THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE
Count Romanoff was faultlessly dressed, and looked calm and smiling.
"Ah, Countess," he said, "I am fortunate in finding you alone. But you
have had visitors, or, to be more exact, a visitor."
"Yes; I have had visitors. I often have of an afternoon."
"But he has been here."
"Well, and what then?"
The Count gazed at her steadily, and his eyes had a sinister gleam in
them.
"I have come to have a quiet chat with you," he said--"come to know how
matters stand."
"You want to know more than I can tell you."
Again the Count scrutinised her closely. He seemed to be trying to read
her mind.
"Olga," he said, "you don't mean to say that you have failed? He has
been in London some time now, and as I happen to know, he has been here
often. Has not the fish leaped to the bait? If not, what is amiss?
What?--Olga Petrovic, who has turned the heads of men in half the
capitals of Europe, and who has never failed to make them her slaves,
fail to captivate this yokel! I can't believe it."
There was sullen anger in her eyes, and at that moment years seemed to
have been added to her life.
"Beaten!" went on the Count, with a laugh--"Olga Petrovic beaten! That
is news indeed."
"I don't understand," said the woman. "Something always seems to stand
between us. He seems to fear me--seems to be fighting against me."
"And you have tried all your wiles?"
"Listen, Count Romanoff, or whatever your name may be," and Olga
Petrovic's voice was hoarse. "Tell me what you want me to do with that
man."
"Do? Make him your slave. Make him grovel at your feet as you have made
others. Make him willing to sell his soul to possess you. Weave your net
around him. Glamour him with your fiendish beauty. Play upon his hopes
and desires until he is yours."
"Why should I?"
"Because it is my will--because I command you."
"And what if I have done all that and failed?"
"You fail! I can't believe it. You have not tried. You have not
practised all your arts."
"You do not understand," replied the woman. "You think you understand
that man; you don't."
The Count laughed. "There was never a man yet, but who had his price,"
he said. "With some it is one thing, with some it is another, but
all--all can be bought. There is no man but whose soul is for sale; that
I know."
"And you have tried to buy Faversham's soul, and failed."
"Because I mistook the thing he wanted most."
"You thought he could be bought by wealth, position, and you arranged
your plans. But he was not to be bought. Why? You dangled riches,
position, and a beautiful woman before his eyes; but he would not pay
the price."
"I chose the wrong woman," said the Count, looking steadily at Olga,
"and I did not reckon sufficiently on his old-fashioned ideas of
morality. Besides, I had no control over the woman."
"And you think you have control over me, eh? Well, let that pass. I have
asked you to tell me why you wish to get this man in your power, and you
will not tell me. But let me tell you this: there is a strange power
overshadowing him. You say I must practise my arts. What if I tell you
that I can't?"
"I should say you lie," replied the Count coolly.
"I don't understand," she said, as if talking to herself. "All the time
when he is with me, I seem to be dealing with unseen forces--forces
which make me afraid, which sap my power."
The Count looked thoughtful.
"I thought I had captivated him when that German man brought him to the
East End of London," she went on. "I saw that I bewildered him--dazzled
him. He seemed fascinated by my picture of what he could become. His
imagination was on fire, and I could see that he was almost held in
thrall by the thought that he could be a kind of uncrowned king, while I
would be his queen. He promised to come to me again, but he didn't. Then
I went to see him at his hotel, and if ever a woman tempted a man, I
tempted him. I know I am beautiful--know that men are willing to become
slaves to me. And I pleaded with him. I offered to be his wife, and I
almost got him. I saw him yielding to me. Then suddenly he turned from
me. A servant brought him a card, and he almost told me to go."
"You saw who these visitors were?"
"Yes; an old man and a slip of a girl. I do not know who they were.
Since he has been living in London, I have watched my opportunities, and
he has been here. I have flattered him; I have piqued his curiosity. I
have been coy and reserved, and I have tried to dazzle him by smiles, by
hand pressures, and by shy suggestions of love. But I cannot pierce his
armour."
"And you will give up? You will confess defeat?"
The woman's eyes flashed with a new light. "You little know me if you
think that," she cried angrily. "At one time I--yes, I, Olga
Petrovic--thought I loved him. I confessed it to you, but now--now----"
"Yes, now?" questioned the Count eagerly.
"Now that thought is not to be considered. I will conquer him; I will
make him my slave. He shall be willing to sacrifice name, position,
future, anything, everything for me--_everything_."
"Only, up to now, you've failed."
"Because, because--oh, Romanoff, I don't understand. What is he? Only
just a commonplace sort of man--a man vulnerable at a hundred
points--and yet I cannot reach him."
"Shall I tell you why?" asked the Count.
"Tell me, tell me!" she cried. "Oh, I've thought, and thought. I've
tried in a hundred ways. I've been the grand lady with a great position.
I've been an angel of light who cares only for the beautiful and the
pure. I've appealed to his ambition--to his love for beautiful things.
