal one." "you are talking pure nonsense, sir," returned count roumovski sternly. "if that were the case the wording of your english marriage service would be different. first and foremost, marriage is a contract between two people to live together in union of body and to procreate children, which is the law of god and nature. men added arrangement and endowment of property, and the church added spiritual sacrament. but god and nature invented the vital thing. if it were not so, it would have been possible for the spiritually minded, of which company you infer yourself to be, to live with a woman on terms of brother and sister, and never let the senses speak at all. there would then have been no necessity for the ceremony of marriage for priests with your views." eustace medlicott shook with passion and emotion as he answered furiously: "you would turn the question into one of whether a priest should marry or not. it is a question which has agitated me all my life, and which i have only lately been able to come to a conclusion upon. i refuse to let you disturb me in it." "i had not thought of doing so," count roumovski returned tranquilly. "you and your views and your destiny do not interest me, i must own, except in so far as they interfere with myself and the woman i love. you have proved yourself to be just a warped atom of the great creation, incapable of anything but ignoble narrowness. you cannot even examine your own emotions honestly and probe their meaning or you would realize no man should marry, be he priest or layman, if he looks upon the joys of physical love as base and his succumbing to them a proof of the power of the beast in himself. because he then lives under continual degradation of soul by acting against his conscience." mr. medlicott was now silent, almost choking with perturbation. so count roumovski went on: "the wise man faces the facts of nature. looks straight to find god's meaning in them, and then tries to exalt and ennoble them to their loftiest good. he does not, in his puny impotence, quarrel with the all-powerful creator and try to stamp out that with which he thought fit to endow human beings." "your words convey a flagrant denial of original sin, and i cannot listen to such an argument," mr. medlicott flashed, his anger now at white heat. "you would do away with a whole principle of the christian religion." "no; i would only do away with a faulty interpretation which man grafted upon it," count roumovski answered. then the two men glared straight into each other's eyes for a moment, and eustace medlicott quailed beneath the magnetic force of the russian's blue ones--he turned away abruptly. he was too intolerant of character and too disturbed now to permit himself to hear more of these reasonings. he could but resort to protest and let his wrath rise to assist him. "it cannot benefit either miss rawson or ourselves to continue this unseemly controversy over her," he said in a raucous voice. "i have told you i will give no freedom upon your request--and i have warned you of my action. now i shall go," and he took three steps toward the door. but count roumovski's next words arrested him a moment; his tone was no longer one of suave, detached calmness, but sharp and decisive, and his bearing was instinct with strength and determination. "since we are coming to warnings," he said, "we drop the velvet glove. the discourtesy to a lady conveyed in your words obliges me to use my own way without further consulting you for assisting her wishes. i will again thank you for coming up here and will have the honor to wish you goodnight." with which he opened the door politely and bowed his visitor out. and when he was alone count roumovski sat down by the open window and puffed his cigar meditatively for some minutes, smiling quietly to himself as he mused: "poor, stupid fellow! if people could only be honest enough with themselves to have a sensible point of view! it is all so simple if they would get down to the reason of things without all this false sentiment. of what use to chain the body of a woman to one man if her spirit is with another? of what use to talk of offended honor with high-sounding words when, if one were truthful, one would own it was offended vanity? of what use for this narrow, foolish clergyman to protest and bombast and rave, underneath he is actuated by mostly human motives in his desire to marry my stella? when will the world learn to be natural and see the truth? love of the soul is the divine part of the business, but it cannot exist without love of the body. as well ask a man to live upon bread without water." then he moved to his writing table and composed rapidly a letter to his beloved in which he recounted to her the result of the interview and the threats of her late fiance, and the humor in which he had quitted the room, and from that she might judge of what she must reasonably expect. he advised her, as he was unaware of how far the english authority of a guardian might go, to feign some fatigue and keep her room next day and on no account whatever to be persuaded to leave rome or the hotel. he told her that in the morning he would endeavor to see her uncle and aunt, but if they refused this interview, he would write and ask formally for her hand, and if his request were treated with scorn, then she must be prepared to slip away with him to the excelsior hotel and be consigned to the care of the princess urazov, his sister, who would have arrived from paris. the business part of the epistle over, he allowed himself half a page of love sentences--which caused miss rawson exquisite delight when she read them some moments later. she had not gone to bed directly, she was too excited and full of new emotions to be thinking of sleep, and when she heard ivan's gentle tap at her door she crept to it and whispered without opening it: "who is there?" a low voice answered: "une lettre pour mademoiselle." and the epistle was slipped into the little box for letters on the door. she went back to her wide window and looked out on the darkness after she had read it. she saw there would be trouble ahead, she knew eustace medlicott's obstinate spirit very well, and also the rigid convention of aunt caroline--but to what lengths they would go she formulated no guess. it all seemed so secure and happy and calm now with such a man to lean upon as sasha roumovski. nothing need ruffle or frighten her ever any more. and then she read the love sentences again and thrilled and quivered there in the warm, soft night. sasha roumovski's influence over her had grown so strong that not a questioning speculation as to the step she meant to take any longer entered her head. she felt she knew at last what love's meaning truly was, and nothing else mattered in the world--which, indeed, was the truth! meanwhile, the reverend eustace medlicott, burning with fury, had stalked to his room, and there tried to think of what he had better do. he feared it was too late to communicate with canon and mrs. ebley--they would have retired to bed, and stella, also. here his thoughts were brought up with violent suddenness. was she quite safe? heavens above! and he turned quite cold--foreigners might be capable of any outrage--but presently he dismissed this fear. people always locked their doors in hotels, and stella, though she had apparently shown herself sadly unworthy of his regard, was a thoroughly well brought-up young woman, and would not be likely to bandy words in the night with any young man. but on the morrow he would insist upon their all leaving the hotel and rome itself--no more chances of her communicating with this hateful russian count should be risked. as the ebley party had only arrived three days ago in the city, it was clearly impossible that the affair could have gone far, and as he had heard of their sightseeing and knew mrs. ebley would be extremely unlikely to allow stella out of her sight in any case, he could not imagine how his fiancee and the russian could have found a chance to speak--and