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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40432 ***
+
+                            MISS HILDRETH.
+
+                               A Novel.
+
+                       BY A. DE GRASSE STEVENS,
+
+              AUTHOR OF "OLD BOSTON," "THE LOST DAUPHIN,"
+                    "WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE," ETC.
+
+
+    In Three Volumes.
+    VOL. II.
+
+    LONDON:
+    WARD AND DOWNEY,
+    12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
+    1888.
+
+    [_All rights reserved._]
+
+    _Copyright by_ A. de GRASSE STEVENS, 1888.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+        CHAPTER I. A FACE FROM OUT A CRIME                 1
+
+       CHAPTER II. "IT WAS NO DELUSION"                   21
+
+      CHAPTER III. ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL                 34
+
+       CHAPTER IV. SUSPICIONS                             52
+
+        CHAPTER V. MIMI'S BIRTHDAY POSY                   79
+
+       CHAPTER VI. "'TIS A SIREN"                         95
+
+      CHAPTER VII. THE CANKER WORM OF DOUBT              116
+
+     CHAPTER VIII. A SOCIETY DRAMA                       139
+
+       CHAPTER IX. "IT IS HOPELESS"                      154
+
+        CHAPTER X. THE SONG OF THE CIGALE                169
+
+       CHAPTER XI. INTROSPECTION                         189
+
+      CHAPTER XII. PLOTTING                              203
+
+     CHAPTER XIII. THÉ ANGLAIS                           227
+
+      CHAPTER XIV. "FIND ME THE WOMAN"                   239
+
+       CHAPTER XV. "THIS LITTLE HAND"                    253
+
+      CHAPTER XVI. ARRESTED!                             262
+
+
+
+
+MISS HILDRETH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A FACE FROM OUT A CRIME.
+
+
+The same dazzling and brilliant sunshine, that for so many weeks had
+held sway in Petersburg, was still beautifying the Tsar's great capital,
+and gilding all things with an illusory sheen, which had all the
+appearance of true gold, but which fled away at the approach of
+darkness, leaving bare the cankerous fever spots, the dry bones and
+wasting disease of the most tyrannous, but most doomed phenomenon of
+autocratic power.
+
+During all the early hours of morning the sleeping city lay bathed in
+this wonderful alchemy; the Neva resting tranquil beneath the spell,
+even its cold grey waters catching reflections from the sun-god's rays.
+From above its low bank rose a long grey stone wall, broken here and
+there into sharp angles and protected by recurrent cannon, set at
+regular intervals; beyond this a tall and slender spire shot up high
+into the air, graceful and quivering with a thousand golden lights, that
+seemed to break against it, and then fling the fragments broadcast with
+careless prodigality; these in falling touched again the fluttering flag
+on the white belfry, glanced athwart the Imperial mint, and awoke myriad
+reflections in the façade of the Winter Palace.
+
+This tall spire, shooting upwards like a lance, is the crowning glory of
+Russia's great State prison, and Russia's Imperial tomb of kings, the
+grim fortress of Petropavlovsk. It is a familiar sight to Petersburg's
+populace, as they pass to and fro across the Troitski Bridge, or linger
+in the spacious Boulevard-park, which is never empty, and through which
+the dwellers on the Petersburg side go in and out to their homes.
+
+Beneath its solid foundations lie the bones of Russia's greatest
+sovereigns; within its granite walls languish many of Russia's truest
+patriots; while without its precincts, separated only by a few rods,
+lying almost within its shadow, rises the stately palace, within which
+lives Russia's Tsar, conscious always of the everlasting surveillance of
+Peter's prison, yet unable to cast it from him, or flee before it.
+
+It was very early in the day, about a month after Olga Naundorff's
+interview with Ivor Tolskoi, and as yet but few people were astir in the
+city's streets, save those whose avocations called them forth in the
+pursuance of itinerant trade. Now and then a mounted orderly would ride
+past, leading an uncaparisoned horse by a long rein, the iron hoofs
+clattering over the bridge, breaking clear and distinct across the sharp
+morning air; presently they would disappear under the arched entrance to
+the barracks, and then, perhaps, a dark, sombre figure would come next,
+passing swiftly along, with secrecy written on every line of the face
+and habiliments, to be swallowed up in the frowning doorway of the
+Imperial Chancellerie; while those he passed on his way drew back
+instinctively, the women crossing themselves furtively, the men cursing
+below their breath. For was not this an emissary of that terrible secret
+police, from whom no one was safe, whose inexorable will was as iron and
+blood? And who could say who would be the next in turn to feel that
+cruel hand upon his throat, and know, with helpless certainty, that
+Petropavlovsk was his eternal destination?
+
+Just as the clocks on tower and steeple struck seven, following the
+single notes by the ecclesiastical melody of triumph, "How glorious is
+our Lord in Sion," a young man appeared, walking quickly, and with long,
+swinging steps, across the Troitski Bridge. He was tall and straight,
+and though muffled in a long coat and profuse furs, the yellow tint of
+his close-cut curls beneath his sable cap, his fresh complexion and
+boyish gaiety of appearance, at once betrayed him to be Ivor Tolskoi.
+
+He was humming lightly as he walked some half-remembered refrain from
+last night's ball or opera, but as he reached the middle of the bridge
+he halted, and folding his arms upon the parapet looked out across the
+marshy delta of the river, to where the Finnish Gulf made an indistinct
+grey line.
+
+The gloomy fortress frowned heavily upon him, but the sun's shafts were
+making merry with the Palace windows, and Ivor's thoughts had more just
+then to do with hope and love, than with treachery and despair. The
+opera melody died on his lips unfinished and he heeded it not; his fancy
+had leapt the bounds of prosaic realism and was wandering as it listed
+in the realms of conjecture.
+
+It was of Olga he thought as he wondered with idle curiosity which might
+be her casement among those that glittered and gleamed like jewels in a
+crystal setting, across the great marble front of the Winter Palace. If
+he waited long enough would he see the blind raised, the silken hangings
+withdrawn, and the face of his lady-love look forth to greet the day?
+Then would he, standing below her, bare his fair head and veil his bold
+blue eyes, and pray the passing wind to carry to her his message of
+fealty and true love.
+
+But the windows remained hermetically sealed, the curtains undrawn, and
+presently Ivor with a shrug of his shoulders, a laugh at his
+sentimentality, and the fragment of song once more on his lips, passed
+on his way, looking neither to the right nor the left, and vanished
+within the heavy portals of the Imperial Chancellerie.
+
+Mounting one flight of stairs with quick step, and passing along a short
+corridor, Ivor knocked at a closed door, and hearing the sharp French
+"_entrez_," opened it and stepped within that inner chamber where so few
+weeks ago Vladimir Mellikoff had weighed his chances, and made his
+choice.
+
+Patouchki sat, as then, at the table writing; and without raising his
+eyes from his occupation, bade the young secretary good-morning, signing
+him to his place by a gesture of his left hand.
+
+Ivor obeyed at once, and for some time only the rapid passing to and fro
+of the quill pens upon the paper were the only sounds.
+
+Ivor Tolskoi had removed his heavy outside wraps and thus revealed the
+fact that he still wore evening-dress, and that a white rose-bud
+lingered in his button-hole, its freshness somewhat tarnished, but its
+perfume as sweet as ever.
+
+After about half an hour's silence, Patouchki pushed back his chair and
+laid down his pen, passing his hand rapidly across his forehead once or
+twice, and looking keenly at his young companion as he did so. In the
+cruelly frank and searching morning light the face seemed to lose
+something of its pristine youth; the faint lines about the eyes and
+mouth became accentuated, the pallor of the temples more noticeable, the
+cruelty of lips and chin more pronounced. He did not look up however,
+though aware of the chief's scrutiny, until Patouchki's harsh voice and
+bullet-like sentences broke the silence.
+
+"Burning the candle at both ends are you, Ivor? Pardon me if I remind
+you that wilful waste will scarcely benefit yourself, or us. Let me also
+remind you that that moderation in all things of which the apostle
+speaks, has always produced far more lasting results than reckless
+enthusiasm and imprudent zeal."
+
+The young man flushed slightly as he replied: "If you would imply,
+chief, that my present dress is scarcely suited to my present
+occupation, I acknowledge the reproof with all promptitude. I was late
+at the Court Ball last night, and had not time to return to my
+apartments before making my journey across the bridge. I could not fail
+in that, since it was undertaken by your orders, consequently I must beg
+your pardon for appearing in such attire."
+
+The words were apologetic enough, but the tone was slightly
+antagonistic. Patouchki looked more closely at him; it was not usual for
+his subordinates to use any but obsequious words and tones when
+addressing him, and his quick ear caught the foreign ring in Ivor's
+voice. He passed it by, however, without open comment, though inscribing
+it on the tablets of his memory, and replied, calmly:
+
+"And have you brought me confirmation of the business on which I sent
+you?"
+
+"Yes, chief," answered the young man, shortly. "I saw the man Mattalini,
+who is a veritable specimen of Southern Italy intrigue and falsehood. He
+would rather lie than tell the truth, I take it; but he will be faithful
+enough to the Chancellerie if paid sufficiently. He had arrived only
+last night from Paris, and brought news of Count Vladimir Mellikoff's
+occupations and associates in gay Lutetia."
+
+A slight sneer curled Ivor's lips as he spoke the Count's name, which
+was no more lost upon the chief than the unusual ring in his voice a
+moment before.
+
+"Tolskoi grows restive," he mused, letting his keen black eyes rest
+piercingly on the young man's face for several moments; "nor is he quite
+frank with me. He keeps something back concerning Vladimir, whom I have
+noticed he never mentions without a covert sneer. There is without doubt
+a woman in the case. It is always so; Eve's daughters ruin our most
+promising patriots, sapping their energy, their spirit, their wit, and
+talent, by slow but sure degrees. And for what? A gleam of white teeth
+in a dangerous smile, the pressure of a traitorous hand, the hypocrite
+tears in melting eyes! Ah, bah! It's the old old story of the garden,
+for ever repeating itself--'the woman tempted me and I did eat;' and
+eating of the forbidden fruit, have become dead to all things save the
+unsatisfied desire it creates but never satisfies."
+
+Aloud he said: "Did Mattalini give you no packet or papers for me?"
+
+"Yes, chief," replied Tolskoi, "here they are," taking from his inner
+pocket a small sealed envelope, and holding it out to Patouchki. As the
+latter's long fingers closed over it, Ivor continued, in a half-nervous,
+half-jocular tone, and touching his fair moustache with his white
+fingers: "Might one interested in the cause inquire, chief, what news
+you have of Count Mellikoff and his mission? It is something of an open
+secret _why_ he has gone in certain circles, and I, for one, should be
+glad to know how far he has succeeded."
+
+"To pass on the information to those of your friends who are so keenly
+interested in and solicitous for the welfare of our father, the Tsar?"
+answered the chief, sharply. "Why, Ivor, I did not know you were so much
+of a gossip."
+
+The young man bit his lip and frowned.
+
+"You mistake me, chief," he said, and once again his voice had a ring of
+antagonism in its tone, "and you misjudge me. My question was in some
+sort a warning, and put forth that you might dictate such an answer as
+best suits the interests of the Tsar and Chancellerie. There are those,
+chief, who do not hesitate to assert that Stevan Lallovich's murder was
+but an act of justice on the part of his repudiated wife; those, too,
+who have the ear of our Empress, and who are never weary of instilling
+dislike and distrust of the Chancellerie in her mind, and who insinuate
+that Count Mellikoff's mission has more to do with secret and
+treacherous intrigues against the Tsar, than with the finding of a
+fugitive woman. And when the Chancellerie is struck at, you best know
+for whom the blow is intended. This was my motive for my friendly
+inquiries regarding Count Mellikoff."
+
+He finished with a slight bow, and stood looking full into Patouchki's
+face. For a moment the immobility of that sphinx-like countenance was
+broken up, a wave of dull-red blood rose slowly in the sallow cheeks,
+the black eyes flashed ominously, a sneer rested on the thin lips and
+repeated itself in the frown that gathered on his forehead. When he
+spoke his voice vibrated with greater distinctness and staccato emphasis
+than ever.
+
+"There will always be fools, Ivor, as long as time endures; even in
+eternity we shall doubtless find similar spirits to vex our hard earned
+rest. If I have misjudged you, it is enough, I beg your pardon. That
+there are traitors on every side who can know so well as I, who hold my
+life not worth the price of a rush-light! To be accused wrongly forms
+the greater part of man's experience, but to know one's own rectitude is
+sufficient compensation. The Chancellerie is for the moment secure in
+the integrity of its members, I believe; though in this Petersburg of
+ours, who can say how long even our institution will stand, or who
+shall prove the first traitor to its system? Let it be known then, Ivor,
+that Count Mellikoff has at present reached America, and that he is
+working under our protection and our surveillance. Even he needs to
+tread warily, for not even he is free from our suspicion, or our
+watchful care. No one, Ivor, no one, in all our great machinery, but has
+his double, whose duty it is to report to us every action, word, or
+occupation. A traitor would find short mercy, he might think himself
+fortunate had he time for a _pater_ or an _ave_, or a cry to our Lady of
+Kazan. I need say no more, your warning will be remembered and acted
+upon."
+
+Ivor bowed again in silence and turned back to his desk, but before he
+reached it Patouchki stopped him.
+
+"I shall not require you longer, Tolskoi," he said, in his usual quiet
+voice, "you had better get an hour or two of rest now; at twelve I shall
+desire your attendance with me upon the Emperor and Empress, who will
+make at that time a private visit of inspection to Petropavlovsk. Meet
+me at the private entrance of the Palace, and now S'Bogorn: not
+understood."
+
+"I will be there, chief," replied Ivor, promptly, a little smile
+creeping into his eyes and about the corners of his mouth. He drew on
+his heavy furred coat and stood for a moment, holding his cap under his
+arm, as he pulled on his long gloves, glancing now and then at
+Patouchki, who had returned to his writing, and was apparently so
+engrossed with it as to be oblivious of Ivor's presence, and forgetful
+of Ivor's warning.
+
+"Good morning, chief," said Tolskoi, again ignoring his elder's more
+solemn salutation, "and thank you."
+
+But Patouchki replied only by a gesture of his hand, and the next moment
+the heavy door closed noiselessly on Ivor's retreating figure. As he ran
+lightly down the short flight of stone stairs, and stepped out into the
+brilliant sunshine, the smile deepened in his eyes and about his mouth,
+and became a short gay laugh, that rang out clear and joyfully, cutting
+the cold keen air like a bell, and causing an old woman creeping slowly
+on her weary way, to turn and bless his youth and good looks in Our
+Lady's name.
+
+"_Hé!_ but 'tis good to be young, monsieur, and beautiful. Saint Peter
+send you a fair lady-love, and a short shrift!"
+
+Ivor laughed again, and tossed the old dame a small coin; but the mirth
+died on his lips as he passed beneath the shadow of the great fortress,
+and recalled the gruesome context of the blessing bestowed upon him. "A
+fair lady-love, and a short shrift!" What a ghastly conclusion! What had
+he or Olga to do with death and death's ceremonies? He made very sure of
+winning his fair lady, but to take account with death, now in the full
+vigour and strength of his youth, had not entered into his calculations.
+A plague on all old women--evil prophets!--let them look after their own
+souls; as for him, a long life and a merry one stretched before him.
+
+Then he began to hum again the broken strain from the opera; and as he
+did so, his thoughts travelled far ahead, and were on the whole
+satisfactory. Vladimir Mellikoff well out of the way, suspicion raised
+against him, no matter how faint, and the Italian, Mattalini, to dog his
+footsteps--for Ivor knew the Italian was the one picked out to serve as
+the Count's double--what might not he, Ivor Tolskoi, accomplish? Was not
+the way opening clear and straight before him, with Olga--beautiful,
+proud Olga--as his prize? What could be more opportune than the chief's
+selection of him to act as aide during the Royal inspection of the
+fortress; for well Ivor knew that Olga Naundorff would accompany the
+Tsarina, and that of necessity she would fall to his escort, as they
+passed from casemate to corridor of the giant prison.
+
+Ivor was a firm believer in propinquity, and here would be a rare
+occasion for him in the relaxation of the strict Court etiquette, that
+usually hedged Mdlle. Naundorff about with a thousand barriers, for on
+such ex-officio occasions it was well known that the Tsar and Tsarina
+appeared with only a strong guard, and one lady and gentleman of their
+suite.
+
+The great chimes of the fortress cathedral were ringing out the mournful
+cadences of the liturgy--"Have mercy, O Lord"--which in Petersburg mark
+each quarter of the hour, as Ivor passed out of the Chancellerie. It was
+close on eight o'clock, and already the streets and promenades were
+showing signs of renewed life. The great doors of St. Isaac's stood
+open, and into the vast misty building the devout of both sexes were
+passing rapidly.
+
+Ivor paused, went up the steps, and looked within. The lights on the
+altar at the far end gleamed like so many tiny stars, through the
+diaphanous incense clouds, that clung always about the holy of holies.
+The dull gold on the massive ornaments and in the frescoes shone out
+here and there, thrown into relief by the more sombre purples and blues
+of their surroundings.
+
+Before a statue of the Virgin and Child a woman had thrown herself in
+the abandonment of grief and petition; two or three scarlet kaftans of
+the Imperial Guard gave a touch of vivid colour, and contrasted
+chromatically with the white alb and golden vestments of the officiating
+priest. The low monotonous voices of the congregation rose and sank,
+like the murmur of the ocean breaking on the sands, as they, wrapt in
+private devotions, made known their petitions in low undertones, and
+quite irresponsive of the priest's function; while he, standing at the
+high altar, offered up the sacrifice of the mass.
+
+As Ivor gazed half spell-bound, and half disbelieving, the woman who
+knelt before the Virgin's statue got up and moved slowly towards the
+door. She had thrown back her long veil, and her face against its
+blackness stood out in cameo relief. As Tolskoi's glance fell upon it,
+he started violently, and put out one hand involuntarily, as though to
+bar her way. But the woman dropped her veil instantly, and pushing
+rudely by him, walked rapidly down the steps and across the promenade;
+disappearing from view even as Ivor, recovering from his amazement,
+turned to follow her.
+
+"Good God!" he exclaimed, standing for a moment uncertain what to do,
+the look of horror still stamped upon his features, "as I am a living
+man, that was the face of Adèle Lamien, the murderer of Stevan
+Lallovich, and his repudiated wife!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+"IT WAS NO DELUSION."
+
+
+At twelve o'clock that day, just as the great fortress cathedral chimes
+rang out the hour, repeating again the melody taken from the Eastern
+liturgy, "How glorious is our Lord in Sion," Ivor Tolskoi reached the
+side-entrance of the Palace court-yard, and, passing between the
+saluting sentinels, made his way towards a small door in one side of the
+building, before which marched constantly two of the Imperial Guard,
+whose business it was to watch jealously all in-going or out-coming
+traffic, and who, fully armed as they were, presented a sufficiently
+terrifying appearance, even to the most peaceful-minded.
+
+Before this door two open sleighs were standing, their magnificent black
+horses handsomely decked out in gold-plated harness, and each wearing a
+triangle of gold bells spanning its back, from which the slightest
+movement evoked a shower of tinkling notes that fell melodiously, one
+after the other, on the frost-bitten air, and were echoed back again by
+the high walls of the court-yard. Sumptuous rugs and wraps of the
+costliest furs were thrown across the velvet cushions, while the
+coachmen and footmen were wrapped in mink-skin capes and tall,
+conical-shaped hats.
+
+A short distance ahead of the equipages a selected division of the
+Imperial body-guard sat immovable upon their splendid chargers, the
+scarlet of their kaftans contrasting finely with the glossy coats of
+their steeds and the dazzling snow that lay as a pall of innocence upon
+the great metropolis.
+
+Ivor stopped only long enough to return the salute of the captain of the
+guard, and to exchange a good-morning with one or two of the others,
+who were all well known to him, and then, pressing quickly forward,
+entered the Palace by the small door, and made his way to an
+ante-chamber, where, as he expected, he found Patouchki already arrived.
+
+The chief's face wore a somewhat troubled expression, which did not
+lessen as the young man, shutting the door securely behind him, came up
+hurriedly towards him, an answering look of anxiety upon his usually
+fresh, insouciant countenance. Patouchki also noticed that his face was
+very pale, and his eyes wore a restless, inquiring expression, which was
+enhanced by the stern set of his lips. He made no comment until standing
+close by Patouchki's side, when he said, abruptly, and almost
+commandingly:
+
+"Did you not say that Vladimir Mellikoff had gone upon this mission to
+America to track and to arrest the cast-off wife of Stevan Lallovich,
+for whose murder the Chancellerie holds her responsible?"
+
+Patouchki, for once taken off his guard, started at this unexpected
+address, and turning sharply round so that he faced Tolskoi, looked at
+him keenly before he answered. But Ivor never flinched nor faltered; his
+cold, light-blue eyes met the chief's black ones full as boldly as they
+had ever rested on Olga Naundorff's fair proud face, and something in
+their hard cruel light warned Patouchki that the question was no idle
+one, but that behind it lay some disturbance unknown at their morning
+meeting. He replied in his most repellent manner:
+
+"You have forgotten, Ivor, it seems, that the Chancellerie never makes
+decisive affirmations in words. Among us it is unnecessary to name names
+or publish identities. Your own rather too vivid imagination has outrun
+itself, Ivor, and accredited to Count Mellikoff's absence in the United
+States a more sinister motive than could be found in the records of the
+Chancellerie. Murder and arrest are two ugly words and have an ugly
+sound to ears unaccustomed to them, especially when applied to a
+woman."
+
+"Nevertheless, chief," answered Ivor, impatiently, the frown deepening
+on his brow, "though you may choose to call Count Mellikoff's mission by
+every name under heaven save the right one, you cannot disguise its true
+motive. The Chancellerie may wrap itself about with all possible or
+impossible plausibilities of expression, there are those who can read
+between the lines, and who follow its machinations. Let me beg of you,
+chief, by all the months of faithful service I have given you--and they
+are many now--to be frank with me in this. Much--you cannot know how
+much--depends upon your answer to my question. Can you not yet believe
+in my fidelity and trust to my loyalty? Have I proved myself so poor a
+Russian? Answer me this, I beg; is it to track and to find Stevan
+Lallovich's forsaken wife that Vladimir Mellikoff has gone to America? I
+will not press you further as to her share in the murder, or why you
+suppose her to have sought refuge there, if you will give me a frank yes
+or no to my question; only be quick, I entreat you, our very moments are
+numbered!"
+
+Patouchki, who, during Tolskoi's impassioned address, had remained
+immovable, his eyes downcast, the lights and shadows on his
+strongly-marked face alone revealing his interest and irresolution,
+looked up as Ivor's voice dropped into silence, and again fixing his
+piercing black eyes on the young man's face, he replied slowly, and with
+a hesitancy that sat strangely on his usually assured manner:
+
+"Your words are imperious, Ivor; but it is the imperiousness of youth,
+not arrogance, therefore I pass them by unrebuked. As to answering your
+question with a short yes or no, that is impossible. There are too many
+motives and too many interests mixed up in Count Vladimir's mission for
+me to give to you, or any one, so unequivocal a rejoinder. However,
+since I do believe in your honesty of purpose, Ivor, and trust your
+integrity of action, I will say this much, that one of Count Mellikoff's
+objects--the most important if you will have it so--was to seek and to
+find the woman who calls herself Count Stevan Lallovich's wife. What
+then?"
+
+"Then he will never find her, chief," broke in Tolskoi, "and you and the
+Chancellerie are being tricked by him for your pains. Vladimir Mellikoff
+may have his own game to play, and his own ends to serve, but finding
+and securing Stevan Lallovich's pseudo wife will not be one of them."
+
+He laughed slightly as he finished, and his voice grew scornful again at
+the mention of Mellikoff's name.
+
+"What do you mean, Ivor?" exclaimed Patouchki, now thoroughly roused.
+
+"What I say," returned Tolskoi, doggedly, "Vladimir Mellikoff is
+deceiving all of you when he pretends to be on the track of that
+wretched woman, and you, chief, are blinded by his specious words."
+
+"Have a care, Ivor," cried Patouchki, sternly, "the Chancellerie can
+hold you accountable for those words. What proof have you of what you
+affirm?"
+
+"The proof of my own eyes," replied Ivor, hotly, "I tell you, chief,
+Mellikoff is deceiving you for reasons of his own, for I, this very
+morning, since I parted with you, have stood face to face with Adèle
+Lamien, who calls herself Adèle Lallovich!"
+
+"You, Ivor, impossible!" cried Patouchki, "you have seen her, and here
+in Petersburg, in broad daylight! And where?"
+
+"As I stood within the door of St. Isaac's this morning," answered
+Tolskoi, "the mass was just begun, and she had been kneeling--prostrated
+I should say--before the statue of our Lady of Kazan. Something familiar
+in the lines of her figure struck me even then, and presently as the
+_miserere_ bells rang the quarter, she arose and came towards me, her
+veil thrown back, the whiteness of her face and the distinctness of her
+features thrown out vividly against her black apparel. She passed me
+rapidly, pulling down her veil impetuously, as she fled out and down the
+steps before I could put out my hand to stop her, and when I reached the
+pavement she had disappeared. But I tell you, chief, as I hope to be
+saved at the hour of my death, it was the face of Adèle Lallovich into
+which I looked for that brief interval."
+
+"Impossible!" again ejaculated Patouchki. "Impossible that she should be
+here, in Petersburg, and the Chancellerie remain ignorant of her
+arrival. She is a marked woman to all our emissaries, how could she come
+and go, without disguise even, and we remain in ignorance? No, no, my
+good Ivor, your eyes mislead you this time; with all her arrogant
+bravery Adèle Lamien knows better than to put her head in the lion's
+jaws, or herself in the power of the Chancellerie."
+
+"I tell you I saw her," repeated Tolskoi, obstinately, "believe me or
+not, chief, I saw her, and no other."
+
+"But my dear Ivor," began Patouchki, persuasively, when a groom of the
+chambers entered hurriedly, and bidding them make haste, as their
+Majesties were even then descending the staircase, cut short the chief's
+oratory, and caused both him and Tolskoi to hasten their footsteps
+towards the side door, which now stood open with footmen and lacqueys on
+either side, holding the fur robes, foot-muffs and wraps of the Imperial
+party.
+
+As Ivor and Tolskoi emerged from the side corridor, the Tsarina reached
+the entrance and paused a moment for her attendants to clasp the
+magnificent cloak of sables about her slight figure. Very sweet and
+delicate, and somewhat sad was the face that looked out from the
+clinging furs, with a touch of the same melancholy that at times rests
+on her English sister's brow, and with more than a similitude of her
+gentleness and sympathy. As she crossed the threshold the slightest
+possible shrinking or timidity caused her to hesitate for one brief
+moment, then she took her place in the Royal equipage, and her face, as
+she turned it towards her husband, wore a brave courageous smile.
+
+Poor Tsarina! though wrapped about on every side with all luxury, yet
+never to realise the happiness of confidence; never to feel secure, even
+in your strictest seclusion; never to know when the cruel bullet, sent
+with a fatally true aim, may end your tenure of greatness, and send you
+back to your magnificent palace, a heart-broken, lonely widow!
+
+Behind the Empress came the Tsar, dressed, as was often his pleasure, in
+the scarlet kaftan of his own guard, and by which he signified his
+desire to remain incognito. Following him were Olga Naundorff and the
+Emperor's equerry, who, with Patouchki and Ivor, formed the Royal
+suite.
+
+The Tsarina in passing had acknowledged Tolskoi's presence by a gracious
+recognition, which sent the young man's blood running hotly through his
+veins, flushing his face and brightening his eyes. Ivor was every inch
+an Imperialist, and he loved his gentle Tsarina Dagmar with a real and
+chivalrous devotion; the latent sadness in her eyes and the pathos of
+her smile touched the most responsive chords of his cold and selfish
+nature, and awoke in him the purest sentiment of his heart.
+
+Olga had caught the Empress's friendly bow to Ivor, and she too relaxed
+somewhat the frigid demeanour she had evinced towards him, since their
+conversation regarding Count Mellikoff, and flashed upon him one of her
+most lovely smiles, as he put out his arm and almost lifted her to her
+place in the second sleigh. The Tsar and Tsarina drove alone in the
+foremost equipage, preceded and protected on either side by the guard,
+while in the second were seated Olga, the equerry, Patouchki, and Ivor.