I've tried to make him jealous, and I've nearly succeeded; but never
altogether. Yes; he is just a clever man, and very little more; but I
can't reach him. He baffles me. He does not drink, and so I cannot
appeal to that weakness. Neither is he the fast man about town that can
be caught in my toils. He honours, almost venerates, pure womanhood,
and----"
"Tah!" interrupted the Count scornfully.
"You do not believe it?"
"Woman is always man's weak point--always!"
"But not his--not in the way you think. I tell you, he venerates ideal
womanhood. He scorns the loud-talking, free-spoken women. He told me his
thought of woman was like what Wordsworth painted. At heart I think he
is a religious man."
"Listen," said the Count, "I want to tell you something before I go. Sit
here; that's it," and he drew a chair close to his side.
He spoke to her half earnestly, half cynically, watching her steadily
all the time. He noted the heaving of her bosom, the tremor of her lips,
the almost haunted look in her eyes, the smile of satisfied desire on
her face.
"That is your plan of action," he concluded. "Remember, you play for
great stakes, and you must play boldly. You must play to win. There are
times when right and wrong are nothing to a man, and you must be willing
to risk everything. As for the rest, I will do it."
Her face was suffused half with the flush of shame, half with excited
determination.
"Very well," she said; "you shall be obeyed."
"And I will keep my compact," said the Count.
He left her without another word, and no sign of friendship passed
between them.
When he reached the street, however, there was a look of doubt in his
eyes. He might have been afraid, for there was a kind of baffled rage on
his face.
He stopped a passing taxi, and drove straight to his hotel.
"Is he here?" he asked his valet as he entered his own room.
"He is waiting, my lord."
A minute later the little man who had visited him on the day after Dick
Faversham's return to Parliament appeared.
"What report, Polonius?" asked Romanoff.
"Nothing of great importance, I am afraid, my lord, but something."
"Yes, what?"
"He went to Wendover on the day I was unable to account for his
whereabouts."
"Ah, you have discovered that, have you?"
"Yes; I regret I missed him that day, but I trust I have gained your
lordship's confidence again."
The Count reflected a few seconds. "Tell me what you know," he said
peremptorily.
"He went down early, and had a talk with an old man at the station. Then
he walked to the house, and had a conversation with his old
housekeeper."
"Do you know what was said?"
"There was not much said. She told him there were rumours that Anthony
Riggleton was dead."
The Count started as though a new thought had entered his mind; then he
turned towards his spy again.
"He did not pay much attention to it," added Polonius, "neither did he
pay much attention to what she told him about Riggleton's doings at
Wendover."
"Did he go through the house?"
"No; he only stayed a few minutes, but he was seen looking very hard at
the front door, as though something attracted him. Then he returned by
another route, and had lunch with that old man who has a cottage near
one of the lodge gates."
"Hugh Stanmore--yes, I remember."
"After lunch he went through the park with the old man's granddaughter.
They were talking very earnestly."
The Count leapt to his feet.
"You saw this girl?" he asked.
"Yes. A girl about twenty, I should think. Very pretty in a simple,
countrified way. She is very much loved among the cottage people. I
should say she's a very religious girl. I'm told that she has since
become engaged to be married to a Sir George Weston, who was a soldier
in Egypt."
"Sir George Weston. Let me think. Yes; I remember. Ah, she is engaged to
be married to him, is she?"
"That is the rumour. Sir George was staying at Stanmore's cottage at the
time of Faversham's visit. He left the day after."
"And Faversham has not been there since?"
"No, my lord."
"Well, go on."
"That is all I know."
"Then you can go; you know my instructions. Remember, they must be
obeyed to the very letter."
"They shall be--to the very letter."
The Count entered another room, and opened a safe. From it he took some
papers, and read carefully. Then he sat thinking for a long time.
Presently he looked at his watch.
Daylight had now gone, early as it was, for winter still gripped the
land. Some days there were suggestions of spring in the air, but they
were very few. The night was cold.
The Count went to the window, and looked out over St. James's Park.
Great, black ominous-looking clouds rolled across the sky, but here and
there were patches of blue where stars could plainly be seen. He had
evidently made up his mind about something.
His servant knocked at the door.
"What time will your lordship dine?"
"I shall not dine."
"Very good, my lord."
Count Romanoff passed into the street. For some time he walked, and
then, hailing a taxi-cab, drove to London Bridge. He did not drive
across the bridge, but stopped at the Cannon Street end. Having paid
the driver, he walked slowly towards the southern bank of the river.
Once he stood for more than a minute watching while the dark waters
rolled towards the sea.
"What secrets the old river could tell if it could speak," he muttered;
"but all dark secrets--all dark."
He found his way to the station, and mingled with the crowd there.
Hours later he was nearly twenty miles from London, and he was alone on
a wide heath. Here and there dotted around the outskirts of the heath he
saw lights twinkling.
The sky was brighter here; the clouds did not hang so heavily as in the
city, while between them he occasionally saw the pale crescent of a
waxing moon. All around him was the heath.