even a foreigner could not persuade a woman into this course of action in half an hour's talk at the embassy! the whole thing must be the ravings of a madman, nothing more, and stella herself would be the first to explain that point on the morrow. but even this comforting thought could not quite calm him--there remained disquieting recollections of certain forcible arguments he had been obliged to listen to against his will which had hit some part of his inner consciousness usually impregnably protected by his self-conceit. and it was an hour or two before he was able to drink his barley water and retire to rest, which he felt he badly needed after his long journey and uncomfortably exciting evening. chapter vi the sun was blazing gloriously next day, the whole air was full of freshness and spring and youth. an ideal one for lovers, and not at all the atmosphere for anger and strife. but these facts did not enter into the consideration of three of the people, at least, connected with our little comedy. eustace medlicott woke more full of wrath than he had been the night before, and, the moment he was dressed, proceeded to make havoc with the peace of the reverend canon and mrs. ebley. he sent up an urgent summons that they would see him immediately. having no sitting-room, he suggested the reading-room, which would be empty at this hour. the aunt caroline had experienced some misgivings herself at the embassy about her niece's absence with the foreign count, who had risen to this distinctive appellation in her mind from "that dreadful man," but she had felt it more prudent not to comment upon her apprehensions to her niece. eustace evidently had discovered further cause of resentment and feminine curiosity assisted her to dress with greater rapidity than usual. the pair entered the room with grave faces and took two uncomfortable chairs. the reverend mr. medlicott remained standing, and soon, from his commanding position, let them hear his version of the hated foreigner's communications. they were duly horrified and surprised and then mrs. ebley bridled a little--after all, it was the behavior of her own niece upon which aspersion was being cast. "i am certain, eustace, the man must be mad--i assure you, stella has not been for an instant absent from me, except yesterday morning she went to the thermes museum with martha, whom you know has proved by twenty-five years of faithful service that she can be completely trusted, therefore the girl cannot have had any opportunity of conversing with this stranger until last night. it would be only fair to question her first--" "my wife is quite right," canon ebley agreed. "we should listen to no more until stella is here to defend herself. let us send a message for her to descend at once." he went and rang the bell as he spoke, and the summons to miss rawson was dispatched. then the three somewhat uncomfortably tried to exchange platitudes upon indifferent subjects until the waiter returned. mademoiselle was very fatigued and was not yet up! such an unheard of thing petrified them all with astonishment. stella to be still in bed, at half past nine in the morning! the child must be ill!--or it was distinct rebellion. mrs. ebley prepared to go and investigate matters when another waiter entered with a note for canon ebley, and stood aside to receive the answer. "dear, dear!" said that gentleman to his wife, "i have not my glasses with me, i came down in such a hurry. will you read it to me?" but mrs. ebley was in a like plight, so they were obliged to enlist the services of eustace medlicott. he knew the writing directly he glanced at it and every move of his body stiffened with renewed anger. and it is to be feared he said to himself, "it is from that cursed man." he read it aloud, and it was the briefest and most courteous note asking for the honor of an interview at whatever time would be most agreeable to canon ebley. the nature of the business to be discussed at it was not stated. "i strongly advise you not to see the scoundrel," mr. medlicott said vehemently. "it is far better that we should all leave rome immediately and avoid any chance of scandal." "before we can decide anything," mrs. ebley said decisively, "i must speak with my niece. if she is quite ignorant of this foreigner's ravings, then there will be no necessity to alter our trip--we can merely move to another hotel. the whole thing is most unpleasant and irritating and has quite upset me." stella, upstairs in her cosy bed, had meanwhile received another note from her lover. full of tenderness and encouragement, it made her feel as bold as a young lioness and ready to brave any attack. that her aunt had not been to see why she was not dressed already was filling her with surprise, and after the waiter had brought the message she guessed the reason why. a firm tap to the door presently and her aunt caroline's voice saying sternly. "it is i, stella, please let me in at once." miss rawson got out of bed, unlocked the door and bounded back again, and a figure of dignified displeasure sailed into the room. "are you ill, my dear?" mrs. ebley asked, in a stern voice. "it is otherwise very strange that you should not be dressed at this hour--it is a quarter to ten o'clock." "no, i am not exactly ill, aunt caroline," stella answered gently, "but i was very tired, and as i was making up my mind what i should say in my letter to eustace to break off my engagement--i preferred not to come down until i had done so." the aunt caroline could not believe her ears. she was obliged to sit down. her emotion made her knees tremble. it was true then--something had been going on under her very eyes and she had not perceived it--the deceit and perfidy of human nature had always been a shock to her-- "you wish to break your engagement, stella," she said, as soon as she could steady her voice. "but you cannot possibly do so scandalous a thing--and for what reason, pray?" "i find i do not love eustace," stella answered calmly, although her heart now began to beat rapidly. "i know i never have loved him; it was only because i thought it would please you and uncle erasmus that i ever became engaged to him, and now that i know what love is--i mean now that the time is getting nearer, i feel that i cannot go through with it." "there is something underneath all this, stella," mrs. ebley said icily. "you cannot deceive me. you have been led astray, girl--it is wiser to confess at once and i will try to pardon you." stella's spirit rose--she raised her head proudly, then she remembered her lover's counsel to have no arguments whatsoever, and so she curbed her heated words and continued gently: "i have not been led astray, aunt caroline, and there is nothing to pardon. i am twenty-one years old now and surely can judge for myself whether or no i wish to marry a man--and i have decided i do not intend to marry eustace medlicott. i almost feel i detest him." mrs. ebley was petrified with anger and astonishment. "i am sorry to tell you i cannot believe you, stella," she said, "your fiance had a most unpleasant shock last night. the foreign person, count roumovski, who was presented to us at the embassy, insulted him greatly, and told him that you had agreed to marry him as soon as eustace should set you free! i almost blush to repeat to you this shocking story which we had considered the ravings of a madman, but the time has come when we must have some plain speaking." "it has indeed," stella agreed, her wrath rising, then went on respectfully, "but i must refuse to discuss anything about count roumovski at present. please believe me that i do not wish to annoy you, dear aunt caroline. i only wish to do what is right, and i know it is right to break off my engagement with eustace medlicott." mrs. ebley felt her anger augmenting to boiling point, but nothing, she could say had any effect upon her niece, who remained extremely respectful and gentle, but perfectly firm. mrs. ebley could not get her to tell her anything about her acquaintance with this