+
+The gates were flung wide apart, and thus, with the horses prancing, the
+bells ringing, to which the clanking swords made a monotonous echo, and
+the sun shining, the Royal party crossed the gay boulevard now thronged
+with people, and drew up at the grim and frowning archway of Peter's
+gloomy fortress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL.
+
+
+Petropavlovsk is in itself a giant fastness, covering, as it does,
+three-quarters of a square mile, and divided into so many rambling
+corridors, barracks, ravelins, bastions, curtains, and store-houses, as
+to be for the most part unknown even to the officials who form its
+_ménage_, and who, having certain portions of the immense structure set
+apart for their duties, live out their lives without exploring, or being
+permitted to explore beyond their individual domains.
+
+The boulevard and the canal intersect the building, and separate the
+citadel proper from what is known as the "crown work," which lies to
+the rear.
+
+Dreary indeed is the outlook for the unfortunate political suspect who
+is hurried by night, blindfolded and closely guarded, into this living
+tomb. To him, hastened along through unfamiliar passages and by echoing
+walls, conveyed hither and thither through succeeding gates and vaulted
+corridors, no possible effort of memory, or mathematical calculation,
+can ever aid him to determine which one of the many courts, bastions, or
+redoubts is that selected for his incarceration.
+
+Nor, indeed, will he ever know, for when at last the _gendarmes_ halt,
+and he is allowed the use of his eyes, he finds himself in a small
+court-yard completely enclosed by high walls, above which only a limited
+sky line is visible. And where this court-yard is situated, to what
+bastion it appertains, whether it faces the river or lies back from it,
+what is its relation to the door of egress, or its connection with the
+other casemates of the prison, not the wildest conjecture can
+establish, or the keenest intuition demonstrate.
+
+The part of the fortress, however, which the Tsar had selected for his
+inspection, was that known as the Trubetskoi bastion, one of the largest
+and most impregnable, projecting as it does well on to the river side,
+in the direction of the Bourse. The shape of this bastion resembles as
+much as possible a bishop's mitre, as worn by the Western Church; it is
+built, in two storeys of stone and brick, around a court-yard of its
+own, which extends beyond the building proper and terminates in high
+thick walls, that completely shut it out and in from all communication
+save that afforded by a narrow vaulted passage, always strongly guarded.
+The interior consists of two tiers of casemates, opening on to narrow
+corridors, two dark punishment cells, overseers' rooms, kitchen and
+soldiers' quarters. In the court-yard are a bath house and one or two
+stunted shrubs.
+
+Nothing more gloomy and horrible can be imagined than imprisonment
+within one of these casemates, of which the Trubetskoi bastion boasts
+seventy-two, thirty-six on each tier. As they were originally designed
+for cannon they are considerably larger than an ordinary prison cell,
+but size is no mitigation of their horrors. Each casemate has a window,
+but it opens upon the baffling stone walls of the narrow outer
+court-yard, and is moreover set nine feet above the floor, in a deep
+arched recess, and guarded by heavy iron bars. The massive wooden door
+is equally disappointing, giving as it does on to the stone corridor
+that lies between the cells and inner court-yard; in the centre of each
+is a square aperture, which can be opened or closed at the will of the
+jailer, by a swinging panel, acting like a miniature portcullis, and
+which, when horizontal, serves as a shelf for the prisoner's food.
+
+Directly above this panel is that horrible contrivance--more loathed and
+detested by the incarcerated wretch than any other of the diabolical
+arrangements--the "Judas" hagioscope or Squint, and which resembles a
+slit for letters more than anything else, with a nicely adjusted strip
+of wood that can be noiselessly raised or lowered from the outside, and
+through which the eyes of the guard can spy at any moment upon the
+occupant of the cell.
+
+Only those who have tasted of this unending inevitable surveillance can
+appreciate its horrors. To be never free, never for one moment, whether
+in grief, or pain, or despair, from the espionage of unsympathetic eyes.
+To throw oneself upon one's knees before the image of Our Lady, with
+which each cell is supplied, to pour out all the woe and misery of one's
+breaking heart in the abandonment of desolation, and then, to hear the
+faint click of the revolving slide, and starting back, find the argus
+eyes of one's jailer peering through the detestable "Judas;" and to know
+the very words of supplication and invocation will be used against one
+to condemnation.
+
+What wonder then that many who have entered Petropavlovsk bravely and
+with a good courage, believing their imprisonment to be but an affair of
+days, are never seen again, never emerge alive from its terrible
+dungeons; or lose mind and reason waiting for the day of deliverance
+that never comes?
+
+No words can paint the growing horror and despair of a prisoner thus
+incarcerated. Day by day his terror expands and magnifies as hope dies
+in his heart, and the inexorable hand of Russia crushes out his very
+life.
+
+Within the casemates there are, for furniture, an iron bedstead and
+table bolted into the wall, an iron oven of the commonest description, a
+stationary iron wash-hand basin and a statue of the Virgin, beneath
+which hangs a tin cup for catching the dripping moisture that exudes
+constantly from the stone walls.
+
+On entering his cell for the first time, the poor victim is stripped of
+his clothes and given in exchange a loose blue linen dressing-gown, grey
+linen trousers and shirt, and a pair of soft noiseless list slippers.
+The guard, after making a minute personal examination, in search of some
+possible criminal matter, withdraws; the heavy door swings to with a
+dull echo, the bolts slip into the padlock, and the prisoner is left
+alone, in the midst of a stillness and silence like that of death.
+
+Gloomy, forbidding, sombre, the walls and vaulted ceiling rise about and
+above him, the air is heavy and lifeless, the silence is profound; not
+even an echoing footstep in the corridor makes a welcome noise, for the
+guards creep about in felt slippers as noiseless and as muffled as his
+own. And thus the purgatory of his sentence begins; and who, save
+Almighty God, can say when it shall end! While hour by hour the chimes
+of the fortress-cathedral ring out their triumphant notes--a mockery of
+the poor soul in torment--or toll the _miserere_, that sounds a knell to
+all his hopes.
+
+It was at the entrance to the Trubetskoi bastion that the Imperial party
+alighted. Extraordinary reports as to the violence and cruelty practised
+within the walls of Petropavlovsk had lately become so widely
+disseminated throughout Petersburg, mingled with such threats of summary
+justice to be shortly meted out to the officials by the hands of the
+enraged populace, and such sinister warnings of personal vengeance, that
+the press of all parties called upon the Tsar to prove himself Emperor
+in his own domains, by investigating and abolishing the scandals.
+
+It was a time of grave anxiety; but he, listening to the counsels of
+those who had in past difficulties proved their loyalty and
+disinterestedness, yielded at last to their persuasions, and resolved to
+adopt the extreme measure of a personal inspection of the maligned
+fortress. The Empress, on hearing this decision, and who, despite her
+gentle looks and quiet manner, owned the courage and high spirit of her
+Danish ancestors, at once determined to accompany her husband.
+
+The populace should see that their Tsar and Tsarina neither feared to
+trust themselves to the people, nor shrank from redressing wrong when
+brought before their notice, though indeed none knew better than she how
+purely perfunctory and ceremonious would be the inspection and its
+results.
+
+The governor of Petropavlovsk and the lieutenant of the Trubetskoi
+bastion received the distinguished guests, and welcomed them with
+apparent relief and pleasure, throwing open the doors of the casemates
+one by one, and standing back deferentially, with more of sorrow than of
+anger on their official countenances; for was not theirs a sad example
+of unrequited and misjudged zeal, since even they could be regarded
+with suspicion and doubted in their humanity?
+
+Most of the casemates were found to be unoccupied, and Patouchki, who
+walked beside the Emperor, never failed on each such occasion to draw
+his Imperial Highness's attention to the fact.
+
+"I believe, sir," he said, as they entered the last of the lower range
+of cells, and found it like its predecessors, empty, swept, and
+garnished, "that one of the most formidable counts in the public
+indictment against Petropavlovsk, is the over-crowding of its cells, and
+their uncleanly condition. Your Majesty has now visited thirty-five of
+these casemates, the greater number of which have been found unoccupied,
+and all of them in perfect sanitary order. I think, sir, this answers
+that complaint."
+
+The Tsar sighed, but made no reply. Perhaps he, like Patouchki, wished
+to make the best of everything and see only the brightest side; but
+even he could not still the premonitions of evil that arose thick and
+fast in his mind, as he comprehended the immensity and power of this
+Imperial prison house of Russia.
+
+Of the few victims found in the cells none recognised the Royal party.
+They were for the most part political offenders from the interior
+provinces, who had never before been in Petersburg, and to whom the face
+of their new Tsar was not as yet sufficiently familiar to make
+recognition possible, especially as his dress differed in no respect
+from that of the officers accompanying him. Little did the poor victims
+imagine, as they were hurriedly changed, early that morning, from one
+part of the fortress to another, that it was to avoid any accidental
+recognition on the part of those, who, being the last to enter the
+prison, still retained memories of the outer world, and sentiments of
+Imperial justice--believing that their Tsar, once convinced of their
+innocent incarceration, would order their instant release--that this
+transfer was made. Any possible outbreak was to be avoided at all
+hazards, since any such _émeute_ could not but end awkwardly for the
+Imperial inspectors, and disastrously for the officials.
+
+Had these poor wretches but suspected that the tall, soldierly man,
+wearing a scarlet kaftan, without ribbon or order, and who looked gloomy
+and thoughtful beneath the military helmet, was their Tsar--their little
+father, the great Emperor of all the Russias--how they would have fallen
+at his feet, praying his interference; protesting their loyalty, and
+maintaining their innocence! Or had the faintest doubt crossed their
+minds, that the slight upright woman, clad in those closely-clinging,
+sombre robes, whose eyes looked so pitifully forth, and whose face was
+so wan and pale, might perchance be their Tsarina, what tears and sobs,
+what pleadings and supplications would have rent the air, as they kissed
+her hands, or grasped wildly at her garments!
+
+But fate was against them; their opportunity came to them unsought, and
+they passed it by unknowing. How should they know, poor souls, to whom
+even a word of ordinary greeting from their jailers was denied, and to
+whom no echo of news ever penetrated, how should they know, that at the
+very moment, as they were praying passionately for some means of
+communication with their Emperor, he himself stood before them, and that
+had they but put out their hands they could have touched him?
+
+It was the cruel irony of fate; the bitter obligation of destiny.
+
+As the guards threw open the massive casemate doors in silence, most of
+the inmates did not so much as raise their heads or change their
+attitudes. Why should they? It was only another of those many
+interruptions in their day's vacuity, in which the jailer played the
+part of inspector with maddening sameness. What call had they to look
+more often on his hated face than was needful?
+
+Scarce a word passed between the Tsar and Tsarina, or their suite; the
+pall of absolute silence which enfolds great Petropavlovsk in the dark
+mantle of submission, had descended also upon them, and so held them
+captive as to kill any outward expression of inward emotion. Sometimes
+it was the "Judas" only that was lifted, and then the Tsarina would turn
+away her eyes and refuse to look, standing apart with anxiety and
+sadness written on her pale face; and when this happened, Olga would
+separate herself from Ivor, and waiting silently by her Royal mistress,
+watch her every motion with the sympathy of comprehension.
+
+And so the weary task dragged on its heavy chain; there remained but one
+more cell, and then this horrible nightmare of duty, this travesty of
+inspection, would be over, and they might hurry away from out this gloom
+and depression, and seek once more the brilliant sunshine, the
+gaily-thronged streets, where at least the grim spectres of despair and
+desperation, if they stalked among the careless mummers, were
+out-balanced by the laughter and jesting of the merry-makers.
+
+At length they reached the last casemate of all, and as the door was
+unbolted and thrown open, the Emperor and Patouchki stepped across the
+threshold. Seated on the iron pallet, his arms thrown out across the
+table, was an old man, whose head was white with the snows of many
+winters. He neither moved nor spoke as those without came towards him;
+his hands were waxen in colour, nerveless, and attenuated; the blue
+dressing-gown hung loosely upon his emaciated form; his face was hidden
+on his arm. Something in the intense stillness and rigidity of the
+attitude, in the absolute rest that had fallen upon him, startled the
+beholders with a vague sense of fear.
+
+At a word from the Tsar, Patouchki crossed the cell and laid his hand
+upon the bowed shoulders. A shudder passed over the form, followed by a
+long and weary sigh, and then the head was lifted, and two feverish,
+bright eyes gazed out of the hollow sockets. For a moment he looked at
+them bewildered, and then, with a sudden, thrilling cry, he flung
+himself forward and fell at the feet of the Tsar, exclaiming in broken,
+feeble tones:
+
+"Blessed be God in Sion; He has heard my prayer! Blessed be our Lady of
+Kazan! It is the face of my Tsarawich I see once more; it is the face of
+my little father--my Tsar! Oh, my Emperor, I am Alexis--Alexis of
+Battenkoff. I am an old man of over four-score, who, for fifty long
+years, served your father--my Tsar Alexander--and who, after all that
+time of faithful love and devotion, have been left to rot in this
+terrible pest-house for two long weary years. Pardon me, little father,
+pardon me! I have done no wrong, believe me. I have never plotted
+against my sovereigns; I have loved them always, and served them to the
+extent of my poor abilities. I had no hand in that bloody murder; I was
+innocent of all participation in it. I would have given my life's blood
+to save my Emperor. Why should I seek his death! Pardon me, my little
+father, as your sire, whose soul sees me now, would have pardoned me!"
+
+As the last words passed from his lips the old man sank back, his hands
+twitched convulsively, and he fell on the floor in a swoon. So sudden
+had been his movement forward and so rapid his utterance, neither the
+officials nor Patouchki had time to interpose, but the latter now
+stepped quickly forward, as the Tsar, with a gesture, motioned to him to
+approach, and after giving him some directions, speaking earnestly and
+decisively, turned abruptly and left the cell. Neither the Tsarina nor
+Olga Naundorff had entered this casemate, the Empress's tender heart had
+therefore been spared the harrowing scene.
+
+As the Imperial party drove away from the terrible fortress, and the
+brilliant sunshine caught at the glittering harness and bright
+trappings of the guard, a cry arose on the boulevard: "It is the Tsar,
+and our Tsarina! Long live the little father! Long live the Tsar!" But
+neither God's sunshine, nor the loyal shouts of his people could bring
+back the colour to the Emperor's face, or banish the look of care and
+anxiety that rested so heavily upon it.
+
+The next morning an Imperial pardon was sent to Petropavlovsk for Alexis
+Battenkoff, but it came too late. The weary spirit and sorely wounded
+heart were at rest in eternity; the old man's soul had passed beyond all
+earthly pardon, into the Almighty hands of justice and recompense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SUSPICIONS.
+
+
+For many days the Petersburg Imperial press rang the changes unceasingly
+on this last benignant and forgiving act of the Tsar's.
+
+It called upon all malcontents and revolutionists to say, if in this
+pardon were not displayed the utmost leniency and mercy. For was it not
+well known that Alexis Battenkoff was taken almost red-handed at the
+assassination of the late Tsar? And, indeed, who but one familiar,
+through long habit and confidence, with the movements of the Emperor,
+could have supplied the knowledge which assured the grim success of the
+dastardly attack? Was not Alexis always to be found, under suspicious
+circumstances, consorting with the most pronounced of the Nihilist
+faction; and could he be there save for one purpose only? Could one
+touch pitch and not be defiled?
+
+Where then, in modern history, could another such act of condonation be
+pointed out, as this by which the Tsar had pardoned a participator in
+his father's murder? Was not that answer sufficient to all the
+treacherous suggestions, the menacing innuendoes, that had been ripe and
+bursting for so long in Petersburg? Perhaps now the organs of the
+opposition would cease their importunate blating, since the Tsar's
+inspection of Petropavlovsk had resulted in such a redress of imaginary
+wrongs, as not even their wildest dreams could have supposed possible.
+And was not the hand of Almighty justice made plainly visible, in that
+Alexis of Battenkoff was not permitted to taste again of liberty, but
+was stricken by death before the news of the Tsar's generosity could
+reach him? Let those who would, read well the lesson thus openly
+delivered to them.
+
+Paul Patouchki read the enthusiastic laudations and pious thanksgivings
+in the silence of his apartments in the Chancellerie, and, as he did so,
+a slow, inscrutable smile crept over his face and lingered there.
+
+It was not often that the chief recognised any direct interposition of
+Divine Providence in the political turmoils of Russia; indeed, in his
+own heart, he scoffed at all such superstitions, and acknowledged
+frankly that the Imperial Government neither desired, nor would
+appreciate, any such interference with its autocratic despotism.
+
+But certainly, for once, he saw in the Battenkoff incident and death a
+most opportune intervention, whether Divine or otherwise, since by it
+the hands of the Imperial party could be strengthened, and for a time,
+at least, their policy be freed from too suspicious and too true
+aspersions. To his mind, like the last of the Stuart Pretenders,
+nothing in life so well became poor Alexis of Battenkoff as his leaving
+it, how and when he did. It was the one touch needful to stamp the
+Imperial inspection of Petropavlovsk with triumphant success, and to
+prove a satisfying sop even to so hydra-mouthed a Cerberus as the
+disaffected party; and therefore he was thankful, though none knew
+better than he that no actual improvement had been effected, no evils
+redressed, no reforms instituted in the governmental department of
+Petropavlovsk. The giant fortress closed its jaws just as tyrannically
+upon its victims, and abated not one jot or tittle of its iron-handed
+authority.
+
+Patouchki, however, had too many anxieties pressing upon him to spend
+over much time in complaisant reading of political trumpet notes; he
+laid aside the _Petersburg Messenger_ and turned toward his desk, on
+which lay a heavy correspondence not yet disposed of. As he sat down in
+his familiar place, the grim smile faded from his lips, to be replaced
+by a dark frown that knit together the black eyebrows, and accentuated
+the strong lines about the eyes and mouth. In truth, the chief was more
+concerned than he liked to admit, even to himself, at Ivor Tolskoi's
+news; and though at the time he endeavoured to treat it with cavalier
+disbelief, he nevertheless had an inner consciousness, of its truth, and
+a presentiment of complications to follow in consequence.
+
+That Adèle Lamien should be in Petersburg, and the Chancellerie have
+neither warning of her intentions, nor knowledge of her presence,
+seemed, as he had said to Tolskoi, impossible; and yet, even as the word
+fell from his lips, he knew himself to be wrong, and Ivor to be right.
+The great spy system had failed for once, imperceptibly almost, and so
+far without damaging results, but it had, nevertheless, proved itself
+vulnerable, and had found its match in the quick wits and ready
+ingenuity of a woman. Even all the elaborate machinery of the
+Chancellerie had not been sufficient, when pitted against the devices of
+one weak, fugitive woman.
+
+Yes, that was where the shoe pinched; to be duped by the very criminal
+they were pursuing, and to hear her laugh in their ears, as she slipped
+out of their fingers! And then, what a bad precedent was even this
+slight dereliction on the part of the Chancellerie; and how could the
+discipline of fear be kept up in the minds of the younger members of the
+great body, if such a defection became known? And the woman, Adèle
+Lamien, was brazen enough and clever enough, smarting as she was under
+her own wrongs, to circulate their blindness and failure, just where it
+would most redound to their discredit.
+
+"It is impossible!" again muttered Patouchki, as his fingers rested idly
+on his desk, and his eyes wandered over the familiar trifles of his
+daily avocations. "It is impossible; and yet I know it is true. Some
+one of our emissaries has been asleep at his post, some one has connived
+at this woman's plotting, or been blind to her schemes, and deaf to her
+plans; some one, as at Balaklava, has blundered, and it remains for me
+to find the culprit, and to administer chastisement. A winter in
+Siberia, or in the Nartchinsk mines, will teach that some one the price
+of treachery, and the weight of the Chancellerie's wrath. Meantime the
+woman must be found and watched; the time is not ripe yet for her
+arrest, I must wait Vladimir Mellikoff's next report first; and by
+heaven, should he prove false, as Tolskoi would insinuate, he shall work
+out his retribution, side by side with the wretched victim of Count
+Stevan's licentiousness. But first of all, the woman must be found."
+
+He drew a deep sigh, and with almost an expression of weariness took up
+one of the many despatches before him, and broke the seal.
+
+Meantime, Ivor Tolskoi had prospered but slowly in his suit. Despite all
+his anticipations of numerous opportunities occurring during the
+inspection of the fortress, in which he should be able to command Olga's
+attention, and by deftly-turned compliment, or ingenious flattery, urge
+his pretensions, even as with subtle innuendo and covert sneer he
+touched upon Count Mellikoff's absence, and the character of his
+mission.
+
+But Olga was more than indifferent, she was impatient with him; the
+influence of the time and place oppressed her peculiarly impressionable
+nature, as the sight of the pale sorrow on her Tsarina's face set
+vibrating the chords of her quick and passionate sympathy. She accorded
+Ivor but a half-hearted attention, scarcely hearing his soft pleadings,
+and while retaining unconsciously a memory of his insinuations against
+Vladimir, it was not until the Royal _cortège_ turned down the gay
+boulevard that a full realisation of his meaning came to her. She
+turned then sharply to him, as he sat beside her, and, with her
+favourite imperious upward movement of her head, said abruptly, though
+in a low voice, inaudible to the other occupants of the sleigh:
+
+"What is it, Ivor, you have been hinting to me all this morning,
+concerning my cousin Mellikoff? If you have news of him, why not give it
+me without so much useless circumambulation? I do not like mysteries."
+
+"Mdlle. Naundorff has surely mistaken my meaning," answered Tolskoi,
+coolly, looking straight at her, and smiling a little. "I had no
+intention of insinuating anything detrimental of Count Vladimir; my
+remarks were but general, though to be sure any one is welcome to wear
+the cap, if it fits him."
+
+"_Les absents ont toujours tort_," replied Olga, still impatient; "my
+cousin Mellikoff but shares the fate of all who have achieved even a
+limited greatness; jealousy and envy go hand in hand with those who, not
+so fortunate, only stand and look on."
+
+Her words were sharp, and her manner pointed. Ivor knew both were
+intended to sting, and though he could not control the sudden wave of
+hot blood that dyed his face crimson, he could control his temper and
+his voice; he answered her, therefore, with another cold little laugh,
+as he said:
+
+"Surely it is grace enough to be so defended by Mdlle. Naundorff? Even
+Count Vladimir could scarcely ask a greater favour, accustomed as he is
+to all devotion--where women are concerned."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed Olga, imperiously. "I insist, Ivor, on
+your explaining your very equivocal suggestions."
+
+Tolskoi shrugged his shoulders, and replied under apparent protest:
+
+"It is, I think, well known how successful Count Mellikoff has always
+been in any _affaire du coeur_, though such details are better suited
+for men's ears than for yours, mademoiselle. It can, however, be no
+detriment to him, even in your estimation, to acknowledge that his past
+is not written upon an absolutely white page, since you are the only one
+who has definitely subdued him, and bid fair to turn the brave Lothario
+into a Benedict. I have yet to meet the woman to whom the reputation of
+a certain kind of success in a man proves anything but a
+recommendation."
+
+As Ivor finished, a silence of several moments fell between them. Olga
+turned her fair face from him and looked out, with unseeing eyes, upon
+the gay, moving pageant about her. Tolskoi watched her intently but
+furtively, and saw with inward satisfaction that his barb had gone home
+and was rankling, and would rankle for days to come, in her heart.
+
+Well he knew Olga Naundorff's character, with its complex mingling of
+cruelty and softness; its nicely balanced elements of revenge and
+generosity; its preponderance of pride, its insatiable demand of
+absolute submission to her will, and its imperious arrogation of
+supremacy, not only over the present and future of her suitors, but over
+their past as well. Like her great ancestress, the Empress Catherine,
+her favours were tyrannies; and woe unto the luckless recipient of them
+should she find him faithless in the smallest degree! Even his past must
+be forgotten and forsworn; his existence could only begin with the
+bestowal of her first smile.
+
+Without knowing it, a true and absolute belief in her cousin Vladimir
+Mellikoff's integrity had gradually grown up within her; she had come to
+regard him as the one faithfully sincere lover out of all her admirers,
+whose very sternness and power of repression spoke more eloquently to
+her than all the more emotional pleadings of her other suitors. She had
+believed herself to be the first and only woman on whom he had expended
+even the smallest measure of love; and to be the object of so unique and
+chivalrous a devotion, had not been the least among her reasons for
+yielding to his solicitations.
+
+Ivor's insinuations, therefore, coming as they did, disturbed her more
+than she cared to realise, and awoke at once that latent suspicion and
+distrust that forms so pronounced a factor in the Russian character, and
+caused her to accept his words as positive and final evidence of
+Vladimir's perfidy and deceit. She never stopped to weigh his actions
+against Ivor's words; hers was not a nature of sufficiently generous
+tendencies to turn instinctively from ignominious slander; rather it
+leapt to conclusions, and from its own attributes pronounced its
+condemnatory sentence.
+
+In her eyes Vladimir Mellikoff had been tried and sentenced, with Ivor
+Tolskoi as judge and jury. She could never trust him again, and she
+would endeavour by every means in her power to unravel his past; holding
+the threads of it in her slender hand until the hour should come when
+she could wound deepest, and play with most sinister effect the part of
+Atropos. What though she stabbed her own heart as well with the sharp
+scissors of fate? She must bear that, and hers would be the satisfaction
+of beholding her victim's misery first.
+
+Meantime the Imperial procession flew swiftly along the boulevard,
+saluted on every side by the shouts of the populace, and the cries of
+the people: "Long live the Tsar! Long live our little father! Long live
+the Tsarina!" And the bells rang, and the sun shone, and all was gaiety,
+and mirth, and mocking optimism.
+
+The crimson blush that had dyed Olga's cheeks so deeply, as the meaning
+of Ivor's last words became clear to her, had faded and left them
+colourless when she again turned to him, and her voice had an additional
+ring of hardness when she next spoke.
+
+"My dear Ivor, we have, I think, always been sufficiently good friends
+for us not to doubt each other's sincerity of motive, even when we feel
+forced to speak upon subjects whose very nature precludes any
+possibility of agreeableness. I do not forget my very singular position
+in the world; alone as I am, though apparently protected by Imperial
+power, I owe obedience to no one in matters that concern myself alone.
+And it is because of this peculiar position that I am about to appeal to
+your friendship, or whatever sentiment does duty for that obsolete
+emotion, and beg you to be quite frank with me, and tell me all you can
+of Count Vladimir Mellikoff's past. Since, as rumour asserts, I am to
+become his wife, it certainly befits me to inform myself of his
+antecedents, in order that I may be a true and sustaining helpmate to
+him. Tell me, then, my dear Ivor, all you know, or all you will reveal
+concerning my cousin."
+
+There was something so finely bitter and yet so commanding in her voice,
+and she had subdued her countenance to such an expression of simple
+friendliness, Tolskoi looked at her with genuine admiration during the
+half-moment that elapsed before he answered her. When he did reply, it
+was scarcely in the way she anticipated.
+
+"Mdlle. Naundorff," he said, his cold, hard blue eyes studying her face
+intently, "you may remember that some weeks ago, when we spoke on this
+subject one evening at the Palace, you asked me a question, to which I
+gave you no answer. You asked me then what was my opinion as to the
+share of a certain woman--known as Count Stevan Lallovich's cast-off
+wife--in the murder of that same Count Stevan? I told you then I had no
+opinion upon the matter, and from that the conversation wandered to more
+personal matters. Mademoiselle, what I said then was not true. I had,
+and have, a very strong opinion as to the culprit, or culprits; but we
+will let that rest for the time being. Shall I continue? Are you
+interested sufficiently in this wretched woman's story to wish to hear
+more?"
+
+She replied by a quick and decisive gesture of her hand, and an almost
+inaudible, "Yes."
+
+Ivor smiled again, and drew the fur robe more closely about her,
+glancing keenly across towards Patouchki, who, however, was absorbed in
+conversation with the equerry and paid no attention to his companions;
+seeing which, Tolskoi continued:
+
+"Mademoiselle, that woman is now in Petersburg, and I have seen her.
+This is probably not such a matter of surprise to you as it is to--some
+other people; but when I tell you that Count Mellikoff's hurried journey
+to America was undertaken ostensibly to track, to find, and to arrest
+that woman, and that his continuing there is for the same reason, you
+will understand why my meeting with her here is pregnant with such grave
+complications."
