I agreed. But the thought agitated me so that when the doctor came he
found me trembling, with a rapid, irregular pulse and panting breath.
"Doctor--" I began.
"Ah, but this is bad, very bad. What is the meaning of all this
agitation? Did you sit up too long? If you are not a better patient, I
shall have to complain of you to my friend Paul."
His friend Paul! True. He was a friend, an intimate friend, of
Kamarowsky's. How could I ever have had the idea that he would keep our
secret, that he would not betray my intended flight? It was a crazy
notion of Elise's. I cast a significant glance at her, and was silent.
He prescribed bromides and recommended absolute rest of body and mind.
Scarcely was he gone when to my astonishment the long curtain that hung
in front of an alcove where Elise kept my dresses moved slightly. Then
they parted, and Prilukoff appeared.
Ah! he had not gone out as he had pretended when the doctor had been
announced! He had hidden himself. What if I had spoken?
My fear of him turned to frenzy: I thought him endowed with supernatural
powers. My room seemed to be filled with innumerable Prilukoffs peering
out at me from every corner. I clung to Elise. "We must go away, we must
go away to-morrow," I whispered. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, madame," was Elise's firm and humble reply.
"Send to fetch little Tioka; send for him at once."
"Yes, madame."
Later, while she was dressing me, she stooped to draw on my
stocking--Prilukoff was reading in the adjoining room--and she murmured:
"We have no money to travel with."
"You must ask Count Kamarowsky for some; he will give you all we want,"
I whispered.
"Not without asking what it is for. We shall need a great deal."
"Oh, Elise, think, think of something," I sighed, and felt myself
turning faint.
"What are you two mumbling and plotting?" growled Prilukoff's voice from
the adjoining room.
We were silent.
Tenderly and anxiously assisted by Kamarowsky and Elise I went down to
the terrace that day, and spent the afternoon reclining on a couch in
the mild spring sunshine, with eyes closed and every limb relaxed. I
thought of our impending flight. Kamarowsky, seated beside me, kept
silence, thinking I was asleep.
Shortly afterwards I heard Tioka's quick little footsteps running across
the terrace towards us. Kamarowsky doubtless warned him to keep very
quiet, for I heard him stepping nearer on tip-toe, and without a word he
clambered on to Kamarowsky's knee and laid his fair head confidingly
against his shoulder.
Beneath my drooping lashes, I gazed at them, and thought of the hideous
plot that was weaving itself round this kind and generous man, who all
unknowing pressed forward towards treachery and death; and I thought of
the iniquitous oath which had placed a circlet of blood round that fair
childish head.
With a sob I raised myself and stretched out my arms to them both.
* * * * *
It was eleven o'clock on the following night. Elise put out the lights
and prepared the bromide and water on my little table. Prilukoff was
rambling backwards and forwards between bedroom and drawing-room,
smoking a cigarette.
"Elise," I whispered. "Are we ready?"
Elise nodded.
"Elise, when? When is it to be?"
"Hush, madame. Later on, towards morning; as soon"--with her head she
indicated Prilukoff--"as soon as he is asleep."
"But he never sleeps, Elise!"
Elise looked at me. "He will sleep to-night," she said; and there was an
icy hardness in her tone that I had never heard before.
"Why will he sleep? How can you know?"
Before she could answer, Prilukoff reappeared in the doorway. He had a
glass of vodka in his hand.
"This accursed throat!" he said, throwing his cigarette away and putting
his hand to his neck. "Everything I swallow burns and scratches me." He
coughed and cleared his throat. "You can go, Elise. I shall see to
anything your mistress needs."
Elise did not reply. With a hard, pinched face she poured the water into
my glass and dropped two little bromide tablets into it. Then with her
back turned to Prilukoff she fixed her eyes upon me and moved her lips:
"_Do not drink._" She formulated the words clearly but without sound. I
stared at her in bewilderment, and she made the movement with her lips
again: "_Do not drink anything._" Then seeing that, notwithstanding my
astonishment, I had understood her, she said respectfully: "Good night,
madame," and left the room.
She went out by the bath-room door, of which she always kept the key.
Prilukoff dropped into an armchair and yawned. "This accursed throat,"
he repeated.
He poured out a glass of water from the crystal carafe on my table and
swallowed it at a gulp. Then he coughed violently.
"The devil!" he exclaimed. "This too! It tastes like some beastly
concoction of--of chloral." He coughed and yawned again. Then he leaned
his head against my bed. A few moments later he started up.
"The devil!" he repeated, rising to his feet. I saw him go to the little
table on which Elise every evening left some coffee ready on a spirit
lamp; he lit it, and I dreamily watched the thin blue waverings of the
flame. While the coffee was heating Prilukoff constantly cleared his
throat, with the same murmured oath. Now he poured the smoking coffee
into a cup and sipped it. "By all the infernal powers--" he cried, and
turned suddenly to look at me.
I did not dare to shut my eyes, much as I should have liked to do so. He
came up to my bed and bending over me looked me in the face. Then he
touched my shoulder.
"See here!"