dreadful foreigner. she became silent after she had refused point blank to discuss him. at last the baffled and exasperated older lady got up and fired her last shot. "words cannot express my pain and disgust at your conduct, stella," she said. "putting aside all the awful suspicions i have about this russian, you will lay up for yourself a lifelong regret in outraging all decency by refusing to marry that good and pure young clergyman, eustace medlicott." "i have done nothing wrong, aunt caroline, please do not go away angry with me," stella pleaded. "when count roumovski asks uncle erasmus' and your consent to his marrying me--then i will tell you everything about him,--but now i do not wish to. please forgive me for causing you pain--we shall all be very happy soon, and surely i have a right to my life like any other person." mrs. ebley would not bandy further words; their points of view were too different. "i regret that i am obliged to request you to keep your room and have no communication with anyone whatever until i can consult with your uncle and eustace as to what is the best thing to do with you. that we shall leave rome immediately you may be prepared for." stella here burst into tears. she had an affection for her aunt, who had always been kind to her in a hard, cold way, and she was deeply grieved at their estrangement, but there were forces in life which she knew now mattered more than any aunts in the world. mrs. ebley did not relent at the sound of the sobbing, but left the room, closing the door firmly after her. and a few minutes afterward martha was let in by the chambermaid without knocking and sat down grimly by the window and began to knit. then stella's tears turned to resentment. to be insulted so! to have a servant sent to watch her was more than she would bear. but as she turned in bed she felt her lover's note touch her and like a magic wand a thrill of comfort rushed through her. after all, he would settle things for her--and meanwhile she would close her eyes and pretend to sleep. so with her precious love letter clasped tight in her hand under the clothes she turned her face to the wall and shut her eyes. meanwhile, canon ebley and the reverend eustace medlicott were spending a very disagreeable time in the reading-room. relieved of mrs. ebley's presence, eustace had recounted more fully the interview he had had with sasha roumovski the night before. he was not a very accurate person and apt to color everything with his own prejudice, so canon ebley did not obtain a very clear idea of the russian's arguments. they seemed to him to be very unorthodox and carnal and reprehensible from all points. but it was evident they were dealing with a clever and dangerous character and stella must be rescued from such a person's influence and married off to her lawful fiance at once. "we could have the ceremony here, eustace, in three weeks' time, or we could go back to england immediately, for until our niece is your wife i am sure her aunt and myself will not feel easy about her." "nor i either," mr. medlicott returned, and at that moment the aunt caroline entered the room and gradually disclosed the awful truth she had arrived at from miss rawson's admissions. "that dreadful foreigner must be told at once we refuse to have any communication with him and stella shall be kept locked in her room until we can leave rome," mrs. ebley said sternly. "i could not have believed my own sister's child could have behaved so disgracefully." "dear, dear," said canon ebley, "but we must get at the facts of when she has been able to see this russian. it is impossible that the present state of things could have arisen from merely last night at the embassy." at this stage of the proceedings, it being a public room, count roumovski entered it serenely and, coming toward the group, made a stiff bow to each in turn. "i believe you have received my letter, sir," he said, addressing canon ebley, "but, as i have had no reply, i ventured to present myself without further delay--" "we do not wish for any communication from you," eustace medlicott hastened to announce before either of the others could speak. "i have informed canon and mrs. ebley of your disgraceful conduct and that is sufficient. we shall discuss nothing further." "i was not addressing you, sir," count roumovski returned mildly. "my business with you terminated last night." and he turned his shoulders to the irate junior chaplain and looked canon ebley straight in the face. "i am here to ask for the hand of your niece, miss rawson, as she is now free from other engagements, and with her full consent i desire to make her my wife." "come, erasmus," mrs. ebley said with icy dignity. "let us go up to our apartment and if this person annoys us further we can complain to the manager of the hotel," then, with an annihilating glance, she took her husband's arm and drew him toward the door. "as you will, madame," and the russian gentleman bowed with respectful serenity. "it would have been more sensible to have taken my request otherwise, but it is, after all, quite immaterial. i will wish you a good-day," and he bowed again as canon ebley and his outraged spouse sailed from the room--and, with an exclamation of suppressed fury, eustace medlicott followed in their wake. then count roumovski laughed softly to himself and, sitting down at a writing-table, wrote a letter to his beloved. his whole plan of life was simple and direct. he had done what he considered was necessary in the affair, he had behaved with perfect openness and honor in his demand, and if these people could not see the thing from a common sense point of view, they were no longer to be considered. he would take the law into his own hands. when he had finished his note he went straight up in the lift to the corridor where stella's room was and there saw in the distance her raging and discomfited late betrothed evidently keeping watch and ward. count roumovski did not hesitate a second; he advanced to the door and knocked firmly on the panel, slipping his letter through the little slide for such things before mr. medlicott could bound forward and prevent him. "a letter for you, mademoiselle, from me, sasha roumovski," he said in french in a loud enough voice for the occupant of the room to hear, and then he stood still for a second, as both men heard stella jump from her bed and rush to the door to take the missive before martha from the place at the window could intercept it. "do not dare to touch that, martha," they heard her voice say haughtily, and then she called out, "sasha, i have it safe and i will do exactly as you direct." count roumovski looked at eustace medlicott, who stood as a spread-eagle in front of the door--and then, smiling, went calmly on his way. the reverend mr. medlicott shook with burning rage. he was being made to look ridiculous and he was absolutely impotent to retaliate in any way. he would bring scandal upon them all if waiters and other guests saw him guarding miss rawson's actual door, and he could not sit outside like a valet; the whole thing was unspeakably maddening, and murderous thoughts flooded his brain. "give me that letter this minute, stella," he said in an almost inarticulate voice through the keyhole, he was so shaken with passion. "open the door and let martha hand it to me. you are disgracing us all." "it is you who are doing that, eustace," stella said from beyond the panel, lifting the slide that her voice might be heard distinctly. "you have no authority over me at all. i told aunt caroline i did not intend to continue my engagement with you--but even if i had not decided to break it off, this conduct of yours would now be sufficient reason. how dare you all treat me as though i were a naughty child or insane!" "because you are both," mr. medlicott returned, "and must be controlled and compelled into a proper behavior." stella was silent--she would not be so undignified as to parley further. she got back into bed, taking not the slightest notice of the maid, and