+
+Olga was gazing at him earnestly, following his every word and gesture
+with her eyes; the violet iris had grown black and enlarged from
+suppressed excitement.
+
+"I will not go into the details, mademoiselle," Ivor went on, "of that
+unfortunate woman's wrongs, or the succession of cruel circumstances
+that led up to the murder of Count Stevan. Doubtless, she had a share
+and part in that murder; but hers was not the only brain that conceived
+the crime, or the only hand that struck the blow. There was a stronger
+and more important power behind; one who knew the terrible risk that was
+run in slaying a member of the Imperial blood, no matter how slight the
+consanguinity, and who had private ends to serve in seeing Count Stevan
+removed for ever from Imperial favour; one who, though hesitating to
+become a murderer in deed, did not hesitate to use this half frenzied
+woman as his accomplice and tool. Hers, indeed, should be the hand to
+hold the knife and strike the blow, but guided by a far more powerful
+coadjutor."
+
+Ivor stopped again, and again Olga motioned to him to continue, by the
+same quick movement of her hand.
+
+"There was but one man in Petersburg, mademoiselle, who could boast of
+any apparent intimacy with Count Stevan Lallovich, and who, if any one
+at any time, might have been his confidant. That man was Vladimir
+Mellikoff."
+
+Again he stopped, and Olga, without taking her eyes from his face, felt,
+as she gazed on its youthful freshness, a great and terrible wave of
+doubt and uncertainty rush up and over her, wrapping her round and
+round, and sweeping away all lesser sensations in this awful one of
+impending calamity; but such calamity as should break not only upon her,
+but on one whom she dared not name, and out of which she could see no
+lift of light or hope. Tolskoi's words had been too well chosen not to
+carry with them the significance he intended, and she felt their full
+force even as she realised their full meaning. She drew her tongue
+across her lips, and tried to smile in answer to the cold light in
+Ivor's blue eyes, but the effort was feeble and abortive.
+
+"Have you any more to tell me?" she asked at last, in a voice that was
+almost a whisper; "if so, continue, I beg. I find the story very
+interesting, and--instructive."
+
+Ivor replied by one of his coldest little laughs, and then resumed his
+narrative.
+
+"You, mademoiselle, were not in Petersburg when the murder was
+committed, the Court being then at Gatschina, consequently you could not
+know how great was the excitement here, or how freely Count Mellikoff
+mingled his regrets and desires for summary justice to be meted out to
+the criminal, with the public expressions heard on every side. No one
+had known Count Stevan better than he; and no one had a better right to
+mourn his untimely fate. Unfortunately, Count Vladimir had not been in
+Petersburg during the night of the murder, nor indeed for a day or two
+before; consequently, he could throw no light upon Stevan Lallovich's
+movements at that time, and his regrets could only take the more passive
+form of words. You will see therefore, mademoiselle, why, when the
+Government discovered that Count Stevan's repudiated wife had fled the
+country--aided and abetted by some powerful political friends--and was
+heard of in America, it took prompt and decisive measures for her
+capture. And who could have been better chosen for this work than Count
+Mellikoff, since he had been Stevan Lallovich's best friend? I must
+remind you here, mademoiselle, that my confidences must be held secret
+between you and me; I am, as it is, overstepping my boundaries in
+speaking thus frankly of the Government's share in this business; but I
+do so deliberately, and am willing to bear the consequences."
+
+"I shall be silent," replied Olga, simply, and Tolskoi continued:
+
+"You know, mademoiselle, how and when Count Mellikoff started on this
+mission, though at the time of his departure you little suspected it
+was in the interests of a woman that he undertook so long a journey. You
+knew only that there was work to be done on behalf of the Government,
+and that he had been selected for that work. It is now two months since
+he left Russia; granting him all necessary time for easy travelling and
+stoppages, he must have reached the United States close on to a month
+ago, which would leave him this last month to lay his train, if not to
+find the woman. I have said, mademoiselle, that this woman calling
+herself Adèle Lallovich, was assisted through Russia, and over the
+frontier, by the influence of some strong political agent, one whose
+word and whose name carried the weight of coercion. Very well, this
+happened early in December; in January Count Vladimir leaves Petersburg,
+and reaches America early in February. A month goes by, and within the
+first week of March I meet Adèle Lallovich face to face here. Ah, I see
+you have followed my reasoning. The same powerful influence that got her
+out of Russia, when danger menaced her here, has now sent her back to
+Petersburg, where she is for the time being more secure from arrest than
+in the States. And the brain and the hand that have twice protected and
+saved her--a fugitive from justice--are the same brain and hand that
+planned and executed Count Stevan's murder, and that used _her_ as their
+instrument. I think, mademoiselle, that Count Mellikoff will somewhat
+disappoint the expectations and shake the confidence of his Government,
+when he returns without any definite intelligence or any important
+information regarding the movements and condition of Adèle Lallovich."
+
+Olga heard him throughout without word or sign, though not one detail of
+the terrible suspicion he so boldly advanced was lost upon her. Slowly
+but surely she followed his every gesture, his every sentence, never
+taking her eyes that had grown so strangely dark from his face. Every
+vestige of colour ebbed from her cheeks and lips, leaving her face white
+as alabaster beneath the dark furs of her close cap; a waving ripple of
+golden-lighted hair seemed the only sentient thing about her. She spoke
+at last, and her voice had a faint far-away echo in its whisper.
+
+"What you would suggest, Ivor, is horrible, unnatural. What could be the
+motive for such a crime, and such a shielding of the criminal? If, as
+you say, it were possible for one brain to plot and plan it all, and
+another to fulfil it, still where would be the object, what would be the
+motive? I know whom it is you suspect, but his motive, Ivor, his
+motive?"
+
+She bent forward eagerly, clasping her hands and looking into the very
+depths of his eyes. Ivor Tolskoi saw his advantage, and pressed it home.
+His opportunity had come, he was not one to lose it for lack of courage
+to deal one more swift sure blow. Meeting Olga's strained violet eyes
+with his, in which the steel-blue light flamed out, he said slowly and
+with distinct emphasis:
+
+"Adèle Lamien, or Lallovich, is a rarely beautiful woman, Olga, and
+beauty such as hers is a dangerous attribute. Count Mellikoff is a
+worshipper of woman's loveliness, and the story goes that when Adèle
+Lamien became the wife of Stevan Lallovich, she cast off a former lover
+whose chains had begun to gall. Who that lover was, Olga, I leave to
+your imagination. But when Stevan Lallovich repudiated and threw aside
+the woman, and an Imperial ukase released him from his obligations, is
+it unlikely that she sought her former friend and protector, or that he,
+maddened by her beauty and her wrongs, determined to avenge them?
+
+"That is the story, mademoiselle, and you now know why I swore to you
+that sooner than see you Vladimir Mellikoff's wife I would kill him with
+my own hand."
+
+But Olga made no reply. Silent, impassive, stricken through and through,
+she sat with blanched face and tightly clasped hands; and the sun shone,
+and the bells rang, and the populace shouted: "Long live the Tsar! Long
+live our little father!" but she neither saw nor heard any of it. All
+her heart and soul were in revolt and turmoil; all she had trusted to
+had gone down before her eyes, she was shipwrecked upon an ocean of
+deception and despair.
+
+Presently the shouts and cries grew fainter, and the horses slackened
+speed as they turned into the Palace gates and were drawn up sharply at
+the side entrance, out of which she had passed so long ago--was it
+months or years, or alas! only hours? Should she ever again know what it
+was to feel light-hearted and joyous? Would this terrible burden of
+knowledge ever be lifted from her heart?
+
+Ivor Tolskoi sprang down even as the threshold was reached and put out
+his arm to help her; she barely touched it with her gloved hand, and
+passed by him with but one burning look from her haunted eyes. For days
+after, the light pressure of her fingers rested there like iron, and the
+misery of her glance accompanied him as that of a lost spirit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MIMI'S BIRTHDAY POSY.
+
+
+George Newbold's birthday fell within the first week of May, and
+certainly no more ideal spring morning could have dawned than that which
+Esther had set apart to be especially celebrated in honour of her
+spouse.
+
+Mr. Newbold should, indeed, for the fitness of things, have been a young
+and blooming maiden--rather than a man verging towards middle age, and
+more or less disillusionised--to correspond with the rare loveliness and
+freshness of creation, that sprang afresh to life as Aurora, with
+blushing finger-tips, drew back the curtains of the night, and ushered
+in the roseate dawn. Even as the surroundings belonged more to that
+"garden of fair delights," consecrated by the Egyptians to Daphne, into
+which naught but harmony and sensuous peace and pleasure was allowed to
+enter, rather than to
+
+              "This live, throbbing age,
+    That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires,
+    And spends more passion, more heroic heat,
+    Between the mirrors of its drawing-rooms
+    Than Roland with his knights at Roncevalles."
+
+But Nature is ever prodigal and unreasoning; she stops not to consider
+on whom to spend her largesse, she has no calculation in her giving, and
+she seeks no return, since, with her keen perceptiveness, she knows we
+mortals possess nothing of our own, no gift of jewel or of price, of
+intellect or of beauty, that can compare with the least of those
+benefits she pours with such lavish hand upon us.
+
+Does not all creation join with the angelic choirs to hymn her praises?
+What song of mortal measure, sung by mortal tongue, can equal in
+strength and melody that heavenly canticle? Nay, let us stand rather
+with bowed head and reverent mien, lifting our hearts in silent ecstasy,
+thankful if we may so much as catch a distant echo of those "divine
+praises," borne to us maybe on the wings of the far west wind; or a
+reflection of the golden glory of that paradise, ensnared in the
+luminous fragility of a sunset cloud.
+
+It is all we can hope for on this lower earth, and who of us dare count
+on ever realising the terrible sublimity, the awful purity, of "the
+beatific vision"?
+
+It was very early in the morning when little Marianne came running down
+the broad terrace steps, and stood alone amidst the varied riches of
+Esther's flower garden. Her sunny hair was all unbound, and lay upon her
+shoulders and about her forehead, still damp from the morning's bath,
+glistening like threads of gold washed in a wavelet of sunshine. Her
+white frock glanced in and out against the tender background of early
+green foliage, as she ran from flower to flower, plucking here a
+blossom, and there a bud, studying each attentively before adding them
+to the bouquet in her hand, with the gravity of childhood, which invests
+every action with a separate importance.
+
+And as she flew about rejoicing, as only children and animals can
+rejoice, in the mere pleasure of being, she sang from time to time the
+rhyming measure of a nursery song, which fell unheeded from her lips,
+and that had no sense or meaning, but sprang as spontaneously from her
+heart as did the song of the little brown thrush, who was pouring out
+his weight of thanksgiving, with such overwhelming rapture as to shake
+his very soul, and cause the quivering cat-kin on which he perched to
+bend and sway beneath its vibrations.
+
+The windows of the Folly were still closed and curtained. Its inmates
+were as yet scarce turning on their couches of down, or realising that
+another day had begun for them, another day opened out full of sublime
+opportunities for good or evil. With the passing of another hour they
+would perforce be roused from their dreams by the inevitable early cup
+of tea, without which species of dram-drinking no woman of fashion can
+support the fatigues of her toilette, or the embarrassments of the
+morning post. But that is sixty minutes off yet--sixty long
+minutes--three thousand, six hundred seconds--and in the meantime,
+before the inevitable overtakes us, let us follow the preacher's advice
+and make the most of it. "Yet a little more sleep, and a little more
+slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep."
+
+Time enough to take up the burden of living when that burden is
+ruthlessly thrust upon us, and we bow our shoulders with accustomed
+habit to receive its weight.
+
+But little Marianne entertained no such pessimistic views; to her the
+joy of life was simply in the act of living, and its triumph in escaping
+from the tyranny of Sarah, and being absolutely free to tear her frock
+or rumple her golden hair without the visible personality of that
+Nemesis. Presently Trim, her beloved Skye terrier, came leaping out to
+her as fast as his very short legs and corpulent body would allow him to
+travel; and then began a series of romps in which it was difficult to
+say which took the most satisfaction--the dog or the child. Trim,
+however, was the first to give up and retire on his laurels, selecting a
+particularly green spot of turf beneath a lilac-tree in full bloom, and
+after solemnly turning round and round in an unsuccessful race with his
+own tail, settled himself comfortably thereon, and with the tip of his
+red tongue showing between his teeth, watched the child with a benign
+and patronising expression. Marianne, thus deserted, returned to her
+flower-gathering, apostrophising Trim as she did so.
+
+"You are a lazy dog, Trim. I'm 'shamed of you! It's perfectly redic'lous
+your pretending to be tired; you can't be; it's only putting on shapes,
+just as Miss Dick says, and shapes isn't very nice manners in such a wee
+little doggie as you!"
+
+Trim snapped at an intruding fly, and yawned for answer, then settled
+his nose on his paws and went to sleep, and Marianne, thus left
+companionless, grew a little weary of solitude.
+
+"I guess I've got enough flowers now for Popsey's buffday," she said,
+regarding critically the glowing mass of blossoms held very tightly in
+her hot little hand. "I guess I'll go in and put 'em on his
+dressing-table, and cry 'boo' very loud in his ear. Then he'll have to
+get up!"
+
+And fired with this most laudable device, Mimi trotted away very fast,
+without so much as a backward look at the recreant Trim. Little recked
+George Newbold of the awful fate in store for him at the hands, or
+rather in the shrill voice of his small daughter! But surely, could he
+have foreseen her advent in the character of a red Indian, he would
+have devoutly thanked chance for his timely delivery.
+
+As Marianne tripped along, a dark shadow fell suddenly across her path
+and stopped her further advance. Pushing back the fringe of golden hair,
+that fell almost into her sapphire blue eyes, the child halted and
+looked up a little bewildered.
+
+It was Vladimir Mellikoff who stood before her, looking very tall and
+dark against the brilliant green of the sun-swept lawn behind him. The
+child gazed up at him gravely and without speaking. This was not a
+familiar figure in her little world; she would have greeted Jack Howard,
+or Freddy Wylde, or even old Sir Piers Tracey with her accustomed quaint
+mingling of condescension and intimacy; but this tall, dark stranger,
+with his sombre face and deep black eyes, was unknown to her, and
+because unknown was not to be put on the same footing with her old
+companions.
+
+However, Esther Newbold's small daughter was sufficiently a little
+worldling in training to recognise in this stranger one of "papa's men,"
+as she called them, classifying all unknown masculine visitors under one
+head; she did not, therefore, run away, but stood quietly silent, her
+eyes raised frankly to his, and the sunlight turning to living gold each
+tendril of her fair hair.
+
+Vladimir Mellikoff could be very gentle and winning to children; they
+touched that inner chord of tenderness that vibrated so passionately to
+Olga Naundorff's lightest word, and something in the fair child's face,
+with its deep blue eyes, recalled to him that other proud Russian face,
+with the violet eyes and scornful, curved lips. He bent down and spoke
+to Mimi in his softest voice.
+
+"You are little Marianne, are you not?" he said.
+
+"I am Marianne Newbold," replied the child, with grave directness.
+
+"I wonder if you could say my name," continued Mellikoff, persuasively.
+"It is not so pretty as yours, but then I am a man, you see."
+
+"Men's is never so pitty," remarked the child, didactically. "What is
+your name?"
+
+"Vladimir," replied Count Mellikoff, gravely, and repeating each
+syllable distinctly: "Vla--di--mir. Do you think you can say it? Try."
+
+But Marianne shook her golden mane in positive negation.
+
+"I couldn't," she said, "not possibly. But I'll call you Mr. Val, if you
+like; it's pittier than your real name."
+
+"Very well, then, Mr. Val it shall be," answered the Count, smiling
+broadly at the very English sobriquet bestowed upon him. "Who have you
+been gathering all those flowers for?"
+
+"They's for my Popsey; it's his buffday. Do you know how old he is, Mr.
+Val? I guess he must be most a hundred."
+
+To which Mr. Val replied with a laugh; but Marianne was no whit
+abashed.
+
+"I think so," she went on, seating herself on a low garden bench that
+stood under a spreading ash-tree, and beginning to sort out the flowers
+as they lay upon her lap. "I think so, 'cause he's got so many grey
+hairs, more than I can count. When I was a _little_ girl"--with great
+disdain--"I used to pull 'em out, till Sarah said ten new ones came to
+each old one's funeral. Then I asked Lammy the other day if she thought
+Popsey was nearly a hundred; but she only laughed. Does you know Lammy,
+Mr. Val?" she queried, abruptly.
+
+"Oh, but that isn't a real name, you know," protested Vladimir,
+diplomatically; "that might be any creature's name--a dog's, or a
+cat's."
+
+"Oh, no, it couldn't," cried the child, eagerly, "'cause it's a
+person's--a grown up's, you see. It isn't her very own, own name; but
+that's too long, so I just calls her Lammy."
+
+"And what is her very own own name?" asked Mellikoff, idly, taking up a
+large white marguerite from Mimi's store, and carelessly stripping off
+its petals, his mind unconsciously repeating the old formula, "she loves
+me--she loves me not." The child's voice fell with startling
+distinctness across the morning stillness, and shattered Vladimir's
+sentiment with a straight, keen blow.
+
+"Her very own name," said Marianne, slowly, and taking great pains with
+her syllables, "is Mademoiselle Lamien--Mademoiselle Adèle Lamien."
+
+The stripped daisy-head fell from Count Mellikoff's fingers, and lay at
+his feet amidst its snow-flake petals unheeded. He started violently at
+this positive answer to his negligent question, and the blood rushed for
+one moment to his face. He, who was never known to show emotion even
+when confronting death, trembled now before the unconscious words of a
+little child. His dark eyes seemed to grow larger in their hollow
+settings, the fine veins about his temples throbbed visibly.
+
+Mimi, however, was ignorant of the agitation she had awakened; her
+golden head was bent over her flowers, while with one little foot she
+kept off the repentant Trim, who, having awakened from his slumbers, was
+endeavouring with slavish abjection to reinstate himself in his little
+mistress's favour.
+
+When Count Mellikoff next spoke, any one save a child would have noticed
+the forced lightness of his voice; as it was, even Mimi looked up
+surprised by the change in it.
+
+"And is it, then, Mademoiselle Lamien--Adèle Lamien--that you call by
+the _petit-nom_ of Lammy?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied the child, a little startled and impressed by his manner.
+"Mumsey calls her Mam'zelle Lamien; but I don't--not always--I call her
+Lammy. Is you sorry? Why does your eyes look so black?"
+
+"Do they look black, Marianne?" Mellikoff asked, stupidly; then
+recovering himself with a laugh, and returning to his old manner: "No,
+I am not sorry. Why should I be? I've never seen your Mademoiselle
+Lamien."
+
+"She's gone away," answered the child, quickly. "She had to; she said
+she must, 'cause she and Miss Hildreth couldn't possibly be here
+together.' But when I asked Mumsey about it, she only said: 'Nonsense,
+and don't bother.'"
+
+"And has she been a long time with you?" asked Vladimir, putting the
+question indifferently.
+
+Mimi shook all her golden curls. "Not _very_ long; she came on Sarah's
+buffday, and that isn't very long ago."
+
+"But _how_ long?" queried Mellikoff. "A month, a year, a week? Try and
+think, Mimi; was it one Sunday ago, or two, or three? You know when
+Sunday comes, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," replied the child, "it's the day after Saturday, and I always
+have my best pudding for dinner. What's your best pudding, Mr. Val?"
+
+But Mr. Val was spared answering this embarrassing question by the
+advent of Sarah, who bore down upon them, her cap-strings flying, and
+whisked Marianne off, in a whirlwind of yellow hair and white
+petticoats, before he could even protest. She waved one little hand to
+him as she tripped away, holding on to her flowers with the other, and
+Trim barking at her heels; then the terrace door closed upon them, and
+Vladimir was left alone.
+
+Mechanically he stooped and picked up one of the stray blossoms that had
+fallen from Mimi's lap; he turned it idly in his fingers, looking at it
+with unseeing eyes, while his busy brain went on thinking, planning,
+scheming.
+
+Was he wrong after all? Had she escaped him; nay, had she ever been here
+at all? Why had she gone away? When would she come back? How could he
+piece out his welcome a little longer at the Folly? Was he altogether
+wrong in his suspicions? Had the woman tricked him again; fighting him
+with his own weapons, had she out-matched him and escaped?
+
+And thus, as he stood lost in his self-questionings--a sombre, dark
+figure in the glowing beauty and sunlight of the fair May morning,
+twisting the drooping flower round and round in his fingers, and the
+song of the birds echoing ceaselessly in his ears--a sudden light broke
+over the gloom of his countenance, a half-formed exclamation rose to his
+lips; he dropped the flower suddenly, and took a step forward.
+
+"No, I am not wrong," he said, in answer to himself. "Let Adèle Lamien
+beware, or I may turn her own arms against her." Then he turned abruptly
+and walked towards the house; and only the sunshine, and the birds, and
+Mimi's faded blossoms remained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+"'TIS A SIREN."
+
+
+And so the long golden morning hours rolled on, and the garden remained
+untenanted. The sweet spring flowers--than which none are more beautiful
+and fragrant, because so redolent of promise--wasted their perfume on
+the gentle breezes that swayed their yielding blossoms; the birds' song
+grew hushed and lapsed into silence as the repose of noontide settled
+down upon them.
+
+The sun fell in straight, level rays that were warm with a foretaste of
+tropical heat; far away in the distance a faint silver line marked the
+sea's limits, across which now and then a white sail flashed and was
+gone. All nature lay hushed and stilled in that strange peace that
+comes at the day's meridian, when the only sounds are those of the
+under-world, the drowsy humming of an early humble-bee, the impatient
+buzzing of a giant-fly, the bu-bu of multitudinous insects, the
+chip-chip of the grasshopper, broken sharply across by the monotonous
+hammer of the woodpecker.
+
+Within the Folly all the lower rooms were alike deserted, not a ripple
+of laughter or an echo of voices was to be heard; even the billiard hall
+was void, the men, in the absence of the feminine element, having taken
+themselves off to the stables, or down to the club-house, where lay the
+yachts moored in harbour, curtsying gracefully to each succeeding
+wavelet as it broke against the sharp outline of stem or stern.
+
+But up in Mrs. Newbold's boudoir however, there were life and action
+enough and to spare, for here were gathered Esther and her women guests,
+while each pair of feminine lips were eager to contribute their share
+to the general conversation.
+
+Patricia Hildreth lay full length upon a couch pulled close to the
+hearth, on which a fire of fragrant hemlock burned, in mockery of the
+open window and in defiance of the dancing sunbeams. Miss Hildreth was
+in all things luxurious, and revelled with almost barbaric delight in
+warmth of atmosphere and colour.
+
+Her slight but perfect figure was wrapped in a long loose cashmere robe
+of softest azure, about which the dark bands of Russian sables swept in
+classic lines, nestling closely about the firm white throat with
+caressing touch, and falling back from the white arms and rounded
+wrists. In her hand she held a dainty vellum-bound book, a collection of
+sonnets much in vogue, and from which she read aloud at intervals some
+special _jeu d'esprit_.
+
+At her feet, on a low, luxurious pile of cushions, sat Dick Darling,
+doing nothing, her hands clasped around her knees, her eyes feasting,
+in true hero-worship, on the face of her divinity.
+
+Before a large Psyche-glass stood Baby Leonard, absorbed in a row of
+suggestive little porcelain pots, and breathlessly engaged in the
+exciting process of "making up" in daylight, _à propos_ of the evening's
+requirements.
+
+Esther was resting in a lounging-chair with Mimi on her lap, the golden
+curls falling about the pretty face bent down over a new picture-book;
+and at the open window, on a low ottoman, sat Miss James, her hands
+clasped idly upon her lap, her thin face pale and tired, her dark,
+restless eyes fixed intently upon Miss Hildreth. Something in the
+attitude bespoke mental depression and dread, that even the alert
+watching of eyes and mouth could not disguise.
+
+Dick's glib tongue had been running on aimlessly from topic to topic,
+taking in a wide range of subjects, from the races at Jerome Park, to
+the coming international yacht contest for the America Cup; and though
+the remarks of her auditors were few and far between, Dick was perfectly
+contented and asked nothing better than to listen to the sound of her
+own voice.
+
+She was interrupted before long, however, by Miss James's sharp and
+rather high voice addressing no one in particular:
+
+"Dick is certainly a living personation of Tennyson's 'Brook,' isn't
+she? 'for men may come, and men may go, but she goes on for ever!'"
+
+To which Dick, arrested in mid-career, retorted sharply: "I can't say
+that I see any men about anywhere, either coming or going. The wish must
+be first cousin to Rosalie's thought. Good gracious, Baby! how much more
+rouge do you mean to annex? You're blushing like a peony now, and one
+eyebrow is half a mile longer than the other. You make me think of Jack
+Howard's story of Miss Grantham, the American beauty of London, you
+know."
+
+"No, we _don't_ know," broke in Esther, languidly; "perhaps you'll be so
+good as to enlighten us."
+
+"_Town Optics_ cribbed it from him," continued Dick, once more in her
+element, "and positively quoted it as true. It appears some magnificent
+masher asked Cecilia Grantham if she didn't find her abnormally long
+eye-lashes rather inconvenient at times? To which Cis replied, smiling
+sweetly, 'Why, certainly; I am always obliged to have them borne in
+front of me when I go upstairs, for fear I shall trip upon them!' And
+will you believe me," went on Miss Darling, when the laugh evoked had
+died out, "that brainless masher has gone about ever since getting it
+off as a double extra specimen of American repartee, and all the time it
+never took place at all except in Jack Howard's budding intellect. I
+think _Town Optics_ owes him one for that."
+
+"I can cap your story by a better, Dick," retorted Esther, rousing
+herself and sitting up very straight, "and mine is absolutely true, for
+it happened to George's sister, when she was in London, oh, ever so long
+ago, before the war."
+
+"Ancient history!" groaned Miss Darling, resignedly. "Drive ahead,
+Esther, only you are awfully behind the age."
+
+"A story's a story, no matter when it happened," replied Mrs. Newbold, a
+little confused in her grammar, "and you are not obliged to listen,
+Dick."
+
+"Oh, yes, but I shall," remarked that young person--"listen and
+remember, and get it off with effect as first-hand, at my next big
+spread. Go on, Esther, do, like a daisy."
+
+"Well, you must know, my dears, that George's sister was a very pretty
+girl----"
+
+"Oh!" interpolated Miss Darling, making tragic efforts to control her
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes, very pretty," went on Esther, severely, "and when she was in
+London she was presented at Court, and went out a great deal, and that's
+when old Sir Piers first saw her and wanted to make her Lady Tracey."
+
+"For her sins! I am sure there could be no other reason for such a
+punishment," again interjected Miss Darling, piously.
+
+"Ah, but Sir Piers was a gay young baronet in those days," said Esther,
+with decision. "_Any_ girl might have hesitated before she gave him his
+_congé_. However, that's neither here nor there. Margaret Newbold was a
+very great favourite; and one evening, at a big dinner party at a
+tremendously swell house, she was given a proportionately great grandee
+as a cavalier. This very high-bred personage began by staring at her, up
+and down and round and about, through his eye-glasses and over them; and
+when he found this was not in the least discomposing to the young woman,
+but that she talked on glibly to her left-hand neighbour, he gave a
+loud 'ahem!' and said, so that all the company might hear:
+'Ah--miss--ah--I perceive, though you are an American, you speak English
+quite fluently--ah----' Margaret eyed him for a moment over the rim of
+her wine-glass, and then replied, with calm distinctness and an air of
+inward satisfaction: 'Well--yes--ah--Mr.--I do. You see, the missionary
+who converted our tribe was an Englishman, and he taught us the
+language.' Then she went on eating her fish, quite undisturbed by the
+shouts of laughter that went up at the expense of her unfortunate
+questioner."
+
+"Served him right, too," cried Miss Darling, indignantly. "I never heard
+of anything so caddish. We might just as well ask, in an off-hand,
+jovial kind of a way, if it's because they have so many H's lying round
+loose, that they forget to pick 'em up and use 'em in the right places!
+And one might suppose so, you know, with reason, judging from some of
+the specimens we get over here."
+
+"It's very trying," broke in Baby Leonard, plaintively; "I _can't_ get
+both sides of my face to look alike, and this _crème impératrice_ is so
+sticky! What shall I do?"