He paid no heed to the biting cold, but walked rapidly along one of the
straight-cut roads through the heather and bushes. It was now getting
late, and no one was to be seen. There were only a few houses in the
district, and the inhabitants of these were doubtless ensconced before
cosy fires or playing games with their families. It was not a night to
be out.
"What a mockery, what a miserable, dirty little mockery life is!" he
said aloud as he tramped along. "And what pigmies men are; what paltry,
useless things make up their lives! This is Walton Heath, and here I
suppose the legislators of the British Empire come to find their
amusement in knocking a golf-ball around. And men are applauded because
they can knock that ball a little straighter and a little farther than
someone else. But--but--and there comes the rub--these same men can
think--think right and wrong, do right and wrong. That fellow
Faversham--yes; what is it that makes him beat me?"
Mile after mile he tramped, sometimes stopping to look at the sullen,
angry-looking clouds that swept across the sky, and again looking around
the heath as if trying to locate some object in which he was interested.
Presently he reached a spot where the road cut through some woodland.
Dark pine trees waved their branches to the skies. In the near distance
the heath stretched away for miles, and although it was piercingly cold,
the scene was almost attractive. But here it was dark, gloomy,
forbidding. For some time he stood looking at the waving pine trees; it
might have been that he saw more than was plainly visible.
"What fools, what blind fools men are!" he said aloud. "Their lives are
bounded by what they see, and they laugh at the spiritual world; they
scorn the suggestion that belting the earth are untold millions of
spirits of the dead. Here they are all around me. I can see them. I can
see them!"
His eyes burnt red; his features were contorted as if by pain.
"An eternal struggle," he cried--"just an eternal struggle between right
and wrong, good and evil--yes, good and evil!
"And the good is slowly gaining the victory! Out of all the wild, mad
convulsions of the world, right is slowly emerging triumphant, the
savage is being subdued, and the human, the Divine, is triumphing."
He lifted his right hand, and shook his fist to the heavens as if
defiantly.
"I had great hopes of the War," he went on. "I saw hell let loose; I saw
the world mad for blood. Everywhere was the lust for blood; everywhere
men cried, 'Kill! kill!' And now it is over, and wrong is being
defeated--defeated!"
He seemed to be in a mad frenzy, his voice shook with rage.
"Dark spirits of hell!" he cried. "You have been beaten, beaten! Why,
even in this ghastly war, the Cross has been triumphant! Those
thousands, those millions of men who went out from this land, went out
for an ideal. They did not understand it, but it was so. They felt dimly
and indistinctly that they were fighting, dying, that others might live!
And some of the most heroic deeds ever known in the history of the world
were done. Men died for others, died for comradeship, died for duty,
died for country. Everywhere the Cross was seen!
"And those fellows are not dead! They are alive! they have entered into
a greater life!
"Why, even the ghastly tragedy of Russia, on which we built so much,
will only be the birth-pains which precede a new life!
"Everywhere, everywhere the right, the good, is emerging triumphant!"
He laughed aloud, a laugh of almost insane mockery.
"But men are blind, blind! They do not realise the world of spirits that
is all around them, struggling, struggling. But through the ages the
spirits of the good are prevailing!
"That is my punishment, my punishment spirits of hell, my punishment!
Day by day I see the final destruction of evil!"
His voice was hoarse with agony. He might have been mad--mad with the
torture of despair.
"All around me, all around me they live," he went on. "But I am not
powerless. I can still work my will. And Faversham shall be mine. I
swore it on the day he was born, swore it when his mother passed into
the world of spirits, swore it when his father joined her. What though
all creation is moving upwards, I can still drag him down, down into
hell! Yes, and she shall see him going down, she shall know, and then
she shall suffer as I have suffered. Her very heaven shall be made hell
to her, because she shall see her son become even what I have become!"
He left the main road, and followed a disused drive through the wood.
Before long he came to a lonely house, almost hidden by the trees. A
dark gloomy place it was, dilapidated and desolate. Years before it had
perchance been the dwelling-place of some inoffensive respectable
householder who loved the quietness of the country. For years it was for
sale, and then it was bought by a stranger who never lived in it, but
let it fall into decay.
Romanoff found his way to the main entrance of the house, and entered.
He ascended a stairway, and at length found his way to a room which was
furnished. Here he lit a curiously-shaped lamp. In half an hour the
place was warm, and suggested comfort. Romanoff sat like one deep in
thought.
Presently he began to pace the room, uttering strange words as he
walked. He might have been repeating incantations, or weaving some
mystic charms. Then he turned out the lamp, and only the fire threw a
flickering light around the room.
"My vital forces seem to fail me," he muttered; "even here it seems as
though there is good."
Perspiration oozed from his forehead, and his face was as pale as death.
Again he uttered wild cries; he might have been summoning unseen powers
to his aid.
"They are here!" he shouted, and there was an evil joy in his face. Then
there was a change, fear came into his eyes. Looking across the room, he
saw two streaks of light in the form of a cross, while out of the
silence a voice came.
"Cease!" said the Voice.