then proceeded to read her letter. her lover had explained in it the situation and advised her to dress at once, and then if menaced in any way to ring the bell. ivan would be waiting outside to obey her slightest orders, and to warn his master if any fresh moves were made, so that when the waiter or chambermaid came in answer to her summons she might be sure of extra help at hand. then she was to walk out and down into the hall, where he, sasha, would be watching for her and ready to take her to the excelsior hotel, where that same evening would arrive the princess urazov. "but if they do not molest you, dearest," he wrote, "do not leave your room until seven o'clock, because i wish my sister to be in the hall ready to receive you that your family can see that i only desire to do everything right." and as she finished reading, stella got up and told martha to prepare her things. "i have no orders from mrs. ebley for that, miss stella," the woman answered sullenly. "i do wonder what has come over everybody. i never was in such an uncomfortable position in my life." stella made no answer, but proceeded to dress herself, and then sat down to read again the letters she had received in the last twenty-four hours. if her family, who knew her, could treat her in this abominable way, when she had committed no fault except the very human one of desiring to be the arbiter of her own fate, she surely owed no further obedience to them. so she waited calmly for a fresh turn of events. her luncheon was brought up on a tray by the waiter, and some for martha also, and the two ate in silence, until stella suddenly burst into a merry peal of laughter, it was so grotesquely comic! a grown up english girl in these days locked in her room with a dragon duenna gaoler! "martha, isn't it too funny, the whole thing!" she said, between her gurgles. "can't you laugh, you old goose! and to think how sorry you will be, you were so horrid, when i am gone, because, of course, you know you cannot keep me once i make up my mind to go." "mrs. ebley said i was to have no conversation with you, miss," martha said, glumly, at which stella laughed afresh. meanwhile count roumovski had made all arrangements at the excelsior hotel, and after lunch sat quietly in the hall awaiting his beloved. mrs. ebley had felt too upset to go down to the restaurant, so the two clergymen were there alone, and glanced wrathfully at the imperturbable face of count roumovski seated at his usual table, with his air of detached aloofness and perfect calm. they, on the contrary, were so boiling with rage that they knew not what they ate. after lunch it had been decided that the party should leave the grand and take the five o'clock train to florence, and their preparations were made. mrs. ebley had herself been laboriously packing so as not to take martha from her post, and orders were whispered to that faithful abigail through stella's letter slide to pack miss rawson's things at once. stella watched these preparations serenely, and gave martha directions as to what to put on the top. then when all was finished and she had donned her hat, she rang the electric bell for the waiter, and when he knocked at the door she calmly bade him enter, which, of course, he was able to do with his key, and she told him in french, which martha did not understand, to send the porters there immediately, and have her luggage consigned to the care of the servant who would be waiting in the passage. this person would give orders for its destination. the waiter bowed obsequiously. had he not been already heavily tipped by this intelligent ivan, and instructed instantly to obey the orders of mademoiselle? "it is much better i am before them," stella thought to herself, while martha looked on in rageful bafflement. "the porters will come up and take the trunks outside, martha," miss rawson said. "you can give them what orders aunt told you to." such was her supreme confidence in the methods of her lover that she felt sure once ivan was apprised of the fact by the waiter that the trunks would be consigned to him it would not matter what martha said to the porters! so she calmly sat down by the window and folded her hands, while the elderly maid fumed with the uncertainty of what she ought to do. and in a few moments the men appeared, and smilingly seemed to understand the gestures and english orders of martha to take the trunks to the door of madam ebley, number , round the corner of the passage and on the opposite side. they nodded their heads wisely and carried the box out, shutting the door after them, and then there was silence for a while; and stella half-dozed in her chair, it was so warm and peaceful by the window and she had had so little sleep in the night. an hour passed, and at four o'clock the aunt caroline appeared. her face was grim. had stella been an outcast in deed and word she could not have looked more disdainful. "you must come down with me now, stella," she said, "we are ready to go to the station. i will remain with you here until martha gets her hat." stella rose to her feet and before the astonished lady could speak more, she had swiftly passed her and gained the door, which she threw open, and, like a fawn, rushed down the passage toward the staircase entrance side of the hotel, and by the time her slowly moving aunt had emerged from the room she had turned the corner and was out of sight. fortunately, she met no one on the stairs except one astonished page, and arrived in the outer corridor breathless with excitement and emotion. count roumovski saw her through the door of the hall, and hastened to meet her. "there is not a moment to be lost," she said, as he got to her side. "go to the place you went before under the trees," he whispered hurriedly in return. "the automobile is there, and i will follow presently." so she went. her knees would hardly support her, she trembled so, until she was safe in the big blue motor, which moved off at once. for an awful moment a hideous sense of terror overcame her, making her cold. what lay in front of her? what new fate?--and then joy and life came back. she was going to freedom and love-away from exminster and dreary duties--away from eustace medlicott, for ever! for, of course, her uncle and aunt would come round in time, and they could be happy again with her some day. when mrs. ebley had collected her scattered senses and followed down the passage only to find stella out of sight, she was obliged to retrace her steps and rejoin her husband and mr. medlicott, who were awaiting her at the lift on the other side, the restaurant end, which was the one they were accustomed to descend by. "she ran away from me, erasmus!" the agitated lady cried, "passed me without a word, and i suppose has gone down the stairs--if we hasten in the lift we shall catch her yet." but as they frantically rang the bell and the lift boy did not come, eustace medlicott, with a most unsaintly exclamation, hastened off by that staircase and arrived in the hall to see the hated russian calmly smoking his cigarette and reading an english paper. he advanced upon him regardless of the numbers of people beginning to assemble for tea. "what have you done with miss rawson?" he asked furiously. "she has this moment run away from her aunt." "i have nothing to converse with you about," count roumovski returned, with mild surprise. "and, as i see it is four o'clock, i must wish you a good-day, as i have an appointment," with which he rose quietly before the other could prevent him, and crossed the broad path of carpet which separates the groups of chairs, and there was seen to enter into earnest conversation with a russian-looking individual who had just entered. the reverend mr. medlicott was nonplussed, and hurried into the front vestibule, where he made rapid inquiries of the hall-porter. yes--the young lady, he believed, had walked out of the hotel not two minutes before. monsieur would overtake her certainly, if he hastened. and the frantic young man rushed from the