+
+"Leave it all alone," cried Miss Darling, brusquely. "You can't improve
+on nature, Baby--it's no use! 'Bad's the best,' as my old mammy-nurse
+used to say. You won't make your eyes any the larger or prettier by
+painting them a distinct violet, and your mouth's a far better shape
+left to its own lines; you can't make a Cupid's bow out of it, try as
+you may."
+
+"Only listen to Dick the virtuous!" laughed Esther. "She positively
+waxes eloquent on the shams of the hour, and is developing a soul above
+frivolities! We shall have her quoting Carlyle next; or, stay, I know
+what it will be. What's that sentimental couplet, Dick, tucked carefully
+away beneath your pot of 'cherry-lip,' in your new silver-mounted
+_toilette des ongles_? Is this the way it runs:
+
+    'Why send me to this little girl?
+      Sure such a gift were silly!
+    Can I add lustre to the pearl,
+      Or paint the gilded lily?'"
+
+"Oh, Esther, you're a brute!" cried poor Dick, the tears actually in her
+eyes, her cheeks very red. "How could you? It's only--only some stupid
+little lines about a still more stupid joke. They don't mean _me_ at
+all."
+
+"And then, fancy Dick being compared to a pearl, and a lily--a painted
+lily!" exclaimed Miss James, in her most disagreeable voice, and with a
+slow smile creeping over her face.
+
+"Oh, Esther, how could you!" cried poor Dick again; but Mrs. Newbold
+only laughed.
+
+"Don't be cynical and fault-finding, then, my dear Dick," she said,
+quietly, drawing one of Mimi's golden curls through her fingers; "it
+doesn't suit you, my dear, nor your little round, brown, winsome face."
+
+"Since poetry seems to be the order of the day, listen to this," broke
+in Miss Hildreth, in her clear musical voice, and lifting her eyes from
+the tiny vellum book she held:
+
+    "'Near my bed, there, hangs the picture jewels would not buy from me.
+    'Tis a siren, a brown siren,
+    Playing on a lute of amber by the margin of a sea.
+
+    "In the hushes of the midnight, when the heliotropes grow strong
+    With the dampness, I hear music--hear a quiet, plaintive song--
+    A most sad, melodious utterance, as of some immortal wrong.
+
+    "Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a soul that pleads in vain,
+    Of a damnèd soul repentant, that would fain be pure again!
+    And I lie awake and listen to the music of her pain.
+
+    "And whence comes this mournful music? Whence, unless it chance to be
+    From the siren, the brown siren,
+    Playing on her lute of amber by the margin of a sea?'"
+
+Silence fell upon the little group as Patricia's voice died away. For a
+moment all were held by the spell of the poet's words, with their deep
+undernote of passionate protest. The present faded out of the line of
+mental vision, replaced by the past, within whose mystery of silence,
+somewhere a great wrong lay hidden, and unappeased.
+
+Had the poet known of it, in all its details, and kept inviolate this
+secret of another's existence, or had he only guessed at its outlines,
+fearing to fill in the lights and shadows, lest imagination should fall
+short of reality?
+
+So vivid, indeed, was the impression produced, it seemed only a
+continuation of the tragedy when Miss Hildreth spoke again, slowly and
+without any apparent reason, save inward impulse.
+
+"I have known one such woman once, to whom all life and all time was but
+the cry of 'a damnèd soul,' crying out ceaselessly against 'an immortal
+wrong.' Did our poet know her story, I wonder, when he wrote of his
+'brown siren'? But no; this poor soul has had no one to sing out her
+wrongs, or open up the story of the treachery that blasted her life.
+Alone she has had to bear her burden, and alone she must bear it to the
+very end."
+
+As Miss Hildreth spoke, Dick Darling crept close to her side, and knelt
+there, listening eagerly, with quick-coming breath, to the disjointed
+sentences. In the deep interest of the moment no one looked towards the
+window where sat Rosalie James, or noticed the intense nervous restraint
+she was exercising. Her face was absolutely colourless; her hands
+pressed so hard one upon the other that they left blue marks upon the
+soft flesh; her eyes were strained and feverish; she bent forward in an
+alert, expectant attitude, as of one awaiting, yet not certain of, some
+preconceived revelation. At the Psyche-mirror sat Baby Leonard, still
+placidly trying one artistic preparation after another, and totally
+oblivious to the tense atmosphere of suppressed excitement about her.
+
+"And who was she? Is she alive?" asked Dick, her whisper catching up
+Miss Hildreth's falling inflection, and sustaining the interest of the
+moment. "Who was she? Is she alive? Where did you know her?"
+
+"Yes, she is alive; oh, yes, indeed, she is alive," answered Patricia,
+still in a retrospective tone; "and I knew her in Petersburg when I was
+last there--such a little time ago, as it seems now."
+
+"Was she beautiful?" Again it was Dick's voice that asked, and
+Patricia's that replied.
+
+"She was very beautiful--so beautiful that no one could withstand her
+loveliness. And her beauty became her curse; ah, what a curse, since it
+attracted the attention of one so high above her that his lightest
+regard was an insult! What but bitter wrong and crime could be the
+outcome of a love proffered by a scion of the Imperial house to a woman
+of the people? Beauty is a grand leveller, it is true, but it cannot
+level the iron hand and cruel laws of Russia. It was the old story--the
+old, old, pitiful story--that comes to every woman once in her
+lifetime, and that each woman translates as best suits her desires--the
+story that makes a heaven upon earth, a paradise within our hearts."
+
+Again the musical tones died away in a sigh of regret, and again Dick
+cried out in her quick, absorbed whisper:
+
+"Is there any more to tell? What happened? What was the end?"
+
+"What any woman might have looked for, save a woman blinded by love, and
+a man absorbed by passion. They lived in a fool's paradise for an all
+too brief space, and then, before the golden sheen had fallen from their
+vision, while the woman still played with fate and the man toyed with
+destiny, the blow fell--sudden, sharp, omnipotent, as is the nature of
+Russia's potency. Taken away from his very arms, her marriage annulled
+by Imperial ukase, her life ruined, her soul lost in a whirlwind of
+injustice and despair, what wonder that her woman's nature revolted, and
+that throwing aside the narrower swathing bands of law and
+conventionality, she stood forth, bold and free and savage, and struck
+down her craven lover in the very zenith of his manhood, with a hand
+that never faltered, as it drove home the steel to his very heart?"
+
+Miss Hildreth had grown strangely excited as she told the tragic story;
+she rose up now and stood at her full height, the clinging cashmeres
+marking every line and curve of her beautiful form; her face was pale as
+death, and beneath her dark brows her eyes gleamed with their old
+dangerous fire; she lifted her hands and brought them together before
+her, throwing them out palm upwards in passionate protest; her voice was
+low and concentrated, vibrating with intolerance.
+
+"And I who tell you this," she continued, "I speak as only one can who
+has looked upon such suffering as hers; who has beheld the soul drink to
+the very dregs of the cup of renunciation, despair, desertion; seen it
+touch the very heights and depths of mental anguish, and wandered with
+it so far in the paths of darkness that even crime seemed but justice,
+if it would in any way balance the debt of honour."
+
+She faltered suddenly, and turning with quick impetuosity, sank back
+upon the couch, her light mocking laugh ringing out discordantly as she
+concluded.
+
+"Was I not right, Dick? The poet must have known this story to write so
+tellingly of an 'immortal wrong, and of a soul repentant longing to be
+pure again.'"
+
+Miss Darling had started back when Patricia had arisen, and though she
+remained kneeling, her eyes never left the other's face. Across the
+room, in the full warm glow of the noontide sun, Miss James sat
+shivering, but watching ever and always with the same look of
+expectancy, and yet of certainty, on her face.
+
+As Miss Hildreth's little laugh struck so harshly across the compressed
+emotion of the moment, and made, as it were, a half-bar of discord in
+the tragic score, Dick Darling shuddered, and put out her hand, as
+though to ward off some impending danger.
+
+"Don't," she cried, her brown face paling and flushing alternatively,
+"don't laugh in that dreadful way; oh, Miss Hildreth, it hurts me!" She
+crept a little nearer to her and laid one hand on the pale blue
+draperies. "That is not all, not all of the story, it cannot be all.
+Tell me the rest of it. Tell me her name!"
+
+Dick's whisper was imperative, imperious, and Miss Hildreth, fingering
+nervously the vellum-covered volume, felt the force of the girl's candid
+eyes, and honest, earnest gaze.
+
+"Her name"--she said, slowly and hesitatingly--"her name----"
+
+But before she could complete her sentence Esther started up, putting
+Marianne hastily down, and came towards her.
+
+"You have said quite enough," she exclaimed, excitedly. "Patty, Patty,
+let me beg you to be careful."
+
+As she spoke, the door behind the swinging _portières_ opened slightly,
+unperceived by any one except Miss James, over whose face the same
+sneering smile crept out again. Miss Hildreth looked up at Mrs. Newbold
+with defiance in her eyes and on her lips.
+
+"My dear Esther, surely you are a little too dramatic. Why should not I
+gratify Miss Dick's romantic inquisitiveness? Her name--the name of this
+woman--was--is--well, let us call it Adèle Lallovich."
+
+As she uttered the words clearly and distinctly, the _portières_ were
+pushed hastily aside, and George Newbold's voice preceded himself in
+person, exclaiming:
+
+"May we come in, my dear? We are bored to the verge of insanity."
+
+And crossing the threshold he held back the curtains, and Vladimir
+Mellikoff stepped into their midst. As he did so a sudden quick sigh
+broke from Miss James, she got up hastily and passing down the room met
+his cool impenetrable glance with the slightest possible recognition,
+and upward gesture of her hand. He stepped forward to open the door for
+her, and when it closed upon her and he returned to the little group, a
+keen observer might have noticed a slight increase in the brilliancy of
+his eyes, a touch of triumph in the smile with which he bent over Miss
+Hildreth's hand, held out in greeting to him.
+
+Patricia's face, however, looked cold and hard; and the line of dark fur
+lay about her white throat like the shadow of a coming calamity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE CANKER WORM OF DOUBT.
+
+
+Mr. Tremain did not again see Miss Hildreth after she left him standing
+by the fountain in the little wood, until they met in the green-room an
+hour before the play.
+
+She had gone from him then with scorn and anger in her words, and with
+scorn and defiance in her heart; she met him now with cold and
+indifferent hauteur, amounting almost to insolence.
+
+Philip had stood for a long time alone beside the marble boy Narcissus,
+revolving moodily the sharp home truths she had thrust upon him. He did
+not forget one curl of her lip, one flash of her eyes, one inflection
+of her clear voice, as she flung back the love he offered; flung it back
+with bitter disdain and contempt. And yet, curiously enough, he was not
+angry with her; there was no such positive element in his feelings as
+that; he seemed to himself to hold, as it were, an outsider's position,
+and to look on and judge her from an outsider's point of view.
+
+Was it her own complete indifferentism, her absolute disbelief in the
+ordinary delusions of life, her cynical acceptance of the contradictions
+of destiny, together with her sudden outburst of passionate derision,
+that had produced in him this state of cool analysis and judicial
+judgment?
+
+He had pleaded his love fervently enough under the glamour of the
+moonlight and her loveliness, and he had meant what he said then; he
+would gladly have taken her in his arms, and given his answer to her
+letter in a fond and foolish lover's way; but--and here lay the
+difficulty--she must return to him as she had gone from him, the same
+yielding, loving, believing, if wilful Patty; he could accept no other;
+no new Patricia, no woman whose eyes spoke of the fires of conflict,
+whose face had that written upon it which tells of the lower depths of
+mental pain and struggle.
+
+For Philip, as we know, was above all things, masterful, and his idea of
+dual happiness was autocratic rather than constitutional; he would share
+no divided throne and sceptre, even with the woman of his heart; he must
+reign, and he alone, and she must be the empire over which he ruled
+unquestioningly.
+
+All this had been in his heart, though unspoken, when he pleaded with
+her to return to their old relations, and, unconsciously, perhaps, there
+was an echo of his despotism even in his tenderest words. However that
+may have been, Patricia would have none of it. She was not to be won by
+pity when passion had failed.
+
+And so it was that as she stood tall and beautiful before him, with her
+rich white draperies clinging about her in sensuous lines and curves,
+her face pale with suppressed emotion, her eyes dark with endurance, she
+tossed back his proffered gift, his reawakened love--a love that would
+share no rights and no prerogatives--and, with the fine irony of a woman
+who sees her advantage and presses it, thrust back and away from her all
+appeal from out the past, touched though it was with the pure gold of
+that time when love and youth, belief and trust, went hand in hand
+together.
+
+Even yet, then, after ten long years of experience and knowledge, Philip
+could not read her heart aright. And she, should she forgive him? Give
+up the unequal game, lay down her arms, acknowledge herself vanquished,
+and creep timidly back into his embrace, repentant and abject, meek and
+thankful?
+
+Then she looked at Philip's face, calm and quiet and victorious, with
+just a touch of wearied assurance in its smile, and her heart leapt up
+again in sudden protest and passion. No, she would not yield, she would
+never yield until she saw him suffering, through a woman, some portion
+of the pain and humiliation he had inflicted upon her. Then, when
+expiation brought forth the fruit of atonement, why then--ah, then Miss
+Hildreth would reconsider.
+
+It was Miss Rosalie James who first introduced the canker of doubt in
+Philip's mind concerning Patricia, of suspicion regarding her past.
+
+It had never occurred to him to speculate upon the possible experiences
+and circumstances which must have made up the ten years of their
+separation.
+
+Miss Hildreth had passed the greater part of that time abroad, and his
+news of her had not only been meagre but nil, for after the first few
+weeks of her absence, during which her name had been on every one's
+lips, coupled with her broken engagement, and her inherited fortune, it
+was rarely mentioned, and never in Philip's presence.
+
+The most perfectly controlled human heart cannot so entirely root up
+envy and malice as not to cavil somewhat at the perversity of
+Providence, in showering benefits with both hands upon a fellow mortal,
+who certainly cannot so thoroughly deserve them as oneself. However, if
+destiny will be so blindly prejudiced, why let us become as indifferent
+to it as possible, and in perfecting ourselves in this fine-art forget
+both the name and existence of our once bosom friend.
+
+This was society's philosophy regarding Patricia Hildreth, and thus for
+ten long years her place had been vacant in the circles of the great
+world, and she herself forgotten as completely as the snows of last
+year. "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?" may be asked of more things
+than Musset dreamed of, when he wrote his sad and bitter reproach.
+
+Miss James had met Philip late in the afternoon of George Newbold's
+_festa_, as he was strolling idly about the garden-paths, the inevitable
+cigarette between his lips, and his hands, as was his fashion, clasped
+loosely behind him. He caught sight of the small dark figure coming
+towards him down the terrace steps, and though at first impatient of the
+interruption, something in the thin outline of face and form, the
+lassitude of step and bearing, touched a chord of compassion in his kind
+heart.
+
+He had not indeed been altogether insensible to the nature of Miss
+James's feeling towards him; no man is quite so dull and hard as not to
+be touched by the unasked devotion of a woman; it is wonderful when that
+devotion is directed to one's self how unselfish and pure, though
+hopeless, it appears! Philip's heart might be in the position of being
+captured in the rebound, but Miss James was not the one to do it;
+nevertheless her attraction to him, to call it by no warmer name, was
+harmless, if ineffectual, and not unpleasant.
+
+Thus argued Mr. Tremain, though in justice to him let it be said the
+argument was not carried on in words, scarcely in sensations; it was
+negative rather than positive. He met her therefore with that deference
+and attention which made his slightest service a distinction, lifting
+his hat and throwing aside his half-smoked cigarette as he did so. Miss
+James looked at him steadily for a moment, watching him as he tossed
+away the end of burning paper.
+
+"Oh, I am sorry you should do that," she said, in her rather hard voice.
+"I don't in the least object to cigarettes; in fact, I like them."
+
+But Philip only smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Oh, I've had quite enough of it, Miss James, I assure you. I was only
+smoking as a distraction and to make the time go."
+
+"Has it been such a long day?" she asked, a trifle sharply. She knew Mr.
+Tremain and Patricia had not met that day, and shrewdly suspected the
+reason of his restlessness, and though she acknowledged to herself the
+hopelessness of her own hopes, she could not endure to have it brought
+home to her by him.
+
+"Very long," replied Philip, candidly; "it's a way time has of never
+weighing his goods. The hours that _be_ go by on lagging steps, the
+hours to come rush and tumble one on top of the other, and are never in
+the future but always in the past."
+
+"I should think that rather depended upon one's occupation," responded
+Miss James, tritely. "If one's copybook was to be trusted, time never
+halted or stood still. 'Time Flies,' with a very large T and F is among
+my earliest recollections."
+
+Mr. Tremain laughed a little as he replied:
+
+"You shame me, Miss James, into an open confession of laziness. To be
+lazy is to find time out of joint, and in consequence out of touch with
+one. One can only be legitimately lazy on board a yacht, or fishing;
+under such circumstances action becomes criminal. By the way, let me
+congratulate you on your distinct success as Mrs. Bouncer, last
+evening. I asked for you after rehearsal, but did not see you."
+
+"No," replied Miss James, slowly, "I did not come back to the theatre."
+
+As she spoke a dull flush rose to her cheeks, for she remembered how and
+where she passed those two hours, when all the world were absorbed in
+the miniature playhouse. With one of those strange sudden waves of
+perception she saw again a broken feather-fan and golden-hued rose lying
+together on the velvet carpet, and Vladimir Mellikoff, tall and dark and
+smiling, holding back the heavy _portières_, through which she escaped
+trembling and doomed.
+
+She caught her breath and went on a little nervously:
+
+"I am very flattered to be praised by you, Mr. Tremain. I can't bear
+Mrs. Bouncer myself; she is quite antipathetic to me."
+
+"Then surely you deserve all the more praise," said Mr. Tremain,
+courteously. "If to be out of accord with one's rôle results so
+favourably I shall devoutly pray that Henri de Flavigneul and I may be
+at daggers drawn this evening."
+
+"But what would Miss Hildreth say to that?" asked the girl, sharply, and
+looking up so quickly as to catch the sudden frown of annoyance that
+spread over Mr. Tremain's face at the mention of Patricia's name.
+
+"Ah, Miss Hildreth," he replied, with assumed carelessness. "I had not
+taken her into consideration."
+
+"And yet Miss Hildreth is not one to be left unconsidered?" said Miss
+James, questioningly. "She is not one to be easily passed over." Then,
+with a sudden change of manner, she added: "You have known Miss Hildreth
+a long time, have you not, Mr. Tremain?"
+
+Philip looked down at her a little startled and surprised. Was she
+laughing at him--this pale, quiet, almost insignificant girl--or mocking
+him? Surely the subject of his and Patricia's broken engagement had
+been public property too long to have escaped her knowledge. Was it
+impertinence or ignorance that dictated the question? But Miss James's
+face was placid and mildly interested as she looked up at him with a
+little smile, and waited for him to speak.
+
+"Oh, yes, I have known Miss Hildreth for some years," he replied,
+shortly; and then with an abrupt laugh: "but I have not seen her for
+almost as long as I have known her."
+
+"Ah," said Miss James, meditatively, "she has been abroad for ten years,
+and ten years makes such a difference in one's knowledge of another.
+Only think what might not happen in ten years!"
+
+"Apparently Miss Hildreth's experiences have been more or less narrow,"
+answered Philip, annoyed that the conversation should have turned upon
+Patricia, and yet unable to keep from discussing her.
+
+"Oh, do you think so?" asked Miss James, with quite a look of surprised
+inquiry in her eyes. "To be sure you ought to know; but do you think
+she--any woman--could come back quite unchanged after ten years abroad?"
+
+There was so much of veiled controversy in her tones that Philip at once
+found himself looking at the matter from her point of view, and debating
+his own question with a decided negative bias.
+
+"What do you mean?" he said at last, after a moment's delay. "What do
+you think are some of the experiences that may have come in Miss
+Hildreth's way--or any woman's--during ten years' absence abroad?"
+
+"That would depend so much as to where one went, what countries, or
+towns, or cities; whom one associated with; and how one lived. Each
+country has its own peculiar influences, dangers, casualties, but some
+countries have the two former more developed. Russia, for example; in
+Russia one instinctively looks for dangers, intrigues, conspiracies. Has
+Miss Hildreth ever been to Russia, Mr. Tremain?"
+
+Miss James was treating the subject with so much gravity and
+impressiveness that Philip felt himself carried along with her, and
+inclined to look at Patricia's past career and its attendant
+trivialities in a serious and grave light.
+
+"I really cannot answer you in detail, Miss James," he said, "but
+collectively I should say that nothing was more probable than Miss
+Hildreth's being perfectly familiar with Russia, and Russian society, in
+all its phases."
+
+"Yes, I should say so too," answered Miss James, nodding her head in
+confirmation of her words. "In fact I am sure of it. Mr. Tremain, do you
+think Miss Hildreth has ever before met and known Count Mellikoff?"
+
+They had been walking up and down a garden-path, but she stopped when
+she put this question and faced him. Philip of course, also stopped, and
+for a moment there was silence between them.
+
+"That is an extraordinary question," he said at last; "have you any
+reason for asking it, Miss James?"
+
+"But you have not answered me yet," she protested; "when you do so I
+will reply to you. Do you think Miss Hildreth has ever before seen and
+known Count Mellikoff; say in Paris, or St. Petersburg?"
+
+"To the best of my belief Count Mellikoff is a stranger to America, Miss
+James."
+
+"But is Count Mellikoff a stranger to Miss Hildreth, Mr. Tremain?"
+
+"That is beyond me to answer," replied Philip, with an unconscious
+inflection of curiosity in his tone.
+
+"Then I will answer for you," said Rosalie, her thin sharp voice growing
+rounder and fuller, "but you must bear in mind I have no reality to go
+upon, only surmise and observation. Very well, then, I say Miss Hildreth
+has not only met and known Count Mellikoff before, but she has known him
+well, and she is afraid of him. That surprises you, Mr. Tremain, and yet
+I don't know why it should. You must remember you have seen nothing of
+Miss Hildreth for ten years, and you know nothing--positively
+nothing--of her life during that time. Why shouldn't she have known
+Count Mellikoff, and why shouldn't she have reason to fear him? Ten
+years is a very long time; long enough to drink deep of experience; long
+enough to plant, and sow, and reap. Long enough to lose more than one
+friend, make more than one enemy; long enough to sink oneself to the
+neck in intrigue, and to bury oneself in crime. May not Miss Hildreth
+have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and found the evil overweigh the
+good? May not Count Mellikoff have been her friend, and become her
+enemy? Is it not possible that each is striving to outwit the other, and
+each is afraid of the other? I see you think me rather mad, Mr. Tremain,
+and credit me with a morbid love of melodrama, or a desire to make
+mountains out of mole-hills. Ah, very well, let us say no more about it:
+only when next you see Miss Hildreth and Count Mellikoff together,
+watch his manner towards her, and see for yourself if he carries himself
+as a stranger to her. Ten years is a long time for a woman to wander
+about the world alone."
+
+She finished abruptly, and turned away from him, leaving him without
+another word.
+
+Philip's meditations, if unpleasant before, were now distinctly
+disagreeable. He disliked mystery, and above all things and most of all
+he disliked it in connection with a woman. In his eyes all women should
+be, like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion, and it hurt and galled him that
+even a shadow of aspersion should rest on Patricia's fair fame.
+
+And yet, as Miss James had said, ten years was a long time, and Miss
+Hildreth gave no explanation, beyond a vague and general one, as to how
+she had spent that time. Might there not be some secret bound up in
+those years; some secret between herself and Vladimir Mellikoff, which
+it was wisest to leave so buried? Was it possible of belief that in all
+that time Patricia had never consoled herself for the lost love of her
+youth?
+
+Hers was an impetuous nature, open to sudden convictions, quick to act,
+ardent, impressionable; with such a temperament in the hands of Vladimir
+Mellikoff, what imprudence might not have taken place? Even a secret
+marriage, and a subsequent purgatory of disenchantment, were not
+impossible consequences. Indeed, the range of possibilities was so
+varied and so unsatisfactory, Mr. Tremain felt himself unable either to
+seize or exorcise them.
+
+At the tea hour that same day, Miss James asked suddenly, in a lull of
+conversation, bending forward and addressing Patricia in her highest
+voice:
+
+"Oh, Miss Hildreth, by the way, Mr. Tremain and I have been discussing
+your long absence from your native land, and your possible and probable
+experiences. Will you tell me, for it was rather a question of
+difference between us, have you ever been to Russia; do you know St.
+Petersburg?"
+
+Something in Rosalie's sharp, hard tones commanded attention, and when
+she finished all eyes were turned upon Patricia, as she sat in a
+high-backed chair; her tea-gown of marvellous old lace and fluttering
+ribbons seeming but a fitting setting to her delicate beauty. Vladimir
+Mellikoff put down his cup of untasted tea, and drew near the central
+group.
+
+Miss Hildreth looked up a little surprised at Rosalie's earnestness. She
+raised the tiny apostle spoon in her fingers, and studied it attentively
+as she answered:
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Miss James, I have done the whole grand tour. I know
+my London, my Paris, and my Petersburg thoroughly, and like a loyal
+American place the Peerage and the Almanach de Gotha next to my Bible."
+Her voice was clear and mocking, and a trifle artificial.
+
+"And may I also be permitted to ask a question, mademoiselle?" said
+Count Mellikoff, advancing towards her and bowing slightly.
+
+Patricia raised her delicate eyebrows in cool superciliousness. "Oh,
+certainly, Count Mellikoff; in what way can I add to your knowledge?"
+
+She put out her hand with the empty tea-cup, and Dick Darling flew to
+take it from her; the outstretched hand trembled ever so little, and the
+spoon fell to the floor.
+
+"Since you know my home, mademoiselle, Petersburg, I do not make a
+blunder when I suppose you to have known it socially as well as----"
+
+"According to Baedeker," broke in Miss Hildreth, with a little laugh.
+"Make your mind easy, Count Mellikoff; your Court and your _grand monde_
+showed me nothing but civilities."
+
+"That goes without the saying, mademoiselle," replied Vladimir, still
+more gravely. "And, pardon me, it is pleasant to speak on home subjects
+to one who understands them so well; did you, then, when at Court, or in
+society, did you ever meet the most brilliant man of his time, the most
+fascinating, handsome, rich young noble of all Russia? You will recall
+him at once when I name him. Mademoiselle, did you ever know Count
+Stevan Lallovich?"
+
+There was silence for a moment as Vladimir Mellikoff asked his question,
+and for a moment after, during which all eyes were again turned towards
+Patricia. She had started forward a little, and half rose up from her
+chair; her face had grown suddenly pale, and her eyes, beneath their
+dark pencilled brows, flashed strangely.
+
+It was but a moment, a second of time, a heart-throb, then she
+controlled herself, and, with one of her lightest, most mocking laughs,
+sank back upon her chair, sweeping her laces about her royally.
+
+"Count Stevan Lallovich," she said, very distinctly; "you ask me if I
+knew Stevan Lallovich? My dear Count Mellikoff, your very question is
+superfluous. Could any woman who knew Petersburg, fail to know Stevan
+Lallovich? The handsomest man of his day, as you have said, and the most
+unscrupulous." Then she turned to Miss Darling: "My dear Dick, will you
+beg Esther for another cup of tea, and boiling, my dear, positively
+boiling. You see, Count, among other Russian peculiarities, I cling to
+my Russian tea."
+
+"I see, mademoiselle," replied Mellikoff, gravely. "May you always prove
+as loyal to all things Russian."
+
+Mr. Tremain had not been present during this little passage at arms, but
+Miss James, as she sat before her mirror that evening "making-up" her
+small sallow face into a hard-visaged, calculating Mrs. Bouncer,
+congratulated herself upon her strategy.
+
+"My shot told," she was thinking, as she painted in another wrinkle,
+"it almost took Miss Hildreth off her guard. She is not likely to forget
+herself again; but I have seen her once without her mask, and that is
+enough. Oh yes, 'it moves, it moves.'"
+
+Then, with Galileo's immortal words on her lips, she added a final touch
+to her eyebrows, and glided quickly away, appearing a few moments later
+in the flies, and calling forth Mr. Robinson's encomiums upon her as a
+model of punctuality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A SOCIETY DRAMA.
+
+
+In another half-hour the little playhouse was full to overflowing. Not a
+seat was vacant, and scarcely an inch of space was left for the men of
+the party to plant their feet upon. Gay and musical were the tones of
+women's voices and laughter that rose and fell upon the scented air,
+sustained and strengthened by the more manly bassos.
+
+The theatre itself glowed in the soft effulgence of electric light, each
+filament incased in a hanging crystal vase, subdued to a warm
+palpitating softness by silk shades of roseate hue. Flowers bloomed
+everywhere, piled in glowing masses along the walls and across the
+miniature orchestra screen. The rose-houses had been stripped of their
+loveliest exotics, and these rifled blossoms hung their gorgeous heads
+amidst a quivering background of clinging green smilax.
+
+On each rose-silk _fauteuil_ lay a bouquet of the golden-hued Maréchal
+Niels, tied with long ribbons of palest amber, and a tiny satin
+programme on which, amidst quaint device of scroll work, were inscribed
+the characters and scenes of the coming drama.
+
+The _lever de rideau_ was a masterpiece from the hand of an English
+Academician, whose foreign name was better known in the two great
+English-speaking countries than others boasting a more national ring.
+The heavy folds of richest white silk bore testimony to the versatility
+of his brain and brush, since here swept garlands of trailing roses
+across a wonderful marble terrace, upon which were grouped in classic
+attitudes the sisters of histrionic art, Melpomene, Thalia, and
+Terpsichore.
+
+The scene was one of luxury that had become a fine art, every detail
+being in itself so faultless, it required but the completing touch of
+contiguity to render it a rounded whole of perfection. The onlooker
+might well pause and ask himself if the developments of wealth,
+refinement, and culture, could reach a higher degree than was displayed
+that evening within the walls of this miniature La Scala.
+
+The curtain rose on the perennially new and refreshing _Box and Cox_, in
+which Miss James again distinguished herself and scored her final points
+to rounds of ringing laughter and spontaneous applause, which savoured
+more of the "Surrey side," than of a languid _nil admirari_ audience of
+this critical century. Between the farce and the serious work of the
+evening music held sway, and La Diva's glorious voice captivated all
+hearts and brains in Owen Meredith's "Aux Italiens," its final appealing
+line rounding each verse with the pathetic cry,
+
+    "Non ti scorda di me, non ti scorda di me!"
+
+It was during this interval that Mr. Tremain, making his appearance in
+the Greenroom, found Miss Hildreth already there awaiting her first
+call. She was alone for the moment, and was standing with bent head and
+clasped hands, leaning against the tall carved chimney-screen that
+shielded the low burning logs on the hearth.
+
+The long folds of her first costume, a _négligée_ of Wörth's conception,
+fell about her in a clinging amber sheen, across which the flots and
+draperies of _duchesse_ lace fell in filmy cascades. Philip stopped
+involuntarily for a moment, and looked at her. Her marvellous loveliness
+struck him afresh, as, indeed, it had a habit of doing whenever he came
+upon her unawares. This attribute was indeed one of Miss Hildreth's
+chief charms; you forgot her actual loveliness when away from her, and
+were apt to criticise not only it, but her. It was a criticism, however,
+that fell to pieces at the first contact with her, and which left you
+only conscious of her beauty and her fascination. You could not analyse
+her when she smiled, or when her deep, tender, dark blue eyes looked
+full into your own.
+
+Miss Hildreth had not heard Philip's entrance; and he thus had an
+opportunity of watching her undisturbed and unconscious. Despite the
+make-up of rouge and bismuth, put on so delicately as to be almost
+imperceptible, the face was at that moment a sad one. All the fire, and
+life, and spirit, had gone out of it, and in their places an expression
+of weariness and despondency had crept about the mouth and eyes, which
+was strangely pathetic because so at variance with Miss Hildreth's usual
+bearing. Even the attitude, half-listless, half-weary, bespoke a state
+of mental depression and dejection.
+
+Philip, as he watched her, recalled Miss James's unequivocal
+suggestions, and almost against his will found himself speculating as to
+which episode out of those ten unknown years of her life she was
+lamenting at that moment. He had not been present at the tea hour, and
+therefore had missed Rosalie's well-turned opportunity; but even without
+that, Miss James had contrived to sow the seeds of distrust and
+suspicion in his mind.
+
+He could not look upon Patricia now without the record of those long ten
+years arising between him and her; across whose closed pages what
+experiences might not be written! Even her beauty became a source of
+like animadversion; could any woman possessing such a face and form
+count thirty years off life's score and not have drunk deep, even to
+satiety, of the wine of passion, that turns even as one's lips touch the
+cup's brim into the waters of Lethe? Miss James was right; those ten
+years wherein Patricia had grown from girlhood to womanhood must hold
+some hidden memories, into which for his peace of mind it were best he
+did not look, and from whose influence, as from her personality, it were
+wisest for him to detach himself at once.
+
+He would end his visit at the Folly in a day or so, and when he left it
+so would he leave behind all recollection and all knowledge of Patricia.
+He desired to know nothing of her immediate past, he would refuse to be
+interested in her present or her future. Only, before he bid a long
+good-bye to the Folly and its inmates, he must once more see Adèle
+Lamien; there was something to be said to her, and he must say it.
+
+He moved slightly forward, and as he did so Patricia turned and looked
+up. In an instant the softer and sadder shadows passed from her face,
+her eyes regained their fire and light, the smile came back to her lips
+and chased away the dimples in cheek and chin, the soft evanescent bloom
+stole upward and renewed her youth and freshness as colour and contrast
+can alone do.
+
+Mr. Tremain came towards her grave and unsmiling, and with something of
+the old dark anger on his face, that ten years ago had frightened her
+and deterred her from uttering the few words of reconciliation hovering
+on her lips; this anger was all the more pronounced because of his
+character costume of light livery. One does not naturally associate
+buckskin tops and a striped waistcoat with a countenance of gloomy
+disapproval.
+
+Miss Hildreth took in the situation at a glance, and laughed out at him,
+one of her cold light mocking laughs, that angered Philip with its ring
+of insincerity.
+
+"Well, my Knight of the Rueful Countenance," she exclaimed, "you look
+not only bored, but in a rage! Ah, my dear Philip, when will you learn
+how foolish and _banale_ a thing it is to expend your reserve emotions
+on trifles? We Americans are accused of being a race incapable of
+experiencing any grand passion, either in conception or realisation.
+Perhaps it is because after cultivating our sensibilities to the highest
+pitch we are content to expend them on trivialities. I remember a clever
+Englishman once telling me that we as a nation have no measurable idea
+of passion save in the abstract; we appreciate wit and humour, subtle
+argument, keen incisive reasoning, but as to the heights and depths of
+one terrible all-mastering, all-absorbing emotion, it is as a dead
+letter to us. Our highest expression of nervous force results in an
+exaggerated friendship, or a marriage of convenience; we are simply
+incapable of what the French call _une grande passion_."
+
+She stopped with another little laugh, but Mr. Tremain made no reply, so
+with the slightest possible shrug of her shoulders she continued:
+
+"For example--and pardon my using you as a peg upon which to hang my
+argument--to look at you at this moment one would declare that nothing
+less than a complete collapse of the entire social system could account
+for such an expression of abject wretchedness. How can one be supposed
+to know that it is the result of nothing more tragic than an
+ill-starched necktie, or a poor-fitting coat?"
+
+Again she laughed, and Philip felt the blood surge up to his face at her
+taunting raillery.
+
+"I should feel honoured at being considered worthy your mockery," he
+said, quickly, "only that this time I cannot plead guilty to the
+impeachment; my costume, even to its insignificant details, is, I beg to
+state, beyond reproach. I cannot complain even of a rumpled tie, or an
+uncomfortable coat."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "You are fortunate and to be
+congratulated. Does not Madame de Rémusat tell us of the annoyance
+caused the great Napoleon by too tight arm-holes, and of Josephine's
+tears over the loss of one Cashmere, out of her two or three score? You
+see, my dear Philip, even the heroes of our immediate past were not
+above acknowledging their little weaknesses. Such items are the crumpled
+rose-leaves and parched peas of greatness. Dare we of a lesser mould
+scoff at them?"
+
+She turned away from him as she spoke, leaving him with a decided
+feeling of having been taken at a disadvantage. His call followed almost
+immediately, so he had no time to reply; but the remembrance of her
+mockery remained with him, and added a touch of bitterness and reality
+to the situations of the play, in which he and she bore reversed
+relations to those of real life.
+
+The drama selected by Esther Newbold, _The Ladies' Battle_, is too
+well-known and too great a favourite to require description. Perhaps of
+all drawing-room comedies it is the most pleasing and the most
+comprehensive. Those who have seen the foremost actresses of our day
+personate the young and beautiful Countess d'Autreval--who is not
+ashamed, though fully conscious, of her love for Henri de Flavigneul,
+and who bravely relinquishes it in favour of her girlish niece, Léonie
+de Villegontier--will remember what scope can be shown in the
+development of that character, whose fundamental attributes seem at
+first sight to be those of impulse and self-gratification.
+
+The scenes moved on with magic smoothness and completeness, and
+gradually, as the interest grew and deepened, the audience began to
+realise that it was upon Miss Hildreth as the Countess, and Mr. Tremain
+as Henri, that the chief influence and importance of the play
+culminated. The undercurrent of suppressed antagonism that existed
+between them communicated itself to the onlookers with a subtle, yet
+potent power; while to those who could read the writing between the
+lines, the situations assumed a potential gravity and significance.
+
+From the moment of the Countess's soliloquy, "Now to be more than
+woman," when, recognising her growing love for the young soldier, she
+consults her looking-glass as the oracle which is to encourage or
+dissuade her from entering the lists against Léonie, and then lays it
+down with the significant line, "Ah, it has deceived so many!" to her
+final act of renunciation, Patricia carried the house with her, and
+left no loophole for any anti-interest or climax.
+
+Baby Leonard made a charming Léonie. Her innocent face and
+unsophisticated manner were a capital study and a clever following of
+nature; but it was on Patricia Hildreth that the sympathy and sentiment
+centred, and there arose almost a cry of disappointment when the curtain
+dropped finally upon Léonie's happiness, at the price of the nobler
+nature's self-sacrifice. Even her fellow actors felt her potency, and
+Philip most of all.
+
+He caught her hand in his as she left the flies, and detained her one
+moment.
+
+"Patty," he cried, "Patty, once more let me plead with you. Is it true,
+dear--are your words something more than allegory:
+
+    'Beneath the wreath and robe, the heart unseen
+    Oft throbs with anguish.'
+
+Are they true of _your_ heart, Patty, Patty?"
+
+But she checked him with her old impatient gesture, drawing away her
+hand from his close clasp, and laughing lightly, ironically.
+
+"My dear Philip, too much simulating of passion has overturned your
+habitual self-control. Fancy quoting a couplet out of a modern drama by
+way of asking a question! But let me follow your lead and answer you
+from the epilogue:
+
+    'Men conquer all, but women conquer men.'"
+
+Then she passed by him still laughing, and the echo of her laughter came
+back to him long after the last gleam of her silks and laces had
+disappeared from sight.
+
+A grand ball completed the celebration of George Newbold's birthday, and
+those who were perforce the wall-flowers of the occasion noticed, not
+without comment, that Mr. Tremain kept sedulously away from Miss
+Hildreth, and that Patricia danced more often with the dark Russian
+stranger than with any other of Mrs. Newbold's black-coated contingent.
+Or, as the men put it afterwards in the smoking-room, that conceited,
+distinguished, red-ribboned foreigner devoted himself exclusively to the
+most beautiful woman of the evening, with occasional relapses to the
+plainest girl.
+
+It was thus that Miss Hildreth and Rosalie James divided the honours, if
+such they could be called, of Count Vladimir Mellikoff's attentions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"IT IS HOPELESS."
+
+
+True to his resolution, made more absolute than ever by Miss Hildreth's
+last openly displayed indifference, Mr. Tremain determined to leave the
+Folly on the first possible excuse. His visit had already prolonged
+itself far beyond its original limits, and in the departure of his
+friend Mainwaring, he saw a happy opportunity of effacing himself
+naturally and without too violent a wrench.
+
+John Mainwaring had come down only for the theatricals, and nothing
+could be more _à propos_ than for Philip to make his _adieux_ with him.
+As for Patricia, he entertained no softer sentiment towards her than
+that of distinct disapprobation. He felt it would be a relief to get
+himself away from her influence and from the spell of her beauty. Twice
+now she had repudiated him and the love he pleaded; what better proof of
+her thorough deterioration could any man ask for than this? Could any
+words have been more sharp than hers, or speak more openly of defiance
+and glad rejection? Apparently she retained not one tender recollection
+of the past, or the smallest desire to recur to it. She met him always
+with cool raillery, mocking aphorisms, or taunting satire; she was hard,
+brilliant, unresponsive as the diamonds she wore so regally, and to
+throw oneself upon her sympathies was to wilfully grasp at the
+glittering sheen of unreality, and be wounded because the substance
+slipped from one's hold.
+
+Away from her and once more absorbed in the work of his profession, Mr.
+Tremain felt he could forget her and the past few days of unrest and
+disquietude. The calm monotony of his personal self-centred routine
+became a haven of rest in his eyes, to which he looked forward with
+impatience; forgetting that it is one's inner state of being that makes
+or mars the tranquillity of one's existence.
+
+Accordingly Mr. Tremain ordered the packing of his portmanteaux, and
+made known his coming departure the next morning at the very late
+breakfast hour, at which feast Esther and a few of her guests appeared
+languid and fatigued, and instant in their demands for the strongest
+black coffee.
+
+Philip observed with relief that Miss Hildreth was not among the number.
+Little Marianne was there, sitting by her mother's side, her fair
+child-face looking all the sweeter and fresher by contrast with the
+jaded _borné_ appearance of her elders. Vladimir Mellikoff was also
+among the missing; but Miss James was at her place, seemingly none the
+worse for her exertions of the evening before, her sallow countenance
+and dark eyes being untouched either by fatigue or inertia.
+
+Mrs. Newbold received Philip's announcement with voluble expressions of
+protest.
+
+"Oh, but indeed you must not go," she said, "we really cannot spare you;
+do reconsider." And she looked at him with an almost exaggerated
+expression of entreaty in her blue eyes.
+
+"You are very flattering and very kind," replied Philip, avoiding her
+glance, and answering in conventional tones and words, "but really I
+must go, it is impossible I should stay longer. Mainwaring has brought
+me news of an important case, which has been advanced on the calendar,
+in which I am involved, and even if this were not the case, I could not,
+my dear Esther, desire to wear out so warm a welcome as yours."
+
+But Mrs. Newbold did not rally to the implied compliment. She shook her
+head dubiously as she said:
+
+"That is only a _façon de parler_. I did not suppose, Philip, that you
+would ever descend to subterfuge."
+
+At which Mr. Tremain laughed, and Miss James lifted her eyebrows in
+scarcely concealed superciliousness.
+
+"One could almost be discourteous to Mr. Mainwaring, in thought, at
+least," continued Esther, regarding that dark-visaged young man with an
+expression that belied her smile.
+
+To which he replied, with a half-shrug of his shoulders, that he
+considered himself fortunate in attracting any portion of Mrs. Newbold's
+attention. It was a satisfaction to be regarded actively by her, even
+though that activity took the form of animosity.
+
+Esther bit her lip and was silenced; but George Newbold laughed, and
+remarked aside to Dick Darling that _that_ was a hit straight out from
+the shoulder.
+
+Presently Marianne, who had been feeding the long-suffering Trim on
+deviled kidney scraps, and enjoying, with all the cruelty of childhood,
+his tears and squerms, lifted her golden head and innocent eyes, and
+startled the entire company by exclaiming, in her clear shrill treble:
+
+"Mumsey, why does Mr. Val ask so many questions about my Lammy, and when
+is my Lammy coming back again?"
+
+Esther, decidedly taken by surprise, turned quickly, and spoke with
+unaccustomed sharpness.
+
+"Who are you talking about, Mimi? Who is Mr. Val? It really is
+extraordinary the amount of gossip you manage to imbibe from unknown
+sources."
+
+"Mr. Val," replied little Mimi, with unabashed frankness, "Mr. Val is
+Mr. Val. I can't say all his name 'cause it's too long, so he said I was
+to call him Mr. Val. He came out in the garden when I was getting
+Popsey's buffday flowers, and he talked to me all about Lammy; and when
+I told him Lammy's very own name, his eyes got so black, and he said,
+'When is she coming back?' and, of course, I didn't know. Miss James,
+she knows Mr. Val; she's always talkin' to him."
+
+At which lucid and candid explanation Miss James felt the blood rush
+hotly to her cheeks, and Mr. Tremain, with kindly thought, turned
+attention from her by saying, quickly:
+
+"It must be the Count, Mimi designates by that innocent abbreviation.
+With the frank socialism of childhood, she is no respecter of persons.
+'Mr. Val' sounds just as important in her ears as Count Vladimir does in
+ours."
+
+"She's a ridiculous little monkey," replied Esther, impatiently; and
+then the subject dropped, much to Philip's chagrin, as he desired to
+glean some further particulars concerning Mdlle. Lamien's probable
+return. Conversation languished after this, however, and one by one the
+women stole away to their bedrooms, there to sleep off the excitement
+and fatigue of the previous night.
+
+It was arranged that Mr. Tremain and his friend should take the six
+o'clock evening boat, which would, as Freddy Slade remarked, land them
+in New York in ample time for a "refresher" prior to dinner at the club,
+at that magic hour when each small round table is daintily set out in
+fine linen and glittering silver, and surrounded by the best-known
+convives of clubdom.
+
+"The pleasantest hour, by Jove, of the whole twenty-four," said Freddy,
+enthusiastically. "Upon my word, I quite envy you fellows the sensation
+you'll produce when you walk into the 'Union.' You will actually smell
+of the country, 'pastures green,' you know, and all that sort of thing."
+
+For the better part of the day the house remained silent and deserted as
+far as the lower rooms were concerned, and luncheon, which was at all
+times a movable feast, became on this occasion a translated one, to be
+partaken of by the fairer sex within the privacy of their own
+apartments, and in the luxury of _déshabilles_.
+
+Late in the afternoon Mr. Tremain made his way to Esther Newbold's
+boudoir, and knocking with assured familiarity, opened the door almost
+before the customary words of invitation. He found Mrs. Newbold alone,
+lounging far back in a "sleepy hollow" of a chair, with a tiny
+tea-service on a low, Japanese stool beside her. She welcomed him
+cordially and with a charming smile.
+
+"Ah," she exclaimed, "is it you, Philip? I hope you have repented of
+your morning decision and have come to tell me so, and beg my
+forgiveness."
+
+"For what?" asked he, wilfully dense.
+
+"For saying you were going away, of course. Haven't you come to tell me
+you will not go after all?"
+
+"No," said Philip, without any answering smile. "I have come, on the
+contrary, to bid you good-bye."
+
+"You are unkind," exclaimed Mrs. Newbold, impetuously, "and--you are
+unwise. What, Philip, are you going to lay down your arms so tamely,
+and acknowledge yourself beaten by a woman?"
+
+"It would seem so, my dear Esther, if flight means that I am vanquished.
+Will you give me some of your tea as a stirrup-cup?"
+
+She answered him by pouring out the fragrant Pekoe and handing it to him
+in silence; the tears stood in her eyes and her mouth quivered a little.
+She sat still as Philip drank the tea, and then, when he had put down
+the empty cup and come back to his place beside her, she turned and
+spoke quickly, and with almost nervous impetuosity.
+
+"Oh, Philip, I am sorry, grieved, inexpressibly grieved that you should
+go in this way. I had hoped so much for you--for her--yes, more for
+her--from the propinquity of these few days. And it has all come to
+nothing, and you are going away, and how can it be possible for you ever
+to come together, if you persistently let slip each opportunity of an
+understanding?"
+
+She spoke with so much real earnestness, that Philip was greatly
+touched. It needed not the mention of Patricia's name to make plain to
+him who was the object of Esther's solicitude, and he could not but
+smile sadly as he thought how little worthy was she of Esther's tears
+and regrets. He bent towards her and took her hand in his.
+
+"My dear little friend," he said, "the truest friend ever granted to an
+undeserving man, I beg you not to trouble yourself about me or my
+unfortunate affairs. Let me assure you that I am truly grateful to you
+for the opportunity you provided me with in which once more to seek and
+learn my fate. If the result, and my answer, has been but a double
+repetition of that of ten years ago, is that your fault? My dear Esther,
+I have looked upon my old love without prejudice or bias, and I have
+seen her stripped of all the thousand and one artifices that go to make
+up the woman of the world; we have stood face to face with nothing
+between us save the memory of the past, and I can say to you with all
+truth and earnestness, that I am not only glad, but thankful, that her
+answer to my appeal was what it was. Believe me, there could never be
+any solid happiness for us so long as the ten years of our separation
+lies between us like a gulf, dividing our past from our present. It is
+better as it is, dear Esther, it is better as it is."
+
+He unloosed her hand, and, rising, walked hastily up and down the room.
+Mrs. Newbold was crying openly, scarcely wiping away the tears as they
+fell.
+
+"Oh, Philip!" she pleaded, her voice pitiful and broken, "indeed,
+indeed, you judge her too harshly. Oh, can you not read her heart; are
+you so blind, so very blind, as not to see it is for you she cares, and
+you only? It is because she loves you that she strives to hide it all;
+that she laughs and jests, and is bitter, and mocking, and gay, and
+frivolous by turns, and never, never once reveals the real, passionate,
+throbbing woman's heart beneath these artifices. Oh, what can I say to
+open your eyes?"
+
+"Say nothing," he replied, sternly, "it is best as it is. I am not one,
+Esther, as you know, to come lightly to a decision, especially one of
+such grave importance to me; but in this you cannot change me; nothing
+can alter my decision. You are blinded by your loyalty, you see her as
+you fain would see her, with the glamour of her beauty and her
+fascination surrounding her so closely you cannot perceive the real
+woman beneath. But I have beheld her as she is, cold, hard, brilliant,
+illusive, heartless; she is but the mocking personation of her old self;
+the outside tenement, beautiful, bewitching, but soulless and insincere.
+I told you when we spoke of this before that I would not willingly again
+become the plaything of a woman's vanity, and yet, so frail are man's
+resolves, I did again put my fate to the touch, and have again failed
+and lost. I am not likely to repeat my folly, Esther, when I can still
+hear the words of scorn with which she repudiated me, and flung back my
+love as not worthy her consideration."
+
+"It is hopeless, then," cried Esther, imploringly.
+
+"Yes," he replied, shortly, "it is hopeless, and I am glad that it is
+so."
+
+When next he spoke, it was upon indifferent topics, and there was that
+in his face and voice which warned Esther against reopening the former
+subject. Before he left her he stood a moment, holding her hand, and
+looking down into her flushed and earnest face.
+
+"Do not think me ungrateful," he said, with one of his rare, sweet
+smiles; "I have had my opportunity, it is my fault that I failed to
+utilise it to my advantage. After all, these things are arranged for us
+by a higher power than our own wills. To you, Esther, I can never feel
+aught but grateful, and you know whenever you need my poor services,
+they are yours without the asking."
+
+"And hers, Philip, hers also," she pleaded, "you would not refuse your
+help to her, should she ever require it?"
+
+"That is such an unlikely contingency, your question needs no reply," he
+answered, gravely; and bending his head until his lips touched the hand
+he held, he said, with simple gravity: "Good-bye, Esther, and God bless
+you."
+
+And so he went away from her, and Mrs. Newbold, with the unreasoning
+instinct of her sex, felt she had never esteemed him so highly as now,
+when he refused the request she urged so ardently upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE SONG OF THE CIGALE.
+
+
+Mr. Tremain, on leaving Mrs. Newbold's boudoir, made his way, without
+encountering any one, to the lower hall, turning instinctively from the
+billiard-room, from whence the sound of the cues against the balls, and
+an occasional exclamation proclaimed the occupation of the men.
+
+In his present state of mind he felt no inclination to join them, or
+take part in the employment of the hour. His conversation with Esther
+had reawakened all the unrest and bitterness of his heart against
+Patricia. Looked at in any light, her conduct could not but appear
+heartless and unwomanly, and the remembrance of it--of her scornful
+eyes and smiling, mocking lips--rankled in his mind and added the one
+touch of vindictiveness that is so closely allied to revenge, as to be a
+difference in name only.
+
+Mr. Tremain would have scouted any such paltry feeling as a desire for
+retaliation, and yet deep down in his heart there lay the half-developed
+germ. Could any vendetta strike her heart more surely than such an
+action on his part, as should prove to her how brittle were the bands
+she had woven, how impotent her power to hold captive the man she had
+scorned?
+
+There remained yet an hour before the time of his departure, and Philip,
+more by instinct than design, turned towards the library, and, pushing
+back the noiseless _portières_, entered. The room was empty, and lay in
+the half-shadow of the quick coming evening. A touch of gold from the
+setting sun still lingered on the painted windows, touching to a deeper
+tone the blues and purples in the classic folds of Clio's drapery. One
+casement stood open, and the evening air floated in, fragrant with a
+thousand odours from Nature's laboratory; strong and subtle and
+all-powerful arose the keen scent of the musk plant, overcoming all
+lesser perfumes, and asserting with overwhelming insistence its
+supremacy. One long low ray of sunlight fell across the picture on the
+easel, lighting up with magic radiance the passionate languor of Io's
+face, and marking with stronger emphasis Jupiter's stern acceptation of
+her allurements.
+
+Still following his instincts Mr. Tremain crossed the long room, and
+drawing back the curtains that separated the music-parlour from the
+library, stood for a moment uncertain as to his further action. The room
+was unlighted save for the same level rays of dying sunlight, and the
+piano that stood at the far end was thus lost in the quivering
+darkness.
+
+Philip, even as he stood upon the threshold, and before his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light, was conscious of the presence of some one
+within the room beside himself, and gradually as the obscurity became
+penetrable he made out a dark figure sitting before the silent
+instrument, with bowed head, about whose throat and face hung heavy,
+clinging folds of black lace. Simultaneously with his discernment of
+this presence, he recognised its personality, and as he did so felt
+alarmed and electrified by the sudden rush and tumult which took
+possession of his being. The blood leapt to his face, he felt it throb
+in his temples and pulse in his veins, as he realised without further
+assurance, and before the bowed head was lifted and the pale, cold face
+gleamed out of the sombre surroundings, that it was Adèle Lamien who sat
+there, and that he was unreasonably glad and sorry, repentant and
+rejoicing, that he should thus have one more interview with her before
+he should vanish out of her life, as Patricia had already passed from
+out of his.
+
+He advanced slowly and stood before her. As he approached, she dropped
+her protecting hands and sat silent, immovable, her pale face--pale with
+the pallor of mental conflict--looking strange and unearthly amidst its
+setting of falling black draperies, the dark bruise upon her cheek
+growing livid in the half lights. Suddenly, she threw back her head and
+smiled upon him.
+
+It was but the second time he had ever seen her smile, and as the
+radiance and glory broke over her face and flooded it for one brief
+moment, with a brightness and transient loveliness, he started, for
+something in that smile and face, some strange, subtle, illusive
+likeness to some one whom he knew, and yet whom he could not name, grew
+into existence with the fleeting radiance, and faded with it before he
+could grasp at the reality. It was but a mere shadow of a resemblance,
+gone as soon as discovered, without substance, without reason, and yet
+perceptible, even when most baffling.
+
+So sudden had been her transformation, and so rapid the return to the
+old habitual quietude and repression of her countenance, Philip found
+himself wondering if, after all, he was not under a delusion, or that
+his eyes, dulled by the dim obscurity of the room, had not mistaken the
+temporary flashing and paling of a sunbeam for that evanescent light on
+cheek and brow.
+
+He had remained standing and silent, during the brief moment that
+elapsed between his entrance and her recognition; he bent over her now,
+and speaking quietly, said:
+
+"I am fortunate, Mdlle. Lamien, in finding you--and alone."
+
+"You are very kind," she answered, in a low, repressed voice, a voice
+that had through all its repression a throb of passion. "Surely Mr.
+Tremain can find pleasanter and more amusing companions than I."
+
+"None who can interest me so deeply, believe me," replied Philip,
+gravely. "You have returned, mademoiselle, the better, I trust, for your
+absence?"
+
+"My absence?" she queried, a little surprised; then more quickly, "Ah,
+yes, my absence; it was but an affair of hours, a necessity, not a
+pleasure. All the same, I thank you. I am better for the change."