door, through the porte cochere, and so to the street, but all he saw in the far distance was a retreating large, blue automobile--and this conveyed among all the rest of the traffic no impression whatever. to search for stella was hopeless; the only thing to do was to return to the ebleys, and with them go to the embassy. there they could, perhaps, get advice and help how to communicate with the police. but what an ignominious position for a bishop's junior chaplain to be placed in, a humiliation in every way! chapter vii when stella found the automobile drawing up at a strange hotel's doors her tremors broke out afresh, until she saw the face of ivan, who, with the porter, came forward to meet her, saying respectfully in french, would mademoiselle be pleased to mount directly to the rooms reserved for the princess urazov? and soon, without anyone questioning her, she found herself being taken up in the lift, and finally ushered into a charming sitting-room full of flowers. here she sat down and trembled again. the wildest excitement filled her veins. would sasha never come! she could not sit still, she walked from bouquet to bouquet of roses and carnations, sniffing the scent, and at last subsided into a big armchair, as the waiters brought in some tea. he thought of everything for her, then--her lover. but oh, why did he not come! she had finished her tea and had begun her restless pacing again, when, with a gentle tap, the door opened, and count roumovski appeared. "sasha!" she cried, and advanced toward him like a frightened child. his usually calm blue eyes were blazing with some emotion which disturbed her greatly, she knew not why, and his voice seemed to have taken a tone of extra deepness, as he said: "stella! my little star! and so you are really here--and my own!" he put his strong hands down and held on to the back of a chair, and simple as she was she knew very well that otherwise he would have taken her into his arms, which was where she was longing to be, if she had known. "yes, i have come," she whispered, "i have left them all--for you. oh! when will your sister be here?" "not until six o'clock, darling," he answered, while his eyes melted upon her with passionate love. "there is an hour yet to wait. i had hoped you would not have been forced to leave your aunt's care until then." "oh! i am delighted to have come away," stella answered, regaining some of her composure. "i was shut into my room and watched by a servant. it was awful! but do--you know what has happened now? since i left? are they tearing about after me, or what?" count roumovski still held on to the back of the chair, and his voice was still deep, as he said: "i believe they have gone to your embassy in a band--and much good may they get there. you are of age, you see. besides, i have taken care that no one at the grand hotel knows where we have gone, and it will take them quite an hour or two to telephone about and find out--and by that time my sister will have arrived, and we can defy them." "yes," said stella, and then, nervously, "won't you have some tea?" he sat down, still constrainedly and clasped his hands, and womanlike, when she saw his agitation, her own lessened, and she assumed command, while she asked almost archly if he took cream and sugar. he liked neither, he said, and with the air of a little hostess she handed him the cup. then she smiled softly and stood quite near him. he drew himself together and his face looked almost stern as he took the tea, and over stella there crept a chill--and the gay little speech that had been bubbling to her lips died there, and a silence fell upon them for a few moments. then he put down his cup and crossed to the stiff sofa where she was, and sat down beside her. "sweetheart," he said, looking deeply into her eyes, "it is a colossal temptation, you know, to me to make love to you. but i am not going to permit myself that happiness yet. i want to tell you all about what we shall do presently, and see if it pleases you." he did not even take her hand, and stella felt rather aggrieved and wounded. "i propose that as soon as the formalities can be got through, and the wedding can take place, that we go straight to paris--because you will want to get all kinds of clothes. and it will be such a delight to me to give you everything you wish for." stella smiled shyly. it seemed suddenly to bring realities of things before her with keen force. he would have the right to give her everything in the world--this man whom she did not really know, but whom she felt she loved very much. she clasped her hands and a thrill ran through her. what, what did it all mean? the idea of her marriage with eustace medlicott had always appeared as an ugly vision, an end to everything, a curtain which was yet drawn over a view which could only be all dusk and gray shadows, and which she would rather not contemplate. but now the thought of going away and beginning a new existence with sasha roumovski was something so glorious and delicious that she quivered with joy at any reference to it. her little movement and the clasping of her hands affected him profoundly. he, too, quivered, but with the stern effort to control himself. it was part of his code of honor. not the slightest advantage must be taken of the situation while stella was alone and unchaperoned, although the very fact of their propinquity and the knowledge of their solitude were extremely exciting to him, who knew the meaning of every emotion. he drew a little away from her, and said in a voice that sounded cold: "i have seen the consul this afternoon. it will take three weeks, i am afraid, before we can be legally married here in rome. it seems an eternity to me." "yes," agreed stella, and suddenly looked down. she wished intensely that he would caress her a little--although she was unaware of the desire. she wondered vaguely--was it then very wicked to make love, since sasha, too, like eustace, seemed as if he were resisting something with all his strength? and unconsciously she pouted her red underlip, and count roumovski moved convulsively. "my sister's room is next to this," he said, "and yours is beyond. i have had only roses put there, because you are like a sweet june rose." "am i?" said miss rawson, and raised her head. she had grown extremely excited and disappointed, and, she knew not what, only that she did not like this new lover of hers to be sitting there constrained and aloof, talking in a stiff voice unlike his usual easy grace. it was perfectly ridiculous to have run away with some one with whom she was passionately in love, if he were going to remain as cold as ice! she got up and took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her dress. the whole movement and action had the unconscious coquetry of a woman's methods to gain her end. totally unaccustomed as stella was to all artifices, instinct was her teacher. sasha roumovski rose suddenly. "come and sit here beside me again, heart of mine," he commanded with imperious love, and indicated the stiff louis xiv sofa. "i must explain everything to you, it would seem." stella had never heard this tone in his voice before; it caused her strange delight, and she shyly took her seat at one end of the sofa, and then, as he flung himself down beside her, she looked up at him. "what must you explain?" she asked. "first, that i love you madly, that it is sickening temptation to be with you now every instant without holding you in my arms," and his voice trembled, while his blue eyes glowed. "that i do not know how to resist the wild passion which is overcoming me. i want to kiss you so terribly, more than i have ever wanted anything in my life." "we-ll?" said stella, with a quiver of exquisite joy. "and--" she had almost spoken her thought of, "why do you not do so, then?"