+
+Philip had waited for some sign of invitation to remain, but as none
+came, he grew bolder, interpreting her silence as best pleased him, and
+drawing up a low arm-chair, took his place beside her, at such an angle
+as enabled him to watch her face without effort.
+
+"You have been missed, mademoiselle, by more than one," he said, slowly;
+"your name has been often mentioned, even by those unknown to you."
+
+"Indeed," she replied, more quickly than usual; "who has done me that
+honour?"
+
+"I shall answer your question by another," said Philip; "Mdlle. Lamien,
+where and when have you known Count Vladimir Mellikoff? Who and what is
+he, that he should express his surprise and displeasure at your
+movements?"
+
+She drew a long sigh, and turned her head away from him, as she answered
+slowly and in a low voice:
+
+"Where and when have I known Count Vladimir Mellikoff? Who and what is
+he? My reply can be brief enough, Mr. Tremain, to both questions: I have
+never known Count Vladimir at any time, I have no idea who or what he
+is."
+
+Her words were concise and to the point, but they failed to convince
+Philip of their absolute sincerity. He said nothing for a few moments,
+but the silence that fell between them was alive with suggestion; and
+Philip, as he watched her, felt the old inconsequent irrational
+influence of her personality creep over him, wrapping him about in a
+half-magnetic, half-willing subjection; and which, while recognising its
+power, he was unable to throw off.
+
+It was she who broke the silence with an upward gesture of disdain, as
+she said:
+
+"Why should we speak upon so worn out a theme as my existence, Mr.
+Tremain? There are none concerned in my past who would care to recognise
+me now." Then suddenly, and with a quick movement towards the piano:
+"Shall I play for you, Mr. Tremain?"
+
+She did not wait for his reply, but struck at once a few low notes, a
+minor chord or two that swept across the dim half-lights, and seemed but
+an outcome of the twilight, and of the last faint golden rays fading
+moment by moment in the far western sky. Then a headlong rush and tumult
+of melody caught up the passion, and despair, and longing of a soul in
+bondage struggling to be free, beating against the bars, crying out in
+anguish, then sinking back into despondency, and with a final moan
+striking downwards to despair.
+
+Mr. Tremain, as he listened, felt himself caught up in the rush and
+movement, and borne along with it, following her will and pleasure even
+as her white fingers flew over the ivory keys, striking them now with
+fiery impetuosity, now with caressing softness, and again with lingering
+tenderness. Her slight figure in its black dress was alive and sinuous,
+responding to each emotion; her pale face grew illumined beneath its
+weight of white hair and drooping laces that fell about it. She was the
+living incarnation of the music; and Philip, half spell-bound, half
+realising the potency of the spell, found himself repeating mentally,
+"the charm of woven paces and of waving hands." Was she a Vivien as
+well?
+
+She ceased playing as he came and stood beside her, and in the hush that
+fell between them, the echo of light laughter floated to them from the
+rooms above. It was a discord, a false note in the intensity of the
+theme.
+
+Philip bent towards her, almost touching the white hair with his lips;
+it was a moment of exquisite uncertainty. Then she struck the notes
+again, and a plaintive prelude stole out, while in a low voice,
+monotonous yet musical, that seemed but the continuation of the melody,
+she said rather than sang:
+
+    "I am a woman,
+      Therefore I may not
+    Fly to him, cry to him,
+      Bid him delay not.
+    What though he part from me,
+    Tearing my heart from me,
+      Hurt without cure!"
+
+Her voice faltered, sank into silence, her hands fell from the keys and
+lay motionless upon her lap. Philip, to whom the first line of her song
+had come not as a surprise, but as an expected climax, bent forward
+eagerly. Once again he heard the mocking voice of his vision, once again
+the faint sweet perfume of violets stole upward, robbing him of the
+reality of the present, restoring to him the past with all its
+unfulfilled promise and its hope.
+
+It was the passion of surprise, not of arrangement or premeditation,
+that held him, and that swaying him against his better self, made him
+speak from the emotion of the moment.
+
+"Adèle," he said, his voice low and restrained. "Adèle, you have
+doubtless heard my story; you know that I have been the sport, the
+plaything of one woman's vanity for all the better years of my life; and
+yet I dare to offer you the heart she has scorned. Adèle, will you
+accept it? Will you restore my faith and belief in womanhood; that faith
+and trust which another woman has so nearly destroyed? Hush, wait one
+moment before you speak. Yes, I know I am almost a stranger to you, I
+have seen you but half-a-dozen times; you know but little of me, and
+that little is not of the best. And, I too, what do I know of you?
+Nothing, save what Esther was pleased to tell us all concerning you. I
+realise that your past is seared and crossed by sorrow and grief, but
+always, Adèle, always since first I saw you, you have haunted me, you
+have possessed me, you have laid me under a spell. Break that spell now
+by saying you will listen to me; by telling me that at last, however
+late in life, my faith, my belief, my trust shall not be given in vain."
+
+He stopped, and she looking up quickly saw the flush of earnestness upon
+his face, the light of eagerness in his eyes. She let fall her glance,
+and a little smile--was it of triumph or of pity?--crept out about the
+mouth, that died ere he could catch its curves. She had listened to him
+apparently without surprise, and without betraying emotion of any kind;
+her voice fell dull and cold when she spoke.
+
+"You proffer a strange request, Mr. Tremain, and one not easy of reply.
+Is it possible you can be in earnest? Have you not heard my story? Has
+not the whole of Madame Newbold's world become cognisant of its
+details? Do you not know that Adèle Lamien is a woman on whom rests the
+blight of suspicion, if not of guilt? A woman whose life has been one of
+no common misery. Do you realise what it means to be suspected of crime,
+branded as a fugitive, an outcast? Can you gauge the depths of misery
+contained in the words ruined and repudiated? Do you not know that one
+spot upon a woman's reputation, though incurred through no fault of her
+own, stamps her for ever in the eyes of your world. Can you, knowing all
+this, realising it, yet ask me to listen to your words of vehemence?
+You, Philip Tremain! Ah, do you not know I would give my very heart's
+happiness if I might so listen? No, no; that is not what I mean. You are
+mad, Mr. Tremain, mad with the desire born of a moment's passion."
+
+"I am not mad, Adèle," he urged. "I ask you again to listen to me, and I
+tell you again that I neither care nor wish to know more of your past
+than you desire to tell me. Cannot we forget that, cannot I make for you
+a future that shall outlive your past? Nay, wait one moment, there is
+something more I must say. You know I have no fresh first devotion to
+offer you, I have not even a heart swept and garnished for your
+acceptancy. I did not wish to love you, I am not sure I love you even
+now; all I know is that you draw me to you with invisible chains; that
+you take from me all resistance, all desire to resist."
+
+"Ah," she exclaimed, with infinite bitterness, "you speak as a man. We
+women do not so easily break the bonds that have held us for so long.
+Suppose I were to take you at your word, suppose I were to listen to
+you, to your own undoing? What would be the outcome of it? I, a woman,
+Adèle Lamien, who perchance has looked shame in the face, who may have
+swept the by-ways of wickedness with her skirts, I to demand of you this
+sacrifice, and for what? That you may hear my name spoken in whispers
+and with bated breath; that you may see me pointed at in scorn and
+derision; that never may you look at me, never see my face, without the
+bitter memory of my buried past rising up between us. No, this may not
+be; you have loved before, it is not love you feel now, it is
+resentment, disappointment, anger. Put by your fancy of the hour, Mr.
+Tremain, and let Adèle Lamien fade out of your life even as she has come
+into it, an accident only. Do you not remember the fable and fate of the
+poor Cigale?
+
+    'The grasshopper so blithe and gay,
+    Sang the summer time away;
+    Pinched and poor the spendthrift grew,
+    When the keen north-easter blew.'
+
+I am that poor Cigale. I have had my summer time, and now it is winter;
+and you would fain make me believe that one can conjure up a second
+summer from out the ruins of autumn's blasts; nay, that is impossible
+alike for you as for me. Believe me, no good has ever come from a
+passion so suddenly developed, as this you plead now. You will live to
+thank me for my words, even if now, at this very moment, you are not
+confessing their justice."
+
+She rose as she finished, and moved somewhat away from him. The darkness
+of the early May evening had crept up and about them unnoticed; she had
+become indistinct and unreal, a part of the shadows that surrounded her;
+and Mr. Tremain, as he listened to the low, even notes of her voice,
+felt the unreality of his position grow more and more defined.
+
+He had been mad--mad with a moment's passion; and yet--and yet, what was
+this impalpable, intangible influence that drew him to her with
+invisible cords, even while he realised the wisdom of her words, and
+rejoiced in the freedom she forced back upon him?
+
+The silence and the darkness increased; she became but a dim outline
+against the deeper tones of shadow, her pale face alone showing in the
+gloom.
+
+"You scarcely give me a choice, Adèle," he said; "and yet how is it
+possible for me to accept your decision?"
+
+His words were followed by a light laugh; a chord struck sharply, and
+then from out the obscurity came her voice again. But what was this
+change in it? What was this undertone of mocking raillery that sounded
+so familiar and yet so incongruous?
+
+"Said I not truly, Mr. Tremain, you are mad to ask me to listen to you;
+and yet--ah, Philip--perhaps it would be wiser for us both could I but
+yield."
+
+"Then listen, I entreat, Adèle," he cried, impetuously, "do not make
+your decision a final one; leave it open as a possibility for future
+consideration. Do not let me ask in vain; only say that you will think
+twice before you refuse me definitely. Do I ask too much?"
+
+"Too much!" she echoed, and her voice sank to a whisper. "Is it too much
+to put the cup of water to the parched lips of a dying man, and bid him
+drink? Will he refuse, think you? Do you know how greatly you tempt me?
+Shall not you and I come to repent with bitterness this parleying with
+the inevitable? Well, then, since you will have it so, and since my will
+is weak--ah, so very weak--and fate is strong, it shall be as you wish.
+I will make no final decision. I will wait. Surely this should be
+triumph enough, even for me, to know that I have won you from the
+remembrance--nay, from the very presence of--Patricia Hildreth!"
+
+At Patty's name thrust thus sharply and unexpectedly upon him, Philip
+started forward, impelled by the same unknown, unreasoning force that
+had held and controlled him throughout their interview, but he was too
+late. He was conscious of a light silken rustle, a low laugh, a hand
+laid for a moment on his, and then he was alone.
+
+As Mdlle. Lamien drew the _portières_ behind her, two figures crept back
+into the obscurity of the room beyond, and as she passed swiftly on and
+out into the hall, a whisper in a woman's voice echoed across the
+shadows:
+
+"Are you satisfied--convinced? There is no mistake?"
+
+"I am absolutely convinced, mademoiselle, there can be no mistake,"
+answered a second, carefully modulated voice.
+
+A moment later Miss James stole quietly out of the now dark library,
+followed by the sombre, gliding figure of Vladimir Mellikoff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+INTROSPECTION.
+
+
+The party at the Folly had broken up at last, and, going the way of all
+things terrestrial, was already numbered among the pleasures of the have
+been.
+
+Mrs. Newbold had flitted seaward with little Marianne, her husband, her
+maid, and a small army of dress-baskets and boxes. The golden glory of
+July held the gardens and woods, the terraces and parterres, in the
+spell of midsummer colouring; flinging abroad with generous hand its
+meed of sunshine, its wealth of fruit, its richness of blossom, its long
+hours of fullest beauty, when the intense blue heavens above, the
+smiling earth below, and the very atmosphere of soft delicious haze
+seemed to palpitate with their own tropical luxuriance.
+
+Mrs. Newbold's island home never looked more enchanting or enchanted
+than in this "royal month," and yet it was just at this perfected time
+that stern fashion decreed she should leave it, and seek for pleasure
+and relaxation within the narrow limits and confined area of George
+Newbold's yacht. And Esther, with a courage worthy of a better cause,
+never dreamed of disputing fashion's mandate, but bore with heroic
+fortitude the thousand and one restrictions entailed upon her by
+existence in the _Deerhound_; for even in that most luxurious schooner
+her convenience had to suit itself to space.
+
+And so, while the _Deerhound_ lay moored at Newport, and Mrs. Esther
+entertained and was entertained with almost royal splendour, and the
+long summer days were given up to feasting and amusement, and the long
+summer nights to dancing and intrigue, the Folly was deserted, its
+blinds close drawn, its hospitable doors locked and barred; and the
+roses came to perfection, and ran riot in their wantonness, showering
+their petals in such lavish prodigality that the garden paths lay strewn
+and heaped with the crimson and white of their livery.
+
+Even as in ancient Rome a certain youthful emperor, satiated with every
+guise of amusement, worn out with pleasure and fulfilled desire, buried
+the companions of his licentiousness beneath an avalanche of
+rose-leaves, which, as they fell, became their grave-clothes and their
+pall.
+
+And have we of to-day no likeness to this pagan Heliogabalus? Do not we
+bury the best-beloved of our past beneath a cere-cloth, formed of the
+sweet sentiments of forgetfulness; and, turning from their appealing
+eyes and sadly accusing faces, enter with fresh zest and renewed
+enthusiasm upon the untried excitements of the hour? Are we, after two
+thousand years of Christ's humanity, and the awful lessons of Gethsemane
+and Golgotha, so much less pagan?
+
+Mrs. Newbold had taken Dick Darling with her in her flitting; she had
+come to have a very true affection for that somewhat crude young lady,
+for Esther possessed so much of the alchemist's power as to recognise
+pure gold when she found it; and also Miss Darling's outspoken
+admiration for Patricia Hildreth acted as a salve to her disappointed
+and fruitless projects.
+
+To Dick herself the prospect of three weeks or a month at Newport on
+board the most perfectly appointed yacht of the squadron, with unlimited
+license to enjoy the passing hour to the full, was, in her own
+phraseology, "just too most awfully nailing!" She danced and she
+flirted, the latter in her own half-boyish fashion. She smoked
+everybody's cigarettes save her own. She won the ladies' single-handed
+lawn tennis tournament, and sported the prize--a jewelled racket and
+ball brooch--with frank delight in her own prowess. She drove Freddy
+Slade's tandem up and down Bellevue Avenue all one morning, and sailed
+Jack Howard's microscopic cutter out to the Narrows and back in the
+afternoon.
+
+She was, indeed, as happy as the day was long; like Browning's
+'Duchess,' "she loved whate'er she looked on, and her looks went
+everywhere." And then, oh, happy thought, were there not more worlds to
+conquer in the immediate future? Did not visions of New London, Shelter
+Island, Mount Desert, and the Isle of Shoales stretch out in endless
+perspective before her? What girl could dare to be otherwise than
+sublimely happy so long as the sea laughed, and the sun shone, and there
+were such beneficent factors in the scheme of life and Providence as
+horses, and dogs, and boats, to say nothing of men and boys, who were
+but the playthings of existence?
+
+And through all those long, luxurious summer days, Mr. Tremain remained
+in town, returning a curt negative to all alluring invitations.
+
+He had not seen Mrs. Newbold again after his momentous interview with
+Mademoiselle Lamien; indeed, he had left the Folly immediately after it,
+walking into New Brighton, and proving but a sorry companion to John
+Mainwaring, during their journey to New York.
+
+To tell the truth, he felt himself to be somewhat of a traitor to
+Esther, in that he had permitted himself to become a traitor to the
+memory of Patricia. He could not quite forget or put from him Esther's
+earnest words, Esther's eyes filled with tears, and Esther's undeviating
+fidelity to the love of his youth; that love from which he had now
+deliberately and by his own act cut himself off for ever. He knew that
+to Esther he could only appear as the most weak and vacillating of men;
+his own words rang too clearly in his ears to allow him for one moment
+to doubt what her judgment upon his action would be.
+
+There are two things no woman can excuse or palliate in a man:
+disaffection from herself where she has once been the first object of
+his devotion, or disaffection to an ideal which she has set up as a
+fetich, and to which unswerving fidelity is expected as a matter of
+right. Esther had set up in this position the old love of ten years ago
+that had existed between himself and Patricia; she had, so to speak, dug
+its dead body from out its unquiet grave, and breathing into it her own
+vitality and desire, had set herself to work to re-create answering
+sentiments in his heart. With the impetuosity of woman's nature, which
+considers no office so legitimately its own as that of binding up broken
+hearts, and reuniting broken troths, she endeavoured now to re-construct
+and rehabilitate this passion of his youth, never pausing to reflect
+upon his attitude in the case, or the probabilities of failure which
+amounted to certainties.
+
+She had failed, it was true; but that is only half a failure that
+leaves matters at the point from which they started. There is always
+room for hope so long as certain premises remain unchanged. Philip was
+still unbound and unfettered, and Patricia was still Patricia Hildreth.
+Were not these sufficient foundations on which to build as fancy
+dictated?
+
+Reflecting on this, and on his own position from Esther's point of view,
+Mr. Tremain could not but acknowledge that his proposal to Mdlle.
+Lamien, and their partial engagement, could only be regarded by Esther
+in the light of direst treachery. Any reasons he might bring to bear in
+defence of his present situation and the circumstances that had led up
+to it, would, he knew, be scoffed at and scouted by his staunch little
+friend. Of what use would it be for him to enter into the physiological
+side of the question? He could not hope to explain to her the vague,
+impersonal power that drove him on to this finale. Should he plead that
+he was not altogether a free agent, and advance in confirmation of this
+the subtle illusive resemblance of Mdlle. Lamien to another some one,
+equally shadowy and unreal, he would be met with an incredulous smile,
+and a suggestion that since he could urge no stronger reason than that
+of a chance likeness, why need he hesitate to _exploiter_ his delusion?
+Or why choose Adèle Lamien's negative unreality, in place of Patricia
+Hildreth's positive personality?
+
+It would be vain also to remind Esther that not only had Patricia twice
+deliberately refused him in words, but by open raillery and covert
+mockery had emphasized those refusals, more times than his pride cared
+to count. No, Esther would be convinced by none of these things; it was
+worse than hopeless to expect it of her, and therefore worse than
+useless to appeal to her. In selecting Adèle Lamien for his future wife,
+he had cut himself adrift from his own life, and from the close sympathy
+and intimacy of those few friends whose affection had made existence
+worth living.
+
+He realised perfectly that in thus choosing a woman upon whose past lay
+not only the blight of secrecy but the curse of suspicion, he made that
+past his own with all its weight of shame and sin, nay, perhaps, even of
+crime, at which she had so vaguely hinted. He knew now that in that
+moment of surprise and overmastering passion, when the spell of her
+music and her presence held him against his will, he had not reasoned,
+he had not considered. He had let the potency of the moment bear him
+away; he had, indeed, seen dimly what the outcome must inevitably be,
+and yet he had allowed himself to drift on with the current, and made no
+resistance.
+
+His love, his pride, smarting and burning beneath the cool insolence of
+Patricia's scorn, hurried him on to such a declaration as should be
+final, and break for ever the bonds of those ten years that had held him
+so long, and galled him so intolerably. He would be free, and Patricia
+should see and recognise his freedom and own its justice, even though
+she laughed gaily and jested mockingly upon it.
+
+It was indeed in this half defined and scarcely acknowledged
+retaliation, that he now found his chief solace, for the matter of his
+new engagement cannot be said to have contributed to his happiness.
+Still, if fate was so untoward as to eliminate all the higher degrees of
+perfection from his destiny, it was at least something gained to know
+that he retained the power of wounding one woman through another. It was
+not the greatest or grandest revenge, nay, it had something pitifully
+mean and ignoble about it; but it was revenge, and Philip was still
+human enough not to have mastered that divine perfection, which kisses
+the hand bearing the rod, and blesses the scourge even while the blows
+fall.
+
+In the meantime he hugged his secret, and kept his unhappiness to
+himself; refused to mingle with his own kind, and rarely stirred from
+out his chambers, except for the daily walk to and from his office, and
+grew silent, morose, unapproachable.
+
+The July days came and went with lingering, regretful steps; but they
+brought him no comfort. He grew to hate the long, bright, cruel hours,
+during which the sun shone so fiercely in the intense blue sky whose
+wide expanse was unsoftened by cloud or mist; even as he came to loathe
+the short midsummer nights, with the flooding moonlight and the radiant
+stars set in the vaulted firmament of God's glory.
+
+No news and no word came to him from Mdlle. Lamien; he had neither seen
+nor heard from her since their unsatisfactory parting. He had waited
+expecting each day some expression from her, some recognition or
+repudiation of the promise that bound him; but each day brought him only
+disappointment, until at last, as the days grew into weeks, he ceased
+expecting and accepted his position almost with relief. He was ready and
+waiting whenever Mdlle. Lamien should signify her need of him; he would
+not lift a finger to break the slight chain that bound him, but neither
+would he by act or word rivet that chain closer.
+
+Of Patricia he knew absolutely nothing; not even the echo of her name
+reached him. That most energetic of society chronicles, _Town Optics_,
+was never counted in his literature, though, had he known it, even that
+authority was silent concerning her movements. She had apparently
+dropped out of his life as completely as even he could desire; and, as
+he acknowledged with a bitter smile, she was not likely to vex or
+trouble him more, in the changed conditions of his future.
+
+Ah, well, let her rest in peace! Patty, his wilful, loving, perverse
+little Patty, had been dead to him for ten long years.
+
+But with the last week of July, Mr. Tremain aroused himself, and,
+throwing off his lethargy, hastily packed a light portmanteau and betook
+himself to a certain landing-stage down in the city's depths; and as the
+sun set in a harmony of gorgeous splendour over Bowling Green and Castle
+Garden, making a golden symbol of Trinity's tall spire, and flooding the
+city with transient beauty, he stood upon the deck of a small steamer,
+bound for the rocky shores of Maine, and, two days later, had vanished
+amidst the deep far-stretching pine forests of that eastern state,
+pitching his tent beside an outlet of wild Hemlock Lake, and lost
+completely to civilisation in the form of post, or telegraph, or daily
+paper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PLOTTING.
+
+
+Count Mellikoff had also on leaving the Folly betaken himself to New
+York, and re-established his locale in that quiet but eminently
+aristocratic hotel, which has for years been a sort of Mecca to European
+wanderers, who finding life on the plan of the ordinary huge American
+caravansary, too public and _en évidence_, have sought with thankfulness
+the more retired existence of this favoured resort.
+
+Most people object to that process of public cleansing usually regarded
+as the attribute of vulgarity; but one need not be vulgar to object to
+consuming one's roast beef and port wine under the public eye. It is
+not a pleasant sensation to come to look upon one's self as only an atom
+in the great scheme of a _table d'hôte_; one loses one's identity at
+such times, and with the loss of identity goes also one's self-respect.
+If you wish to retain your dignity in your own eyes and in the eyes of
+your world, keep yourself to yourself; and, above all, do your eating
+and drinking in private. Nothing is so much desired as that which is
+difficult of attainment; and no man has so many dinner invitations as he
+who is known to be fastidious, as to whose table he will honour with his
+presence.
+
+On the evening of the same day as that on which Mr. Tremain started off
+on his lonely wanderings, Count Mellikoff sat in a private apartment of
+his hotel busy over a variety of despatches and papers, heaped together
+on a writing-table.
+
+The day had been very warm, and even with the approach of night the
+atmosphere became but little less intolerable. The windows were open,
+but the latticed blinds were let down, and through the crevices the
+moonlight fell in broken lines across the walls, the rays of the small
+lamp on the writing-table being too faint to outshine the moonbeams; the
+room, in consequence, had a half unreal appearance, through the mingled
+reflections of oil and moonlight.
+
+A few blocks up Fifth Avenue, a barrel-organ was groaning out a popular
+melody, interrupted at intervals by a Strauss valse from the German band
+performing in Washington Square.
+
+On the centre table stood a tray with a bottle of claret and Apollinaris
+water, and a glass bowl filled with cracked ice.
+
+Despite the intensity of the temperature, Count Mellikoff was
+scrupulously dressed in evening costume, the gardenia in his button-hole
+showing white against his coat; beneath the flower the tiny red button
+of honour, that had so fascinated Miss James, stood out like a drop of
+blood.
+
+With rapid, accustomed fingers, Count Vladimir opened one by one the
+letters and papers, scanning their contents with quick comprehension,
+and laying each document aside with accurate decision. As he came to the
+last, he put it down before him, and bending forward, touched a little
+gong that stood near his despatch-box; then he leant back in his chair
+and waited. A door leading to an inner room was partially open.
+
+In the few seconds that intervened before his summons was answered, his
+face, seen now in the full light of the lamp, seemed to grow more pallid
+and anxious, the mouth beneath the straight moustache and beard grew
+hard, the eyes from out their shadowy caverns burned with a restless
+light, the cheeks appeared thinner, the forehead more pronounced, the
+hand as it rested on the table more nervous and attenuated, while the
+ruby in his ring glowed with an evil fire.
+
+The sharp metallic echo had scarcely died away before the door leading
+to the other room was pulled noiselessly open, and a short dark figure
+emerged from the interior shadows, and came forward with a cringing,
+uncertain gait.
+
+"Did the Excellenza ring?" the man asked in Italian, standing before the
+Count, and speaking in a voice that was both unctuous and false.
+
+Mellikoff looked at him for an instant before replying, while a smile of
+infinite scorn and disgust curled his lips.
+
+"Yes," he answered shortly, and in the same language, "I did ring; I
+require your most valuable services, Mattalini."
+
+The Italian bowed, and rubbed his hands together.
+
+"Si, si, Signor," he mumbled, "I am but your servant; you command, I
+obey."
+
+Vladimir paid no attention to this protestation save for another of
+those slow, scornful smiles, neither of which escaped the Italian's
+notice.
+
+"You will take this letter, Mattalini," Count Mellikoff continued,
+lifting a sealed packet and passing it across the table, "to M.
+Stubeloff, who is at present in this city. You will deliver it into his
+hands and bring me back a written reply--you understand, Mattalini--a
+written reply."
+
+There was that in the Count's tone that caused the blood to leap hotly
+within the Italian's veins; but he only bowed the more obsequiously as
+he replied:
+
+"Si, Signor, I comprehend. The M. Stubeloff is he who represents our
+father the Tsar in this _inferno_ of a country; he makes a sojourn here.
+_Bene_, he shall receive your packet, Excellenza, from my own hand, and
+you shall have his Excellency's written response."
+
+The man's voice was quiet and respectful enough; but Vladimir caught the
+sudden look of hatred that flashed up for one moment in his eyes, and
+knew that Mattalini was his secret enemy. As he turned away, Count
+Mellikoff spoke again:
+
+"You will give directions below at the office, that should a lady ask
+for me she is to be shown up at once--at once; do you understand?"
+
+"Si, Signor," replied the man, quietly; and then, with creeping step and
+drooping shoulders, he crossed the room, appearing for one moment in the
+moonbeams like the shadow of an evil spectre, and then vanishing as
+noiselessly as he had entered.
+
+Once outside the room he stopped and drew a deep breath, lifting his
+bowed form, and, raising his right hand, shook the open palm and long
+fingers at the closed door.
+
+"Curse him," he muttered, "curse him root and branch. May the evil eye
+never leave him now or hereafter, in life or death!" Then he turned and
+walked swiftly down the passage towards the stairs.
+
+Count Mellikoff, left alone, leant back in his chair with a heavy sigh,
+passing his hand wearily across his eyes. The rival musicians had
+settled their difficulties by the withdrawal of the barrel-organ, and
+only the strains from the German band floated in, mellowed by distance.
+It was the "Blue Danube" they were playing, and unconsciously, Vladimir
+Mellikoff kept time to the pathos of the under theme with his thoughts.
+The look of anxiety deepened on his face, emphasized by the additional
+expression of sadness that crept into his eyes.
+
+And, indeed, he had reason to be both sad and anxious; of late he had
+detected in Patouchki's letters and despatches a latent tone of distrust
+and suspicion, which he was quick to feel and to resent.
+
+There were no more veiled allusions to his past ability and faithful
+services; no assurances of his proved fidelity to the Tsar; no
+commendation of the work already accomplished, such as had come rarely,
+to be sure, but yet with sufficient regularity in the earlier stages of
+his mission. Rather were there peremptory commands, undisguised
+admonitions, and barely concealed innuendoes of dissatisfaction and
+distrust on the part of the Chancellerie.
+
+"Rest assured I shall be the last to misjudge or condemn you, Vladimir,"
+had run the chief's last letter; "but it becomes me to warn you that
+there are others who take a less lenient view of your position than I
+do, and who will not scruple to use every indiscretion against you. He
+who serves Russia must be prepared to find her not only suspicious, but
+ungrateful; it is your high privilege, Vladimir, to be counted among the
+most loyal of her servitors; but even to you may come the bitter lesson,
+that trifling with her decrees is followed by swift and sure punishment.
+The sworn presence of the woman, Adèle Lamien, in Petersburg, to which
+Tolskoi has given his oath, but which, as yet, we have been unable to
+verify, greatly complicates your position, since the Chancellerie knows
+that it was to find her you undertook your present mission. If, in the
+month that elapsed between your arrival in the States and her alleged
+appearance here, you have allowed her to slip through your fingers, you
+know full well the judgment that will be passed upon you. Your telegrams
+of late have been vague and uncertain, your letters no more assuring. In
+the meantime, and up to this present moment, we have been unable to put
+our hands upon this woman; she has disappeared as mysteriously as she
+came. And since there is room for doubt in the matter, we prefer to give
+you the benefit of that doubt, at least for the present."
+
+This had been the substance of Patouchki's communication, and Vladimir
+could not mistake its tone, even if its meaning had not been further
+enhanced by the arrival of the Italian, Mattalini, who came ostensibly
+as a bearer of despatches, and with a request, which was more of a
+command, that Count Mellikoff would kindly retain him in his service.
+
+A bitter smile had come to Vladimir's lips as he read the letter of
+recommendation and looked at the candidate for his favour standing
+before him. Well might Ivor Tolskoi have said, that lying craft and
+duplicity were stamped on his every feature. Vladimir Mellikoff but
+confirmed these words when he said, half sadly to himself, as the man
+turned away:
+
+"And has it come to this, my chief? Am I to be dogged and watched by
+such a paid miscreant as this Italian? Is he to be my 'double,' and am I
+to stand or fall according to his testimony? Oh, Russia, hard indeed are
+you as a task-mistress, heavy your yoke of iron, and bitter your
+recompense!"
+
+It did not require any great perspicuity to read through the
+Chancellerie's design in sending Mattalini to be servant to Count
+Mellikoff; and, from the moment the sullen Italian entered his service,
+Vladimir felt his evil star had arisen, and his evil hour arrived.
+
+That Tolskoi should have been the one to swear to the actual presence of
+Adèle Lamien, or Lallovich, in Petersburg, when he--Mellikoff--was
+hunting her down in America, troubled him but little. Firm in his own
+belief, and secure of his ultimate success, he paid small heed to a
+chance likeness that might easily have deceived so gay and volatile a
+young man as Ivor. Was it likely that he, Valdimir Mellikoff, an old and
+tried servant of the Tsar--old at least in experience if not in
+years--should be distanced and out-done by a yellow-haired youth still
+almost in his adolescence? Count Mellikoff smiled, and put the thought
+aside as valueless.
+
+Much more disturbing and distressing was the scant news he received of
+his betrothed. Olga had written once or twice during the first two
+months of his self-imposed exile, and then suddenly her letters had
+ceased, and he could obtain no further news of her than what he could
+glean between the lines of the official telegrams in the daily
+newspapers. These were meagre in the extreme, only a bare mention now
+and then of the more important items of Russian politics, or her
+attitude on the Bulgarian question; but they at least told him that the
+Court was still at Petersburg, and therefore he knew Olga to be there
+also. With the beginning of the Russian summer she would accompany her
+Imperial mistress to Gatschina, or the baths, and then he felt he should
+indeed be separated from her.
+
+Oh, for this weary time of probation to pass! This winning of one more
+honour, one more decoration, to lay at her feet; and then to claim his
+recompense, his prize, and with his first rapturous kiss upon her proud
+lips seal his fealty, and bid a final good-bye to worldly ambition and
+reward!
+
+Immersed in such meditations, Count Mellikoff started nervously as a
+sharp rap on the door awoke him from his reverie; with the immediate
+self-command of long habit, he instantly controlled both face and
+voice, and calling out a "Come in," rose from his chair and walked to
+the middle of the room.
+
+The door was thrown open with the words, "A lady to see you, sir," and
+then quickly closed. A slight figure dressed in black, and with a heavy
+veil drawn over the face, advanced towards him, and, as Vladimir came
+forward, a voice, high pitched despite its whispered words, said
+quickly:
+
+"I have come, but I must beg you will not keep me long."
+
+For answer Count Mellikoff bowed respectfully and pulled forward an easy
+chair.
+
+"Let me ask you to be seated," he said in his suavest tones, "and pray
+remove your veil. I entreat, I insist; the evening is stifling."
+
+Without a word his visitor sank down upon the chair, and mechanically
+unpinned and removed her thick veil; the face beneath the hard outline
+of the black hat looked hollow and aged, the dark eyes burned
+feverishly, the thin lips were colourless.
+
+Even to the most superficial observer great and marked were the changes
+that a few weeks had wrought there; it bore but a faint and blurred
+resemblance to the face that Mr. Tremain had looked on, not unkindly,
+two short months ago at the Folly.
+
+Count Mellikoff turned to the table, and pouring out a glass of claret,
+added the ice and Apollinaris with careful exactness, and brought it to
+his guest.
+
+"You must drink this, mademoiselle," he said. "You are looking very
+exhausted. _Ma foi_, I cannot compliment you on the temperature of an
+American summer!"
+
+She took the tumbler from him and drank the contents thirstily; as she
+put down the empty glass her ungloved hand came within the radius of the
+lamp-light. It looked shrunken and attenuated, the rings upon the thin
+fingers hung loosely and jangled one against the other. She sat back
+wearily, looking up at him with an eager, anxious expression.
+
+"I must ask you not to keep me long," she said again, "I may be missed
+at any moment. It is important I should return as soon as possible."
+
+Count Mellikoff drew a chair in front of her, and sitting down leant
+slightly forward, joining his hands together by the finger-tips. His
+position and gesture recalled another like occasion in which she and he
+were the chief actors; she shuddered violently and drew back from him
+involuntarily.
+
+"Miss James," began Count Vladimir, in his cold, even tones, "I beg you
+will believe that I am fully alive to your disinterestedness in thus
+coming to me, and also to the risks you run in so doing. But, as I told
+you during our first conversation, in seeking your co-operation in my
+work I was well aware you would have to encounter much that must of
+necessity be disagreeable to you, since defying or breaking the canons
+of conventionality is always an unpleasant experience. You, however,
+elected to become my partner in this work--an honour of which I am
+deeply appreciative--and you were content to chance the consequences if
+you could but work out your own ends in furthering mine. Am I not
+correct in my statements?"
+
+"Yes, yes, oh yes," she replied, hurriedly. "You are quite right,
+perfectly correct."
+
+"I can assure you, mademoiselle," went on Count Vladimir, with a little
+smile, leaning somewhat more forward until the heavy, languorous scent
+of the gardenia seemed almost to stifle her, "that I have no desire to
+detain you longer than is absolutely necessary, though, were I to
+consult my pleasure, I would willingly lengthen the visit of one for
+whom I entertain such sentiments of respectful admiration. However,
+since we cannot consult inclination, let us proceed to duty. What news
+have you to give me of our _dramatis personæ_? Let us commence with
+Philip Tremain."
+
+At the mention of this name the girl's white face paled perceptibly, and
+her lips quivered. She loved Philip as well and as generously as it lay
+in her nature to love any one; and though he had passed her by, even
+when conscious of her love for him, it was none the less bitter to find
+herself in the position of a spy and informer against him.
+
+Vladimir Mellikoff saw her hesitancy and read its meaning.
+
+"It's not pleasant, I admit, mademoiselle," he said, "to be obliged to
+speak uncompromisingly of any one; especially must this be the case now
+and with you, when you recall Mr. Tremain's pronounced--friendship."
+
+His jibe told. It was this very friendliness of Philip's attitude
+towards her against which she most revolted and beat her passion to
+tatters; she could better have borne his anger or hate, than his calm
+indifference of friendly interest.
+
+"Mr. Tremain is no friend of mine," she said, sharply, and with a
+short, hard laugh; "his goings and comings are nothing to me, except in
+so far as they influence _her_. I have fully admitted to you, Count
+Mellikoff, the reason why I shall be glad to see her humbled and
+exposed. I do not know why she should nourish, and flaunt her beauty in
+my face, when it lies in my power to tear the mask from her and reveal
+her real self to the world that flatters and adores her every whim and
+caprice."
+
+"You have both reason and cause on your side, Miss James," replied
+Vladimir, quietly. "A woman scorned makes a dangerous enemy. But pardon
+me, if I remind you who it is that has placed the power of enmity within
+your reach."
+
+"I have not forgotten," she answered, with almost sullen bitterness; "it
+is to you, Count Mellikoff, I owe my weapon of vengeance. I am not
+ungrateful."
+
+Count Mellikoff made a slight bow, and said: "And now as to this Mr.
+Tremain, where is he at present; and have you any further news of her?"
+
+"Up to this morning, Mr. Tremain was not two miles distant from here,"
+replied Miss James. "He had not left town since his last interview
+with--her, until this evening."
+
+"And has he gone now?" inquired Vladimir, quickly, sitting upright in
+his chair. "This is news, indeed. Where has he gone?"
+
+"That I cannot tell you, but certainly not to her. I called at his
+chambers ostensibly on an errand of charity, and the janitor told me he
+had left town suddenly. A little judicious questioning elicited the
+further details that he had taken but one small portmanteau, given his
+man a holiday, and ordered himself to be driven to a landing stage, too
+far down town for any boat to start from but an ocean or Sound steamer.
+He left no directions for the forwarding of his letters, and made no
+plan for returning. He has vanished from out our circle for the present,
+and I can give you no clue to his possible destination."
+
+"It matters but very little," replied Vladimir. "When his presence is
+required, the orbit of his destiny will swing round to us again. We can
+dismiss him for the present, and be thankful he has so opportunely
+vanished into space. And of her, mademoiselle, of Adèle Lamien, as it is
+wisest still to call her, since even walls have ears?"
+
+"You are over-prudent, Count Mellikoff, surely. Still, perhaps it is as
+well to keep up the farce to the end. Of Adèle Lamien's escape there is
+no fear. She is absolutely in our power; I know her every movement, her
+daily avocations; I can put my hand upon her at any moment. She is as
+unsuspicious and ignorant of the net closing so securely about her, as
+she is that in me she sees her deadliest foe. No, there can be no
+failure there; whatever else fails, I am sure of that revenge; that is,"
+she added, suddenly, "if _you_ are certain--if you are not deceived."
+
+"No, I am not deceived," replied Count Mellikoff, slowly. "We shall not
+have much longer to remain inactive, mademoiselle; I do but attend a
+final telegram, and then the blow will fall."
+
+"I hope so," answered the girl, bitterly; "and may it crush both him and
+her when it comes."
+
+There was a moment's silence before Count Mellikoff spoke again; when he
+did, his voice had regained its lighter tones.
+
+"And Madame Newbold and the charming Miss Dick," he asked; "what of
+them?"
+
+"Still at Newport, on board the _Deerhound_; but they are to weigh
+anchor to-night for a longer cruise than any they have yet taken. After
+this evening it will be impossible to say when or where telegrams or
+letters could reach them." She stopped for a moment, and then said,
+abruptly: "And the warrant--you will have no difficulty about that?"
+
+"I anticipate none. The first steps can, of course, be but
+preliminaries. There is no doubt of our securing an arrest, and that is
+our first move. With Mr. Tremain lost, so to speak, the _Deerhound_ and
+her passengers started on an uncertain cruise; and, New York an empty
+wilderness, there is nothing to interrupt the march of events,
+mademoiselle. We may look any day now, any hour, for the consummation of
+fate."
+
+"I am glad," again replied the girl; "yes, I am glad. And now I must go;
+it grows late. Have you any further instructions to give me?"
+
+She took out her veil as she spoke, and tied it closely over her face,
+listening earnestly meantime to Count Mellikoff's low and rapid
+utterances. He spoke quickly, but with decision, and she acquiesced by
+her absolute silence.
+
+As he finished she rose, and drawing her thin black mantle closely about
+her, walked rapidly towards the door. Vladimir Mellikoff held it open
+for her, but she passed him without word or salutation.
+
+Half-way down the narrow passage a man overtook her, and turned to
+glance at her as he passed. It was the Italian, Mattalini.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later on that same evening, while Philip Tremain paced the deck of the
+out-going steamer with restless footsteps, and did battle with the
+conflicting emotions that raged within him, Patricia Hildreth, leaning
+on the arm of the most distinguished partner of the hour, floated
+languidly around to the strains of "Dreamland" waltzes, the most admired
+woman of all the bevy of fair women who filled the spacious
+drawing-rooms of the "Eversleigh" at Long Branch. Her draperies of
+lustrous silk were not more white than her fair face, nor were the
+jewels on her bosom more bright and cold, than was the blue fire of her
+eyes. Only her smile retained its old charm and sweetness, and belied
+the weariness that rested upon her brow.
+
+She conferred distinction by her presence, and dispensed her favours
+with so royal a grace, the recipients of her bounty never stopped to
+weigh their value, or count their cost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THÉ ANGLAIS.
+
+
+Ivor Tolskoi did not see Mdlle. Naundorff again for several weeks.
+
+On leaving her at the private entrance of the Palace, he had walked away
+with Patouchki, towards the Chancellerie, where he was kept busily at
+work until late in the afternoon. He purposely avoided the Court circle
+in the evening, his presence not being officially demanded, for he felt
+he could not so soon again meet Olga's reproachful eyes, and pale
+suffering face; a longer interval must elapse before he could greet her
+in his accustomed manner.
+
+The next day he heard of her sudden indisposition through that same
+Countess Vera, whose trivial words had first set alight the fire of
+vindictiveness in his heart. Ivor was a great favourite in all the
+Petersburg _salons_, and his appearance in Countess Vera's drawing-rooms
+at the magic tea-hour was hailed with delight.
+
+A considerable number of the best known _beau-mondaines_ were already
+gathered there, to whom the Countess--who was a pronounced follower of
+all customs English--was dispensing tea from out a most
+un-English-looking samovar. She welcomed Ivor with effusion, and bade
+him take the vacant chair beside her low gipsy-table, which with its
+dainty tea-cloth and royal Worcester tea-service, looked distinctly out
+of place in the large, formal, mirror-hung apartment.
+
+"It is delightful to see you, _mon cher_," lisped the Countess in her
+high voice, looking at him languishingly; "it is ages, eternities,
+centuries, since you last honoured one of my _thés anglais_ with your
+presence. Positively I believe you have not before seen my newest
+importation from that land of fogs and delights. Behold, this is my very
+last!" and she pointed gaily to the little table. "I assure you it is
+quite correct, quite _comme il faut_, cloth and all. I have it direct
+from my dear friend, the Duchess of Hever; it is an exact copy of the
+one used by the Princess at Sandringham. The dear English! one quite
+grows to love them."
+
+And the Countess clasped her hands together dramatically, letting them
+fall with effect upon her plush tea-gown; against the ruby folds the
+diamonds and rubies of her rings flashed triumphantly.
+
+Tolskoi laughed, his full-hearted boyish laugh, as he took the English
+tea-cup she held out to him.
+
+"You have the courage of your opinions, Countess," he said; "it is well
+you are protected by Imperial favour. I know some houses in Petersburg,
+where were such frank expressions of Anglo-mania indulged in, they
+would be followed by a swift and emphatic caution from the
+Chancellerie."
+
+The Countess shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"_Ma foi_, I am no politician, no intriguer. I am but a silly moth of
+fashion, I do not even pose as a butterfly; but it appeals to my sense
+of _bien-etre_ to be on good terms with England; and certainly it is
+more politic, since through our Grand Duchess, and our Tsarina, our
+dynasty is doubly allied with that country. But there, I see your eyes
+are wandering after your thoughts; I regret your disappointment, _mon
+cher_, for you will not see her here to-day."
+
+Tolskoi acknowledged the raillery with another laugh. "Ah, Countess, you
+are the fairy of the story books! And why does not Mdlle. Naundorff
+honour your _salon_ to-day?"
+
+"Because she is indisposed," answered Countess Vera, looking up at him
+sharply; "she is obliged to keep her own apartments. I fear you took but
+poor care of the future Countess Mellikoff, monsieur, for she returned
+from the Petropavlovsk inspection looking like a ghost, and scarcely
+able to render her light services to the Tsarina, during the evening.
+Were the horrors of the Fortress so very pronounced, _mon cher_? You
+will have to answer to Count Vladimir, you know, if on his return he
+finds his _fiancée_ changed. Already Petersburg rings with your openly
+displayed admiration for her cold beauty."
+
+She laughed as she concluded, and got up slowly from her low chair. Ivor
+rose also.
+
+"I shall be only too happy to answer any charge of Count Mellikoff's,"
+he said, deliberately, "when he returns."
+
+Then the Countess Vera glided away from him, and with a word here, a
+whisper there, a smile, a nod, a gesture, set afloat the rumour that
+society might look for another highly-spiced scandal, as soon as Count
+Mellikoff returned, for Ivor Tolskoi, not content with stealing away his
+_fiancée's_ allegiance, intended to challenge him as well.
+
+Wasn't it quite dreadful? Ah, yes, but very romantic! added the little
+Countess, to whom intrigue and scandal were as the breath of her
+nostrils.
+
+The conversation now became general, and of course the favourite topic
+under discussion was the Imperial visit of yesterday to Petropavlovsk.
+Ivor found himself in constant requisition, and his ingenuity not a
+little put to the test in replying vaguely yet satisfactorily to the
+eager questions poured upon him.
+
+All interest in the reunion had, however, flown for him directly he
+heard the cause of Olga Naundorff's non-appearance, and he managed as
+soon as possible to make his _adieux_ to the Countess.
+
+"Ah," said that little lady, lifting her eyebrows in mock despair. "So
+we are to lose you already! We cannot offer you a sufficient attraction,
+_mon cher_, to keep you in the absence of the Court favourite. Let me
+warn you again, Count Mellikoff is not a man to be trifled with."
+
+"Nor am I," answered Ivor, incautiously; whereat the Countess Vera
+laughed.
+
+"_Ma foi_," she said, "if you carry matters with so high a hand we shall
+have even a more dramatic _esclandre_ than the Stevan Lallovich affair.
+By the way, Ivor, what news is afloat concerning Count Vladimir, and his
+search for the missing woman? Oh, yes, you see it is no secret to me,
+the reason of his departure _là-bas_."
+
+With which vague and descriptive term and a gesture equally disdainful,
+the Countess indicated the broad continent of America. To her
+intelligence and imagination, it was but a land of semi-barbarians and
+savages, where existence was not worth the price of her smallest luxury.
+
+Tolskoi replied with a little bow.
+
+"Ah, Countess," he said, "who can hope to keep any secret from you, and
+indeed who would wish to do so? I believe Count Mellikoff is fully
+satisfied with his advance so far; it remains only for the Chancellerie
+to express an equal approbation."
+
+Then he bent over the Countess's hand, and with a passing compliment,
+made his devoirs and left her. She stood for a moment looking after him
+thoughtfully.
+
+"I would rather not be in Count Mellikoff's shoes," she said to herself,
+"should he not succeed. Ivor Tolskoi is not likely to prove a light
+enemy, and Ivor Tolskoi means to steal from him not only his sweetheart,
+but his reputation."
+
+Then she laughed a little as she turned gaily back to her gipsy-table,
+and her _thé à l'anglaise_.
+
+Meantime Tolskoi on leaving the Palace Vera, turned his steps towards
+the Boulevard de Cavalerio, in the direction of his own apartments. His
+brow was clouded and his lips stern as he walked along the gaily-lighted
+streets. Evening had already closed in, the long evening of a day late
+in March, and the boulevard was full of life and movement.
+
+Ivor, however, took but little heed of his surroundings, the news he had
+just heard concerning Olga, disquieted him not a little, the more so as
+his love for her was very great, and he felt that he alone was
+answerable for her mental and physical illness. He would have spared her
+had it been possible for him to do so, and had he seen any other way out
+of his difficulties. His first great object was to win her away from
+Mellikoff, whom he knew to be his only serious rival, and to do this he
+was willing to descend to any subterfuge.
+
+He knew her nature sufficiently well to be aware that nothing short of
+falsity to her, on Vladimir's part, would serve to break even the light
+bonds that held her to him. Mellikoff's greatest power lay in the
+protested claims of this his first and only love; and she, in listening
+to his protestations, had been more swayed by the sense of her undivided
+sovereignty over him, than by any feeling of affection.
+
+His years and his honours gave him the right to pose as a man of
+fashion, whose experiences of a certain kind were but foregone
+conclusions; instead, however, of pleading this as a reason for his wish
+to _ranger_ himself, he actually offered her a virgin heart, that had
+known no warmer mistress than ambition, until he met her, and fell
+captive beneath her smile and proud, cold loveliness.
+
+The paradox of his life was unique, especially in Petersburg; and Olga
+had felt a thrill of pride when she looked upon Vladimir's stern face,
+and noted the many distinctions of honour that marked his Court dress,
+and realised that she, and she only, had won his love and his devotion.
+She was the first woman before whom he had bowed his head in haughty
+pleading. It was no mean triumph, even for Olga Naundorff, to win and
+rule him as an accepted suitor.
+
+All this Tolskoi realised to the full, and as his passion grew and
+strengthened, he determined to hesitate at nothing--no duplicity, no
+falsehood--if by it he could awaken suspicion in her mind, and so gain
+time for the perfecting of his own ends. Mellikoff's prolonged absence,
+and the unexpected meeting with Adèle Lamien in St. Isaac's, gave him
+ample basis upon which to work, and furnished him with a plan of attack,
+with so much of possible truth in it as to carry instant conviction to
+Olga's mind.
+
+Her heart had always remained untouched, even by Vladimir's devotion;
+she had not therefore, the divine instinct of love, by which to sift out
+the false from the true.
+
+And of Ivor it may be said, he believed enough in his allegations to
+make their fulfilment an easy possibility; it was, however, quite
+outside his calculations that Olga, by a real or feigned illness, should
+effectually shut herself off from his personal influence; the more so,
+as in a few days he was obliged to leave Petersburg, for his own estates
+in the Ural provinces, and his absence would extend over several weeks.
+What security had he against adverse circumstances and influences, while
+separated from her? Was it not even possible that Mellikoff might
+return triumphant? In which case, of what avail would be his schemes and
+intrigues?
+
+Fate, however, was against him, for he did not see Mdlle. Naundorff
+before his departure. He was often at the Palace, frequenting the Court
+_salon_ with sedulous regularity; but Olga never appeared, and he
+learned from the Countess Vera that she was still indisposed, "though
+not in danger of death," that little lady added, sharply, and with a
+meaning look at Ivor's downcast face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"FIND ME THE WOMAN."
+
+
+It was early April, when Tolskoi reluctantly quitted Petersburg, and it
+was June before he returned.
+
+The Court was still at the Winter Palace, for the winter season had been
+a long and cruel one, and even with the first days of June, summer
+advanced with but lagging footsteps, seemingly unwilling to awake the
+gay capital from its long frost-bitten sleep.
+
+Political affairs also held the Emperor, whose presence in the
+metropolis was considered by his ministers to be a necessity; therefore,
+when Ivor shook off the dust of many days, travel and alighted from his
+_coupé_ at the railway terminus, it was to see the familiar standard
+floating from the Winter Palace, and the tall lance-like spire of
+Petropavlovsk rising above the creeping waters of the Neva, and piercing
+the vivid blue of the sky beyond. The Troitski bridge and Boulevard-park
+were gay with passing traffic, and noisy with the cries of the flower
+vendors, whose trays and baskets overflowed with the blue violets of the
+Novgorod.
+
+Tolskoi made his way at once to the Imperial Chancellerie, where he
+found Patouchki, as he had left him, seated at his desk and busy over
+what seemed to Ivor the identical despatches that had surrounded him two
+months ago. The only observable change in the chief's _entourage_ lay in
+the open windows, and the softness of the west wind, as it stirred the
+papers with a gentle touch, and yet that had a bitter chill even in its
+caresses.
+
+Patouchki, he thought, looked worn and harassed; the sallowness of the
+flesh tints, the deeper lines about his forehead and mouth, spoke of
+days and nights of ceaseless occupation and anxiety; and to Ivor, fresh
+from the almost limitless freedom of his wide frontiers, spoke also of
+the despotic rule and iron obedience with which those who serve Russia,
+must accept Russia's dictates.
+
+The chief looked up, and greeted him as though but a day's separation
+lay between them.
+
+"Ah, Ivor," he said, "so you are come back. You are welcome."
+
+Ivor thanked him and turned towards his own desk, where lay neatly piled
+together various documents and papers, anticipatory of his expected
+return. Several newly cut quills were in the pen-tray, and a fresh
+unstained pad was opened invitingly. An amused smile came to the young
+man's face; it was all so absurdly natural and familiar; his absence of
+weeks faded away and became visionary and unreal, in this crude
+matter-of-fact light of official routine.
+
+What did it matter to Patouchki that he, Ivor, had but just come from
+those distant, far-reaching steppes, where the shy game and wild
+animals flew before his footsteps, and the miles of low stunted forest
+ended only with the horizon line, to meet which the cold grey sky
+appeared to curve in an almost perceptible arch.
+
+Standing alone, amidst his vast possessions, surrounded by a limitless
+silence, Tolskoi had better understood than ever before the meaning of
+the word freedom, and the unfathomableness of that undefined yet
+distinct craving for something higher and greater, than this world
+gives, which is implanted in every human heart. That vain, vague
+stretching after the unattainable, the blue flower of the mountains, the
+edelweiss of the Alps, which grows only on the heights of sacrifice and
+abnegation, and which, like the precious stone set with the jewels of
+suffering, is only attainable "to him that overcometh." Great indeed is
+his reward, "and his joy no man taketh from him."
+
+Ivor had carried with him during all his long return journey by road
+and rail, a recollection of this wider outlook, and it gave him
+therefore somewhat of a moral shock to find the world of Petersburg--his
+world--busily engaged just as he had left it, not only not recognising
+any spiritual change in him, but not even aware of any better or higher
+aims than those attainable by intrigue, and shameless pandering to the
+powers of the moment.
+
+Although he had stood face to face with God and Nature, for one brief
+moment, what was that to them? Here, in Petersburg, neither the Almighty
+nor Nature, had part or lot in the fierce, unending struggle called
+life.
+
+With a shrug of his shoulders Ivor took his accustomed place, and as he
+broke the first seal felt the better influences fall from him, and the
+old power reassert itself.
+
+If, as we are told, each soul has its fatal moment of choice, on which
+depends its final development, this was that moment for Ivor Tolskoi,
+and in accepting the old life with that careless gesture and cynical
+smile, he put from him for ever the higher calling that might have been
+his, and set his feet in the downward path of deterioration.
+
+After a short interval of silence, Patouchki turned towards him with his
+old imperiousness of manner, and said, abruptly:
+
+"About this woman, Tolskoi, this Adèle Lamien, whom you avow you saw. So
+far we have been unable to obtain any trace of her here, or learn
+anything concerning her movements; while on the other hand Count
+Mellikoff sends repeated messages of confidence as to his assured
+success, and the infallibility of his approaching _coup de main_. So
+after all, my dear Ivor, you must have been the victim of a delusion. It
+is impossible for Adèle Lamien to be in Petersburg without the
+Chancellerie's knowledge."
+
+"I was not mistaken, chief," replied Ivor, quietly. "I saw Adèle
+Lallovich with my own eyes. Hers is not a face to be easily mistaken,
+and I would rather trust to my own instincts, than to Count Mellikoff's
+written assertions. Answer me one question, chief: has Vladimir
+Mellikoff ever, to your knowledge, seen Adèle Lallovich?"
+
+"Really, Tolskoi, that is a strange question," answered Patouchki;
+"frankly, I have never had occasion to ask him. The woman's face was
+common property to all Petersburg, at one time, through the
+photographers, and considering how well Count Vladimir knew Stevan
+Lallovich, it is but natural to suppose his opportunities for seeing his
+mistress were numerous."