--but the burning passion she read in his made her drop her eyes. this was too much for him. he understood perfectly, and, with a little cry, he drew her to him, and his lips had almost touched her red, young, pouting lips when he suddenly controlled himself and put her from him. "no, sweetheart," he said hoarsely, "you would never respect me any more if i took advantage of your tenderness now. as soon--as soon as i really may, i will teach you every shade of love and its meanings. i will kiss those lips and unloosen that hair; i will suffocate you with caresses and make you thrill as i shall thrill until we both forget everything in the intoxication of bliss," and he half-closed his eyes, and his face grew pale again with suppressed emotion. "oh, i do not understand at all," stella said, in a disappointed and perplexed voice. "since we are going to be married, why would it be so very wrong for you to kiss me? i--i--" her small rueful face, with its sweet childlike irregular curves, looked almost pathetically comic, and sasha leaned forward and covered his eyes with his hands. and then he mastered himself and laughed softly. "oh, you adorable one!" he said. "it is not wrong--not the least wrong. only presently, when you do understand, you will realize how very much i loved you to-day." but stella was still pouting--and got up restlessly and went to the window. "what can they do when they get to the embassy?" she asked. "could they really take me back if they found me by telephoning round?" "i do not think so--if you are past twenty-one." "i was twenty-one in april. i am not a bit afraid of them, but i do not want to have any row." "when my sister has arrived you must write to your aunt, and tell where you are and what are your intentions, then all will be finished." "oh, i wish she would come, don't you?" stella said. "more than i can say, darling," he answered, fervently. "you will not, i hope, find me so incomprehensible then." he walked about the room once or twice, and at last paused in front of her. "stella," he whispered, while his eyes blazed again, "i cannot bear it, little sweetheart, to stay all alone with you here. will you forgive me, if i leave you until anastasia has arrived? go and rest in your room, darling, and i will go to the station to meet her. ivan will remain outside your door and you will be quite safe." but stella put out her hands like a frightened baby. "oh. must you leave me?" she cried, pettishly. "you are very cruel! you make me almost wish i had not come." from having swum with love and passion his eyes suddenly gave forth a flash of steel, and his voice was like ice as he answered: "if that is so, mademoiselle, it is not too late. i would not exact any unwilling sacrifice. shall i take you back again?" and then stella's childishness melted and fell from her, and she became a real woman as she looked into his stern face. "no--" she said, "i will not go back. i am sorry i was so uncontrolled, but i am nervous--and i do not know exactly what i am--sasha, please take care of me," and she held out her hands with a piteous gesture of asking for his protection, and moved beyond all power of further control he folded her in his arms. "my darling, my darling!" he murmured, frantically kissing her hair. but his iron will reasserted itself in a few seconds, and while he still held her he said with more calm: "little star, you must never speak to me like that again, as you did just now, i mean. it was unreasonable and not kind, if you but knew! and i have a very arrogant temper, i fear, although i am nearly master of it, and shall be quite in time, i hope. we might have parted then and spoilt both our lives. won't you believe me that i love--i adore you!" he went on tenderly. "i am madly longing to be for you the most passionate lover a woman ever had. it is only for your sake and for honor and our future happiness that i restrain myself now. you see i am not an englishman who can accept half-measures. do not make it impossible for me, sweet love!" his voice was almost a sob in its deep notes of pleading, and stella was touched. "oh! you are so dear and great," she answered fondly. "i am perhaps very wicked to have tempted you. if it would be wrong for you to kiss me, which i cannot understand, it is--oh, it is because i love you like that, too!" at this ingenuous admission, passion nearly overcame him again, and he held her so tightly it seemed as if he must crush out her very breath. then he put her from him and walked toward the door. "i dare not stay another second," he said, in a strangled voice. "ivan will guard your room, and my sister will come to you soon. do as i tell you, beloved one, and then all will be well." with which he opened the door, and left her standing by the sofa quivering with a strange joy and perplexity--and some other wild emotion of which she had not dreamed. chapter viii it seemed an endless time the hour that she waited in her room, and then a knock came to the door, and ivan's voice saying his master desired her presence in the sitting-room at once, and she hurriedly went there to find count roumovski standing by the mantelpiece looking very grave. "stella," he said, "there has been an accident to the train my sister was to have arrived by--it is not serious, but she cannot be here now until the early morning perhaps--unless i send the automobile to viterbo for her. the line is blocked by a broken-down goods train which caused the disaster," he paused a moment, and stella said, "well?" rather anxiously. "it will be impossible for us to remain here," he continued, "because it may be that your relations, aided by the embassy, will have traced us before then, and if they should come upon us alone together, nothing that i could say or prove could keep the situation from looking compromising,"--he now spoke with his old calm, and stella felt her confidence reviving. he would certainly arrange what was best for them, she could rely upon that. "what must we do then?" she asked gently, while she put her head on the sleeve of his coat. "i will wrap you up in the fur cloak, darling," he said, "and you must come in the automobile with me to meet anastasia. your family must not find you again until your are in my sister's company. we ought to start at once." it spoke eloquently for the impression which he had been able to create in stella's imagination of his integrity and reliability, for the thought never entered her brain that it was a most unusual and even hazardous undertaking to start out into the night in a foreign land with a stranger she had not yet known for a week. but that was the remarkable thing about his personality; it conveyed always an atmosphere of trust and confidence. it was not long before miss rawson was ready, wrapped in the long gray cloak she had worn before, and with the veil tied over her hat, and was descending in the lift alone with ivan--her lover having gone on by the stairs. their departure was managed with intelligence. stella and the servant simply walking out of the hotel and down the street to where the car waited, and then presently count roumovski joined them, and they started. "ivan will remain behind to answer any questions if the reverend clergyman and your aunt do come," he said, when they were seated in the car in the settling sunlight. "and now, sweetheart, we can enjoy our drive." stella felt deliciously excited, all the exultation of adventure thrilling her, and the joy of her lover's presence. she cared not where they were going, it was all heaven. "we shall stop at a little restaurant for some dinner," he said, "it will be rather bad, but we must not mind, it would not have been wise to risk any well-known place," and soon they drew up at a small cafe on the outskirts of rome, where there were a few people already seated at little tables under the trees. they were all italians, and took no notice of the russian and his lady. it was the greatest amusement to them both, this primitive place, and to be all alone ordering their first meal together, and sasha roumovski exerted himself to charm and please her. he had recovered complete mastery of himself, it would seem, and his manner, while tenderly devoted, had an air of proprietorship which affected stella