+
+"Pardon me, chief, if I differ from you on one or two points," replied
+Ivor, with unwonted gravity. "In the first place, you must admit that
+Stevan Lallovich did not for some time regard Adèle Lamien in the light
+of a mistress. He married her, remember, according to the ceremonies of
+the Church of Rome, and it was not until his passion for her grew cold,
+that he sought Imperial interference. He kept her exclusively at his
+villa across the Neva, and so long as he upheld her position as his wife
+was over-scrupulous in his care of her. I have reason to believe that
+not one of Count Stevan's boon companions, even Vladimir Mellikoff, was
+ever admitted to her presence. The marriage was secret and kept so, and
+as long as the infatuation lasted Lallovich showed nothing but respect
+to her. _We_ know how sudden was the Imperial ukase, and how little
+prepared she must have been for it, was shown by the tragic vengeance
+that overtook him. You understand then, chief, why I prefer to trust to
+my own instincts rather than to Count Mellikoff's assertions. I did once
+see Adèle Lallovich in her happier days, and I am not likely to mistake
+her face now, even though disfigured by shame and crime."
+
+Patouchki had listened attentively to Tolskoi's remarks; he replied to
+them by a slight gesture and the words:
+
+"Granted all that you say is true, Ivor, I fail to see how not knowing
+personally this unfortunate woman is any real disadvantage to Count
+Mellikoff. He has every facility for tracing her, and we know by
+experience that the last evidence to build upon in such a quest is
+personal appearance. It needs but the adjuncts of paint, powder, and a
+wig, to deceive even Lucifer himself. No, no, that troubles me but
+little; what is more of an anxiety is my inability to trace in any way
+the accomplice who first assisted Adèle Lamien out of Russia, and who
+now--placing credence upon your words--has accomplished her return.
+Could I but put my hand on that accomplice, I would soon unearth the
+criminal."
+
+Ivor made no reply save by a significant smile, and the slightest
+possible shrug. Patouchki noticed both, and felt irritated at the
+implied dissension expressed by them.
+
+"You have doubtless some theory to advance upon this also," he said,
+sharply; "perhaps you will have the goodness to impart it to me."
+
+"I do not know if my deductions may be dignified by so specific a title
+as theory, chief," Ivor replied, imperturbably; "I was but working out a
+small sum of calculation, which is at your service. In December last,
+Stevan Lallovich was murdered, and the woman calling herself his
+wife--though a suspect, and closely watched as such--disappeared,
+vanished absolutely. In the following January, Count Mellikoff, at the
+request of the Chancellerie, undertook a mission of discovery in the
+United States, whither the woman, according to trustworthy evidence, was
+supposed to have flown. Two months elapse, and nothing is discovered or
+revealed; meantime, you receive satisfactory, if vague, reports from
+Count Mellikoff, and the Chancellerie is lulled to inaction for the time
+being. At the end of March, I meet Adèle Lallovich face to face in the
+heart of Petersburg, where she has arrived without the knowledge of the
+Chancellerie, or its agents. That is my problem, chief; now to its
+solution. The same powerful influence--whose word was law, whose will
+was coercion--that got this woman out of Russia at a critical moment,
+has again been successful in sending her back to Petersburg, at a time
+when suspicion was thrown off its guard, and when Petersburg was a safer
+hiding-place than New York. That is my theory, chief, so far as I have
+worked it out."
+
+Patouchki did not speak for several moments. He sat looking straight
+before him, the furrows wrought by anxiety and care plainly visible on
+his sallow, stern, set face.
+
+The shadow of Ivor's veiled meaning was not lost to his quick
+perceptions; but he put it from him as unworthy of debate, and turning
+again to the young man said, even more sternly than before:
+
+"I would advise you to be careful, Ivor, in your own interests; it is
+best to say less than you know, still less than you suspect. To me you
+may speak freely, indeed, I desire you to do so; but beyond these walls,
+have a care. What further conclusions do you draw from your elaborate
+premises?"
+
+Ivor, with a quick flush at the suggestion of sarcasm in Patouchki's
+voice, replied quietly:
+
+"But one, and to you, chief, my deductions may seem both absurd and
+impossible. You will remember the circumstances of the murder, and you
+will, I am sure, concur with me, when I assert that to plan and
+accomplish such a crime could not have been the sole unaided work of a
+woman. There must have been a bolder and surer brain behind, one who had
+sufficient reason to make the perpetration of the murder serve as a
+double revenge. Very well then, granting such was the case, who would be
+better fitted or more competent to assist the accomplice in crime in her
+flight, than he who had helped her to her revenge? Self-preservation
+would render this shielding power compulsory, where she was concerned;
+for, once she fell into the hands of the Chancellerie, not her life
+only, but his, would be the forfeit. I have no doubt, chief, that he who
+helped Adèle Lallovich across our frontier, has conveyed her back
+again, and--for a reason."
+
+Tolskoi, as he finished, walked slowly across the room and back again,
+halting beside Patouchki. The latter looked up at him with a strange
+drawn expression upon his face. There was complete silence for a few
+moments; when the chief spoke it was in a very different voice to his
+usual harsh tones.
+
+"And you would suspect----"
+
+"I suspect no one, chief," answered the young man, his blue eyes
+flashing coldly. "I would only suggest that it is a strange coincidence
+at least, that shortly after Count Mellikoff's arrival in America, Adèle
+Lallovich should reappear in Petersburg."
+
+He said no more, but turning abruptly, walked back to his desk.
+
+Patouchki sat immovable for a long time. Ivor's suggestion had fallen
+upon him with almost crushing certainty, while mingled with the sense of
+humiliation and irritation at being outwitted, was also the feeling of
+pain and sorrow that he, who had thus outwitted him, should be the one
+in whom he had most implicitly trusted.
+
+Like Olga Naundorff, there appeared to him no room for doubt. Ivor's
+very appearance, his boyish _insouciance_ and frank bearing, were but
+additional witnesses to that other's treachery. And yet, and yet, could
+it be true? Should he not do well to wait just a little longer before
+condemning the absent? Could he but find the woman, could he but put his
+hand upon her! Were she really in Petersburg now, what greater evidence
+of perfidy could he desire, with those damning proofs in the shape of
+recent despatches and cables lying now on his desk? He turned at last,
+and spoke with apparent effort.
+
+"Tolskoi, your warning is understood. Find me the woman, here in
+Petersburg, and I shall then know how to act."
+
+"I will find her," replied Ivor, with stern brevity; and, accepting
+Patouchki's words as a dismissal, he bowed and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+"THIS LITTLE HAND."
+
+
+Late that same evening Tolskoi made his appearance at the Palace, in the
+outer _salon_, where he found the usual gathering of officials and
+_dames d'honneur_ with their invited guests. His reception was a
+flattering one, and his return to the _beau-mondaine_ circles hailed
+with acclamation.
+
+The heavy curtains to the inner _salon_ were closely drawn, indicative
+of the Tsar and Tsarina's desire to remain unmolested for the present.
+The evening was very warm, and most of the long windows stood open, the
+wind gently swaying the light draperies.
+
+Beneath the casements the Neva crept by in slow rippling motion; the
+moonlight falling athwart its grey opaqueness, woke here and there
+sudden gleams of radiance. It struck also across the blank stone wall of
+the Trubetskoi bastion, accentuating its grim outlines, and, shooting
+far upwards, tipped the lance-like spire of Peter's Fortress with golden
+fire.
+
+The Countess Vera was the first to welcome Tolskoi, smiling up at him,
+as she did so, and waving her great fan of scented lace to and fro
+languidly.
+
+"Oh, are you returned, _mon cher_? What a pleasure! And what a surprise
+to _some one_! Oh, yes, she is here, and quite ravishingly beautiful.
+For the moment she is with her Imperial Majesty. How hot it is, _mon
+cher_, and what a cruelty that the Court regards no one's convenience,
+save its own! One so longs to be flying westward."
+
+"Is it so unsupportable?" replied Ivor in his clear youthful voice,
+looking very handsome and young as he bent down towards the miniature
+lady. "Upon my word, when I am near the Countess Vera, I lose all
+sensation but one of supreme well-being."
+
+"Ah, flatterer!" cried the little Countess, tapping him lightly on the
+arm with her fan. "See, here she comes."
+
+At that moment the velvet curtains at the far end of the grand _salon_
+parted for a moment, to allow the egress of a tall slight figure, that
+moved down the room with an almost regal grace, and whose white
+draperies of soft lustreless silk swept after her in rhythmic curves.
+
+It was Olga, and Ivor, as he beheld her after two months of separation,
+felt his heart leap up in glad response to her beauty.
+
+Indeed, never had she looked more beautiful. The grand curves of her
+perfect figure, well defined by the low-cut bodice and falling laces of
+her dress, her head, carried with all its imperial haughty grace,
+crowned by the masses of her golden hair, her eyes so deep and wonderful
+beneath the dark level brows, the "pomegranate flower" of her mouth
+showing vividly against the colourless fairness of her complexion. She
+wore a sapphire and diamond ornament upon her neck, and the rare stones
+flashed and scintillated beneath her quick-coming breath.
+
+Ivor stepped forward eagerly, his face flushed with the renewed ecstasy
+of her presence, and bending low before her, murmured some inaudible
+greeting. The Countess Vera watched them, a smile on her brilliant
+little face.
+
+Olga drew back, with an almost imperceptible movement, and with a sudden
+dramatic gesture repelled, rather than welcomed, the young man. She had
+not seen him since that day when at his thinly veiled allusions, and
+suggestive words, all trust and belief in the truth and honesty of human
+nature died within her. In that brief hour's drive it seemed to her she
+had grown years older, and beyond that day she never looked.
+
+With the melting of the snows of winter she had put from her whatever
+of softness or leniency belonged to her girlhood; with her womanhood she
+adopted the creed of her world, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
+tooth."
+
+"Ah, Ivor," she exclaimed, controlling instantly both voice and manner,
+and holding out her hand in greeting, "so you have come back. What an
+eternity you have been away! Petersburg has been only half itself
+without you."
+
+She smiled as she spoke, and the charm of her smile counterbalanced the
+indifference of her tones.
+
+"Petersburg cannot have been so desolate without me, as I have been
+without Petersburg," answered Tolskoi, gaily. "Is one permitted,
+mademoiselle, to express one's admiration and pleasure in beholding you
+so radiant and so--happy?"
+
+"One is permitted always to speak one's mind in this age of
+enlightenment," she replied, carelessly, though the meaning of Ivor's
+question had not escaped her.
+
+"And what news do you bring with you?" she continued, a little
+hurriedly. "One is bored to extinction here, kept so late in town, and
+with such a dearth of novelty that counting flies upon the wall becomes
+an exciting pastime."
+
+She had walked on as she spoke, separating herself from the Countess
+Vera by a slight farewell gesture; Ivor kept pace at her side. When they
+drew near one of the deep embrasured windows she stopped, and motioned
+Ivor to the low cushioned seat beneath. But he refused to avail himself
+of her invitation, preferring to stand at her side and look down upon
+her. She sank languidly back upon the velvet cushions.
+
+In the music gallery, at one end of the great _salon_, the Household
+band were playing an arrangement of some of the wild, sad, national
+airs. The strains floated to them across the rippling current of light
+laughter and gay voices, like the under-chord of melancholy that runs
+always side by side with the happier melodies of life's theme.
+
+Ivor was the first to speak, and, as he did so, Olga turned her head
+somewhat away from him.
+
+"You ask me for news, mademoiselle; that is, indeed, somewhat singular.
+How can I bring you news from my wild province which should prove of
+interest to you? Let me rather ask that question. What do you hear from
+Count Mellikoff, mademoiselle, and how prospers his mission?"
+
+She did not reply at once, and Tolskoi, watching her averted face, saw
+the jewels on her bosom rise with a sudden, quick, indrawn breath.
+
+When she spoke it was with an almost exaggerated assumption of
+carelessness.
+
+"I hear nothing of, or from Count Mellikoff." Then, after a moment's
+pause, "Are you more fortunate?"
+
+"If you like to call it so. My latest intelligence is to the effect,
+that having been successful beyond his expectations, he looks forward to
+an immediate return, and to the reward he feels he has fairly earned."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, quickly, "you surprise me. And the woman--is she
+found?"
+
+"According to Count Mellikoff's despatches he does not doubt his soon
+having her in his power," answered Ivor, slowly. "But as we know,
+mademoiselle, there is considerable truth in the old saying about the
+cup and the lip. Even Count Mellikoff may find himself mistaken."
+
+"And you?" she asked, still with averted head, and in her assumed
+careless voice. "May not you be mistaken? It would seem that this--this
+woman--whom you say you saw, must after all, have been but a delusion of
+your too ready imagination, since Count Mellikoff is so certain of his
+success."
+
+"No, I am not mistaken, mademoiselle," answered Ivor, gravely. "When
+Count Mellikoff returns victorious, it will be my turn to win
+distinction; and he who wins last wins best, you know. When that time
+comes, Olga, _I_ shall claim my reward, and you will give it to me."
+
+"Your reward?" she questioned, turning her face towards him at last, and
+looking up straight into his eyes.
+
+"Yes, my reward," he replied, "my reward, which will indeed have been
+hardly won."
+
+He stooped and lifted her hand. "This hand, Olga, this little slender
+hand; that is what I shall claim, and that is what you will give to me."
+
+She made him no answer, save to let her fingers lie passively in his.
+Presently he bent and kissed them, then quietly putting her hand down,
+he turned and walked from her.
+
+When near the great doors he looked back. She was sitting as he had left
+her, passive and unmoved, with the shadows cast by the lightly swaying
+curtains half shielding her face, and the grey darkness of the starless
+sky for a background.
+
+Her hand lay as he had put it down, motionless upon her lap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ARRESTED!
+
+
+It was September before Philip Tremain turned his face homeward again,
+leaving behind him the deep, silent forests, already donning their
+wonderful autumn tints, and the silent waveless lake on whose bosom his
+boat had so often lain motionless for hours, drifting slowly with the
+almost imperceptible movement of the tide; while he, stretched full
+length along its narrow planking, his arms folded beneath his head,
+watched with speculative eyes the clear blue of the heavens, the passing
+of the fleecy clouds, the sweeping up of the rain mists, the birth of
+the stars, the rising loveliness of the crescent moon.
+
+He had sought these solitudes to find some specific against the unrest
+and discontent of his heart. He had flown from the haunts of men,
+craving the healing power of nature, trusting to find forgetfulness in
+her potent charm. He had come to the very fountain head of nature,
+hoping to forget Patricia, and behold, nowhere was she more present to
+him. Nowhere did the spell of her beauty, her contradictions, work such
+havoc to his peace of mind.
+
+The very motion of the boat, the blue waters of the lake, the "breath of
+the pine woods," the low rapid flight of a bird across the sky, all
+reminded him of her, and brought her so vividly before him as to cause
+him defined physical pain.
+
+It was not, however, as the Miss Hildreth of the present, that she
+appeared to him--the successful beauty, the indifferent woman of the
+world, the jesting advocate of to-day's hateful creeds--but rather as
+the Patty of ten years ago; the Patty of his first passion, the love of
+his adolescence, the clear-eyed, honest-hearted, bewitching, wilful
+Patty of his first devotion.
+
+He had sought for forgetfulness, but he had not found it; and so, after
+a month spent in unsatisfying and unsatisfactory inter-communion, he
+repacked his portmanteau one glorious autumn morning, bid good-bye to
+his little skiff, and to the silent sympathy of the pine woods, cast a
+long regretful look over the deep blue lake, and turning his steps
+towards the inartistic railway station, five miles distant, by afternoon
+of the same day was crossing the tortuous streets of Boston, preparatory
+to ensconcing himself comfortably in a "Pullman Express" for New York.
+
+He reached that city in due time, and was at once immersed in the rush
+and go of its restless life. The streets were all alight, the open
+windows of hotels and restaurants displaying brightly dressed groups
+within, to whom the chief aim of existence for the hour was apparently,
+the excellence of a favourite ice, or the proper quality of the
+champagne _frappé_. Along the side-walks a varied crowd was constantly
+passing; shop-girls mostly, in large hats and pretty frocks, whose tired
+faces were flushed and eager, or pale and weary, according as they
+walked alone, or kept company with some smart young male assistant.
+Philip noticed with a half wonder, that each of these work-girls wore
+long gloves half-way up their arms, and that their low shoes were
+"dressy" to a degree, with patent tips and abnormally high heels, on
+which they limped along with heroic courage. The theatres were not out
+as yet; but Delmonico's and the Brunswick, were in the full swing of
+early evening traffic, and many were the envious glances cast by the
+weary pedestrians upon the more favoured few of fortune within those
+hospitable walls.
+
+As Mr. Tremain let himself into his rooms with a pass key, he could not
+but feel how dreary and un-homelike was such a return. He had not
+telegraphed word of his arrival, and so found himself the sole occupant
+of the dark building; his servant and the care-taker were evidently
+enjoying life abroad this fine evening, and apparently the other
+_habitués_ of the place were similarly employed.
+
+He threw open the door of his sitting-room and entered; the room was in
+semi-darkness, the only light being a reflected one from the street
+lamps, and the moon which shone through the unsheltered windows. The
+furniture looked ghostly in the chintz over-coverings, and the faint
+gleam of gilded picture-frames and mirrors only added a further touch of
+unreality. On the writing-table he could just distinguish a pile of
+letters and newspapers--the accumulation of four weeks' absence; they
+seemed to him as the hand of civilisation, stretched out across the
+month of isolation and solitude, which separated him from the world of
+yesterday and to-day.
+
+Striking a match he lit two of the wax candles in a small girandole; but
+they served only to make the darkness more apparent, and he was turning
+impatiently towards his bedroom, still holding the lighted taper, when
+the sound of quick hurrying feet, coming rapidly up the stone staircase,
+arrested his attention.
+
+Why these particular sounds should at once arouse surprise and
+apprehension in his mind, he could not tell; many footsteps passed up
+and down the staircase in the course of the twenty-four hours, and as a
+rule he neither heard nor heeded them. But something in these quick
+agitated steps, with the tap of a light heel on each stair, disturbed
+him strangely.
+
+The wax vesta burned down to his fingers and went out; and as the red
+spark vanished the footsteps halted, and Philip could distinctly hear
+the hurried respiration and quick-caught breath of some one just without
+his door. No sensation of fear or supernatural alarm overcame him, he
+stood quite still and waited; and as he thus stood counting these brief
+moments of suspense, he felt himself to be saying inwardly, that he was
+not at all surprised, it was only what he had expected--this night
+visitant--it was what he had come home for, the reason why he dared not
+linger longer beside the blue lake, in the depths of the keen-scented
+hemlock forest.
+
+The hurried breathing grew more distinct; an uncertain hand was laid
+upon the handle of the scarcely closed outer door; there was the click
+of the catch being pushed hastily back; the rustle of a garment, the
+quick steps along the short passage, and then a figure detached itself
+from the enshrouding shadows and stood irresolute upon the threshold of
+the room.
+
+A figure closely muffled in a long dark cloak, and a shadowy hat,
+beneath whose wide brim a white face flashed, and two eager eyes looked
+out, peering into the half lighted obscurity beyond.
+
+It was but half a second the figure stood there, irresolute; then with a
+swift impulsive gesture it moved forward towards Philip, and as the
+light from the candles fell full upon the face, Mr. Tremain started, and
+then advanced quickly.
+
+"Miss Dick!" he exclaimed. "You, and here!"
+
+"Oh, yes," cried that young lady, still breathing very fast and speaking
+incoherently, her words rushing one on top of the other. "Oh, yes, it is
+I, and I am so glad to find you! I've been here twice already, each
+evening since we came back, and the door was always locked. To-night I
+saw the lights and thought at least I should hear something about you.
+Oh, Mr. Tremain, I am so glad you have come back at last!"
+
+She stopped and looked at him appealingly, clasping and unclasping her
+fingers, with nervous impatience.
+
+Philip was the least vain of men, but for one moment certainly a
+terrible thought did half form itself in his mind, as to the motive
+which had induced this most compromising visit. Was his little friend
+Miss Dick quite off her head, and was he in any way answerable for her
+aberration? The idea was not agreeable.
+
+"My dear Miss Dick," he began, gravely, but she interrupted him.
+
+"Oh, I thought you were never, never coming back again! That idiot of a
+care-taker and your fool of a servant, couldn't, or wouldn't, tell me
+anything about you. They only grinned discreetly behind their hands. Oh,
+what have you been doing to stay away like this, and never leave a scrap
+of an address behind you?"
+
+"Good heavens!" thought Philip, "decidedly the poor girl is out of her
+mind, and if Tomkins, or Mrs. Barker have seen her like this, it will be
+all over town in a week, and her reputation nowhere."
+
+"My dear Miss Dick," he said again, but Miss Darling evidently had no
+ears save for her own voice.
+
+"It's perfectly dreadful--awful," she continued. "It has nearly broken
+my heart, and to think you should be away just when you were most
+needed, and I _couldn't_ find you. And it is so hot, too, and such a
+season to be shut up in New York. Oh, why didn't you come before? What
+made you go away at all? I told Esther I would never rest until I found
+you, because I knew you could do something. You have always been a good
+friend to me, Mr. Tremain, you won't refuse me, will you?"
+
+The tears were in her bright brown eyes as she spoke, and Philip, roused
+out of his self-consciousness by the sight of her earnestness, found
+himself saying, impetuously:
+
+"What is it I can do for you, Miss Dick? You know I won't refuse,
+whatever you may ask."
+
+"Oh, then go, go at once! Why do you stand looking at me so stupidly?"
+she cried, impatiently. "Every moment is precious, and here you are
+wasting them by the dozen!" She stamped her foot. "Why don't you go?"
+she repeated.
+
+Philip, made more and more bewildered, could only look at her in vacant
+surprise, a fact that had the effect of reducing Miss Darling to
+silence, out of sheer rage.
+
+"Go?" he said, slowly, repeating her words mechanically. "Go?--but where
+am I to go?"
+
+"Ah," she gasped, beating her hands together, "how stupid you are, how
+cold, how cruel! Where are you to go? Why--but no, stay, it will be
+better if you come with me. Will you come--at once, directly? Here is
+your hat," and she caught up that article of apparel from off the table,
+and held it out to him. "Oh, do make haste," she cried, "do come with me
+at once."
+
+But Mr. Tremain was not to be carried off in so unceremonious a manner.
+He took the hat out of her hand and laid it back on the table, before he
+said very quietly:
+
+"My dear Miss Dick, I will go with you to any place you may name; but
+first, I do beg of you, compose yourself a little, and tell me what it
+is you want me to do; who it is you want me to see?"
+
+Miss Darling pulled herself together with an evident effort.
+
+"I want you to go with me to Ludlow Street Jail," she said, speaking
+very slowly, "to see Patricia Hildreth."
+
+Had a cannon ball dropped at his feet, or the foundations of the house
+given way beneath him, Mr. Tremain could not have experienced a more
+sudden or appalling shock. The words reached him, but it seemed as if
+they came from miles away. He saw the dark, alert figure standing before
+him, whose bright, dark eyes never left his face, whose nervously
+working hands were so suggestive; but it lost all identity to him. It
+was not Dick Darling who stood there, entreating him to make haste, not
+to delay; it was some phantom, some Nemesis from out the past, whose
+words and entreaties were as unreal as the shadows that came creeping
+out of the corners, revealing bit by bit the cunningly-concealed
+spectres.
+
+"Come with you to Ludlow Street!" he gasped at last, "to see Patricia
+Hildreth. What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, I mean what I say," cried Dick, her voice high and strained; "it is
+quite true. She is there. She has been arrested."
+
+"Arrested!" gasped Philip. "Arrested--Patricia!"
+
+"Oh! yes, yes," sobbed Miss Darling, the tears running down her face.
+"She has been arrested, she is in prison--she will die. She is innocent.
+I know she is innocent, I know it."
+
+"Arrested!" cried Philip again, unable to grasp more than this one
+direct fact, and quite unmindful of Dick's tears and protestations.
+"Arrested! And for what?"
+
+"Oh, that is the most terrible thing of all," wept Dick. "It's so
+horrible I don't know how to tell you; she is arrested on a suspicion
+of murder."
+
+"My God!" cried Philip. "What horrible mockery is this?"
+
+"Oh, will you come, will you come?" implored Dick, wringing her hands.
+"Oh, only think, she is shut up there all alone. She has been in that
+hateful place for hours, for days, while we have all been away dancing,
+and flirting, and being happy and amused; and she has been alone--all
+alone--shut up in prison with no one to go to her, no one to help her.
+Oh, I could beat myself for never knowing, never dreaming of her
+trouble!"
+
+"It is horrible," said Philip again, in the same low, inward voice in
+which he had spoken since Dick's first outburst. "It is infamous. Who
+has done this thing? Who has brought this charge?"
+
+He spoke sternly, and looked at Dick with eyes that burned her very
+soul.
+
+"The Russian Count," she answered slowly. "Vladimir Mellikoff."
+
+Mr. Tremain made no reply. He turned abruptly away from her and walked
+over to the window, and stood there looking out into the night.
+
+The street was a quiet one at all times, and now even a solitary passing
+footstep echoed far ahead in the absolute silence. But had it been
+mid-day, with its roar and rumble of traffic, Philip would have heeded
+it as little as he now heeded the stillness and desertion.
+
+His mind was far away, busy with a thousand wild conjectures, a thousand
+improbable suggestions. The whole of the past ten years appeared to roll
+themselves out before him, full to overflowing with dark suspicions,
+unassailable doubts, maddening possibilities. The poison distilled by
+Miss James's smooth tongue had done its work; how could he tell what
+those past years might cover, what deed or crime be hidden in their
+protecting folds?
+
+Ten years lay between him and the Patricia of his youth; was his faith
+in her so unshaken as to admit of no room for doubt? Ah, there lay the
+sting! He did doubt, and in that lay the keenest torture of this
+terrible moment. Indeed, as he thought of her mocking raillery, of her
+pronounced indifference, her assumed cynicism and misanthropy, he felt
+there was room for doubt, there was room for suspicion, there was room
+for condemnation. Would to God, that he could proclaim aloud a like
+faith in her innocence, a like belief in her unsullied past, a like
+valour in her defence, as did Miss Darling! Would to God he had but the
+memory of her--pure and untainted--as she was ten years ago in which to
+trust, and by which to fight for her!
+
+For indeed, he knew it would come to that; he should fight for her, yes,
+inch by inch, even though the game was a losing one. He would give her
+of his best, he would bring to bear all his possessions of legal acumen,
+brilliant pleading, forensic argument; she should not fail or be beaten
+down, if his strength and his reputation counted for anything.
+
+He had loved her--yes--and he loved her now; he knew it; better perhaps
+in her hour of humiliation than in that of her triumph; and for that
+love's sake he would spend and be spent in her behalf. And yet, ah yet,
+there must be ever and always resting between him and her that
+
+    "Little rift within the lute,
+    That ever widening, makes the music mute."
+
+Meantime Miss Darling, standing where he had left her, watched him
+keenly. The eyes beneath the broad brim of her hat were soft and gentle,
+the tears still lay upon her cheeks. Instinctively she recognised the
+anguish of the man before her, and she respected it, looking on with
+reverent but unspoken sympathy. Presently she moved quietly across the
+room and approached him; he paid no attention to her; apparently he had
+forgotten her very existence. She put one hand timidly on his arm.
+
+"Will you come?" she said. "Oh, will you come with me--to Patricia?
+Only think how long she has waited! Only think of Patricia--our
+Patricia--in prison on so vile a suspicion!"
+
+He looked down upon her, and at the hand resting on his arm; his face
+was drawn and aged, his eyes dark with suffering.
+
+"Yes, I will come," he said; "I will go with you. My God, only to think
+of it! Patricia--Patty--in prison, and for murder!"
+
+He took up his hat mechanically, and followed her as she led the way
+down the dimly lighted stairs, their footsteps echoing drearily behind
+them. And so together they passed on and out of the dark building, and
+were swallowed up in the greater darkness of the night.
+
+The wax candles in the wall-sconces burnt on all through the long night
+hours, and died out only as the early sunlight struck athwart their
+feeble rays. On the table lay the accumulated letters and papers, one
+marked across the face "immediate," in a strong, bold hand. On the
+floor a glove had dropped, and close beside the door lay a withered
+rose-bud, as it had fallen from Dick's breast-knot.
+
+And the morning hours grew into noontide, and gave place to afternoon,
+followed in turn by the shadows of evening; but neither the master of
+the deserted room, nor the girl with the bright eyes beneath the wide
+hat, came back to it. And so another day was born, and died, and slipped
+away into eternity within the narrow confines of that solitary chamber.
+
+
+END OF VOL. II.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Hildreth, Volume 2 of 3, by 
+Augusta de Grasse Stevens
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40432 ***