exceedingly. they spent an enchanting half hour, as gay as two children, with all the exquisite under-current of love in their talk; and then they got into the motor again. "let us have it open," count roumovski said. "the evening drive will be divine." and stella agreed. the road to viterbo is far from good, one of those splendid routes which lead from rome which ought to be so perfect and in reality are a mass of ruts and pitfalls for the unwary. the jolting of the car constantly threw stella almost into her lover's arms, who was sitting as aloof as possible. he had gradually become nearly silent, and sat there holding her hand under the rug, using the whole of his strong will to suppress his rising emotion. the beautiful colors of the lights of evening over the campagna; the sense of the spring time and the knowledge that she belonged to him heart and body and soul were madly intoxicating as they rushed through the air. he dared not let himself caress her gently, which he might have permitted himself to do, and he held her little hand so tightly it was almost pain to her. as for stella, she was profoundly in love. her whole nature seemed to be awaking and blooming with a new grace and meaning. her soft eyes, which glanced at him in the glowing dusk, swam with tenderness and unconscious passion, and once she let her head rest upon his shoulder, when a violent jerk threw her toward him, and at last he encircled her with his arm and there they sat trembling together, she with she knew not what, and he very well knowing, and fighting with temptation. thus they spent an hour in a bliss that was growing to agony for him, and then it grew perfectly dark, and the stars came out in myriads in the deep blue sky, and on in front of them the headlights of the motor made a flaming path in the night. and all this while he had resisted his strong desires, and never even kissed her. at last human endurance came to an end, and he said to her almost fiercely: "stella, my beloved one, i cannot bear this, i can no longer answer for myself. i shall settle you comfortably among the furs where you must try to sleep, and i shall go outside with the chauffeur. if i were to stay--" and something in the tone of his voice and in his eyes made her at last have some dim, incomprehensible fear, and yet exaltation, and so she did not try to dissuade him, and soon was alone endeavoring to collect her thoughts and understand the situation. thus eventually they reached viterbo, and drew up at the station door, when count roumovski seemed to have regained his usual calm as he helped her out with tender solicitude. the passengers, they learned, were still in the train, half a mile up the line, waiting until it was cleared to go on to rome. at last, after generous greasing of palms, permission was given for count roumovski to walk on and find his sister. and stella was put back into the motor to await their coming. her heart began to beat violently. what would she be like, this future sister-in-law? she must be very fond of sasha to have come from paris at a moment's notice like this, to do his bidding. it seemed a long time before she heard voices, and saw in the dim light two figures advancing from the station entrance, and then count roumovski opened the door of the automobile, and stella started forward to get out. "anastasia, this is my stella," he said, in his deep voice. "you cannot see her plainly, but i tell you she is the sweetest little lady in the world, and you are to hasten to love each other as much as i love you both." then in the half dark stella stepped down and found herself embraced by a tall woman, while a voice as deep for a feminine one as count roumovski's was for a man whispered kind, nice things in the fluent english which brother and sister both used. and a feeling of warmth and security and happiness came over the poor child, to be in a haven of rest at last. "now we shall all pack in and get to rome before dawn," the princess said. "sasha assures me the automobile will be faster than the train." so it was arranged, and, with stella between them, the two russians sat in the commodious back seat, and this time count roumovski allowed himself to encircle his beloved with his arm--and very often surreptitiously kissed her little ear and that delicious little curl of hair in her neck. she had taken off her hat, that its brim might not hit the princess, and had only the soft veil wound round her head, which loosened itself conveniently. this drive back to rome was a time of pure enchantment to them both. and when the first streaks of dawn were coloring the sky they arrived at the door of the excelsior hotel, where ivan had supper ordered and awaiting them. the princess proved to be a handsome woman when they got into the light, with the same short face and wide eyes as her brother. stella and she made immediate friends, and before they parted to try and sleep the princess said: "stella, that my brother loves you proves that you must be a very dear girl, that is what made me come from paris at his instantaneous bidding. he is the most splendid character in the world, only don't cross his wishes. you will find it is no use, for one thing," and she laughed her deep laugh. "he always knows best." "i am sure he does," said stella shyly. "i felt that at once, and so i did not hesitate." next morning, when the three were seated at a merry early breakfast in the sitting-room discussing what should be said in stella's letter to her aunt caroline, a loud knock came to the door, and, without waiting for a response, canon ebley and stella's cousin, mr. deanwood, entered the room. the princess rose with dignity, draping her silk morning wrapper round her like a statue, and stella stepped forward with outstretched hand. "oh, uncle erasmus," she said gaily, before any of the party could speak, "i am so glad to see you. i was just going to write to aunt caroline to tell her where i am, quite safe, in case she was worried about me. let me introduce you to my future sister-in-law, princess urazov, with whom i am staying. my fiance, count roumovski, you have met before." afterwards she often wondered how this emancipated spirit of daring had ever come to her. but she felt so joyous, so full of love and happiness, that it seemed that she could not be afraid or annoyed with anyone in the world. "stella, you are a shameless girl," canon ebley retorted in a horrified voice. "i refuse to admit that you are engaged to this gentleman. your whole conduct has been a scandalous series of deceptions and you must be ready to return at once with your aunt and your affianced husband. they are following us here now." then stella used a weapon that she had more than once found effectual with her uncle. she flung herself into his arms and clasped him round the neck. he was a short, portly man, and from this position she began to cajole him--while count roumovski looked on with amused calm, and his sister, following his lead, remained unmoved also. mr. deanwood was the only restless person; he felt thoroughly uncomfortable and bored to death. he hated having been dragged into this family quarrel, and secretly sympathized with his cousin in her revolt at the thought of being eustace medlicott's wife. "oh, dear uncle erasmus!" stella purred, from the highly perturbed clergyman's neck, where she was burrowing her sweet head, rubbing her peach-like cheek against his whiskered cheek. "don't say those dreadful things, i have not deceived anybody, i have known count roumovski since the day after we came to rome, and--and--i love him very much, and you know i always thought eustace a bore, and you must agree it is wicked to marry and not to love, so it must be good to, oh!--well, to marry the person you do love. what have you to say against it?" canon ebley tried to unclasp her arms from round his neck. he was terribly upset. to be sure, the girl was very dear to him, and had always been so sweet a niece, a truthful, obedient child from early infancy. caroline had perhaps been a little hard--he had better hear the facts. "dear me, dear me," he blurted out. "well, well, tell me everything about the case, and, though i cannot consent to anything, i must do you the justice of hearing your side." "won't you sit down here, sir?" princess urazov said, "and let my brother and your niece tell you their story. mr. deanwood, we met at buda-pesth two years ago--" and she turned to the young man and indicated that he should join her in the far window embrasure, which he did with alacrity, and from there they heard, interpolated in their personal conversation, scraps of the arguments going on between the three. stella, assisted by her lover, told of her first talk and her drive, and their rapidly ripening affection for each other, and the girl looked so happy and so pleading. then count roumovski took up the thread. he explained his position, and how his view of life had always been direct in its endeavor to see the truth and the meaning of things, and how to him love was the only possible reason in ethical morality for any marriage between two people. "it is merely a great degradation, otherwise, sir," he said earnestly. but here canon ebley was heard to protest that he could not understand a love which had sprung into being with such violence in the space of three days, and he felt very suspicious of its durability. "oh, uncle erasmus, how can you say that!" stella interrupted him. "why, you have often said that you yourself fell in love with aunt caroline from the moment your eye lighted upon her in church--in church, remember, you old darling!" and she nestled up against his shoulder again. caresses like these she was always obliged to suppress in her austere aunt's presence; they were only to be indulged in upon great occasions, and to gain an important end, she knew! so the rogue smiled archly as she went on. "you could hardly wait until you were introduced at the garden party the next day, and aunt caroline said you proposed to her before the end of the week!" "come, come," the cornered uncle growled, bridling, but a smile grew in his kindly eyes. "there!" exclaimed miss rawson, triumphantly. "you cannot have another thing to say, except that you consent and wish us happiness." "it is true you are of age, stella," canon ebley allowed, "and if you like to take the law into your own hands, we cannot legally prevent you, as i have tried to explain this morning to your aunt and eustace, but it is all very shocking and unusual, and very disturbing. you must remember, count roumovski is a foreigner, and we english people are prejudiced. i--fear for your happiness, my dear child!" "you do not pay me a high compliment, sir," count roumovski said, but without resentment. "time, however, will prove whether i can take care of your niece or no. do you feel any fear for yourself, stella?" "not in the least," miss rawson said, and they clasped fond hands. "i would go away with you, sasha, to the ends of the earth now at once, and never ask you a single question. and i should certainly die if i were forced to go back to eustace medlicott." "then i suppose there is nothing more to be said," canon ebley stammered, upon which stella again flung herself into his arms. "indeed, sir--i give you my word that you will not regret this decision," count roumovski said gravely. "i believe your niece and i were made for one another." "we will hope so," returned canon ebley, who could no longer keep up a stern resistance in the face of perfectly logical arguments and a witch of a girl purring over him and patting his cheek. he would have given in with a fair grace but for the awful knowledge that his stern spouse and the irate late fiance would arrive at any moment, and reproach him for his want of strength. at this juncture of the affair, princess urazov came forward, and said with a gracious smile: "now i think you and i should agree with each other, sir; i had just as great cause for surprise as you had at the news of my brother's engagement to your niece, but i know and love him so well that i did not question the wisdom of his choice. and as you know and love your niece, can we not agree to try and make them happy together by giving them our blessing? after all, it is no crime for two young people to love each other!" and she put out her hands, which canon ebley, who was, after all, longing for peace, was obliged to take. then with a charm and dignity that he was forced to admire, she drew him to the pair and placed his hand on their clasped hands, and her own over it. "see," she said, "sasha and stella, we both wish you all happiness and joy--is it not so?" and canon ebley was constrained to murmur, "yes." at this instant the door was opened violently, and the aunt caroline followed by the reverend eustace medlicott burst into the room, brushing aside the frightened waiter, who would have prevented them; then they stopped dead short, petrified with astonishment, and before she could prevent herself, stella had pealed a silvery laugh, while she rushed forward and affectionately kissed her aunt. "dear aunt caroline," she said. "uncle erasmus understands quite, and has given us his blessing, so won't you, too?" but mrs. ebley was made of sterner stuff--she was horribly shocked, her feelings had been bruised in their tenderest parts, the laws of convention had been ruthlessly broken by her niece, and forgiveness was not for her. she drew herself up with disgusted hauteur, while the rev. mr. medlicott stood there glaring at the party too speechless with humiliation and pain to utter a word. "erasmus," mrs. ebley said with scathing contempt. "i do not know how you have let yourself countenance this disgraceful scene, but i shall not do so. and if my niece still persists in bringing shame upon us all i must beg you to conduct me back to our hotel--i wash my hands of her and shall no longer own her as my sister's child, come." at this, stella gave a pitiful little cry and turned tender, beseeching eyes to her lover, and the sound of her voice touched that chord which was fine in eustace medlicott's heart. he seemed suddenly to see things as they were, and to realize that love had indeed come to his betrothed, though not for him, so he rose above the pain this conviction caused him and let justice have sway. he strode forward and joined the group. "you must not say that, mrs. ebley," he said, "since your husband seems satisfied, there must have been some proper explanation made. you should hear them first. but i, for my part, wish to state now, in the presence of everyone, that if miss rawson can assure me she has made this choice of her own free will, and because she loves this gentleman--" here there was a break in the tones--"i can have nothing further to say and will give her back her freedom and make my retreat." "oh, eustace, thank you," said stella, gratefully holding out her hand. "i knew i could eventually count upon your goodness. i do indeed love count roumovski, and why should not we all be happy together? you will feel with me, i am sure, that our engagement was always a mistake and now won't you be friends?" she still held out her timid hand, and mr. medlicott took it at last and wringing it silently turned and drew toward the door, making his exit. silence fell upon the company until he had gone and then count roumovski whispered in his harassed little fiancee's ear: "never mind his point of view, darling--yonder goes an english gentleman, and since i have gained my star and he has lost his, he has my deepest sympathy." then everyone seemed to talk at once, and the princess urazov at last appeared to be in some degree appeasing mrs. ebley. there is very little more to tell of this comedy of a spring holiday in rome. it ended with a quiet wedding and two young people going off together in the blue automobile. and when count roumovski clasped his newly made bride in his arms, he whispered with a tenderly sly smile: "at last, sweetheart, there are no barriers, and i can show you that i am at least not as cold as ice!" the end