During the night Paul was awakened--for a moment he thought he heard
the sound of some struggle in the hall outside his door, and the sound
of excited whispers. Then a woman's voice, in low, forceful tones,
penetrated the stillness, and Paul heard distinctly:
"Come away, for God's sake!"
Then all was still.
Verdayne was no coward--but his fingers closed instinctively on the
butt of the revolver that he had placed within easy reach. Puzzled, he
lay awake for a time in the darkness, but finally nothing further
happening, he fell asleep once more.
When he awoke the grey dawn was creeping into his windows and he rose
immediately, anxious to escape the eerie atmosphere of the house, and
begin the final stage of his journey. What an uncanny lot these
Russian beggars were, to be sure.
He determined to leave as unceremoniously as he had come, and wrote a
hasty note which he placed upon his dresser where it could easily be
seen. As he stole quietly down the long hall, in an attempt not to
awaken the household, he came suddenly upon Mademoiselle Ivanovitch
seated in a chair drawn into a windowed recess. She started as he came
upon her, but instantly recovered her calm poise of the evening
before.
Paul apologized for the stealthy manner of his leave-taking, pleading
the necessity of an early start.
She listened to him patiently, then glancing over her shoulder to see
that she was not observed, "Forgive my being so blunt," she said, "but
I think you are playing an exceedingly dangerous game. You have
nothing to gain and everything to lose."
Paul turned to her almost sharply and said: "Are you sure that I have
nothing to gain?"
She looked at him quickly, and her eyes were startled; the brilliant
colour had left her face. Then she caught the baronet by the coat.
"Sir Paul," she cried in a low voice, "you are a young man. Do not
destroy your life for a piece of folly. Cut yourself adrift from this
while there is still time. Turn back, and never come to this wicked
country again."
Paul took her hand and looked at her kindly. "Thank you, thank you
very much. But I am moved to go, my dear lady," he said.
She made no answer to Paul's calmly voiced determination, save a
despairing gesture, then turned silently away, and Paul, after a
moment, continued on his quiet departure. The faithful Baxter had
roused the driver in good season and was waiting at the steps as Paul
emerged from the door. If he, too, had had an interruption in his
slumbers, he gave no sign.
The driver, with an awkward jerk of his head, which Paul interpreted
as a salutation, whipped up the horses, and once more they were on
their way.
Not till Paul had ridden some distance did it strike him that the lady
of the copper coloured hair had used his real name.
"The devil!" he said aloud, "how could she have known me?" But rack
his memory as he would, he could not recall ever having seen her
before.
What did she mean anyhow, with her words of ill-omen? He could not
guess. It was all a mystery.
Paul was scarcely in a happy frame of mind that day. He liked to see
his difficulties plain before him rather than to be hemmed about with
mysteries that he could not understand. And difficulty seemed to be
piling itself upon difficulty.
Much, of course, remained to be explained. He was not sure of the
different parts which the weirdly associated people whom he had met
that afternoon played in Boris's game. The young man Michael, with the
large, cruel, red hands, was probably Boris's principal striking force
in times of trouble. Boris himself, he imagined, furnished the brains.
But what of the red-haired woman? That she had her part allotted to
her in the strange drama unfolding itself Paul could not doubt. But
what part?
Paul hardly believed that she was really Boris's sister.
But what tie bound her to him? What tie kept her within the confines
of this strange collection of human beings?
For a moment Paul's heart grew light within him. Was she his wife? If
he could but establish that, then Boris's boast that he would marry
Mademoiselle Vseslavitch was vain indeed.
Sir Paul was, indeed, confronted by a very Gordian knot of problems.
He laughed a little as he made the simile to himself, until he
reflected that he was not an Alexander armed with a sword who could
disperse the problems at one blow. His, indeed, would be the laborious
task of unravelling them one by one; nor could he see any better way
than by beginning at the very beginning, which, so far as he was
concerned, meant a full knowledge of Boris's intimates and
surroundings.
Not indeed till his guide turned and told him, some hours later, that
they were nearing the Vseslavitch house did Paul put the matter out of
his mind, and then, as they swung into a long avenue bordered with
pines, his thoughts were all for the lady whom he sought.
The house was a very old one, built of stone and massive oaken timbers
which showed the ravages of many years.
Paul gazed almost affectionately at the rambling mansion as it
disclosed itself to his eager eyes--for did it not shelter the one who
was for him the dearest lady in the whole world?
The door opened quickly in answer to his knock and Paul found himself
in a great hall furnished with a lavishness which surprised him, in
such an out of the way corner of the world. On the lofty walls hung
priceless old engravings, and paintings on silk, with marvellous
needlework cunningly aiding the artist's brush. Paul had seen such
ancient works of art in the great Continental museums--but never a
collection like this. Bear-skin rugs lay strewn about the floor, and
as he warmed himself at the huge porcelain stove--for it was a cool
morning--he admired them with all the enthusiasm of an ardent
sportsman.
He turned, as a door opened at the further end of the room, and there
at last stood his dear lady. With quick strides Paul reached her and
pressed her hand to his lips. She made no objection to his
salutation--perhaps that custom was too prevalent in her own country
to bear much significance.
As she first gazed at him a glad smile lighted her face--and then she
grew quite sober.
"Ah!" she said, "you have disobeyed. How could you?"
"Dear lady," answered Paul, "you imposed on me the only command I
could not follow. Surely I may be forgiven, I hope, for entering the
Promised Land?"
She smiled at him--almost sadly, Paul thought, and then she said, with
a far-off look in her wonderful eyes, as if she forgot his presence
for the moment--
"It is passing strange--that events should take this turn--that you
should have come at this time. There are, I know now, divinities that
shape our ends." And then she turned to Paul and said quickly:
"What madness has brought you here? My friend, believe me, you should
never have followed me. This one day you may stay--because I'm
weak--and then, I beg of you, go while there is yet time."
The strange iteration of his earlier warning made Paul wonder.
"Tell me," he cried, as he looked searchingly into her face, "what
hidden meaning lies beneath your words? And those of the red-haired
woman at the home of Boris Ivanovitch?" And he repeated to her the
other's warning--almost identical with hers.
"Oh!" she gasped, and grew quite white, "you did not stay at that
house? And yet you are here? Thank God for that." Then, though Paul
pressed her, she would say no more.
"Come," she said after a brief pause, "my brother is in the library.
You must know him." And she led the way through a short passage to a
room beyond.
A handsome man of about thirty-five, who resembled Mademoiselle
strikingly, rose as they entered.
"Peter," she said, "this gentleman is Sir Paul Verdayne. He is an old
friend of the Countess Oreshefski. I met him at her house in Paris.
Sir Paul will be our guest--until to-morrow," she added.
The young man grasped Paul's hand warmly.
"A friend of the good Countess is most welcome," he exclaimed. "I am
only sorry that your stay is to be so short."
Clearly, Mademoiselle was determined that Paul should not remain with
them long.
"Will you pardon me, Sir Paul," the young man continued, "if I leave
you on my sister's hands for the moment? Our overseer wishes to see
me on a matter of some importance and I shall not be free until
luncheon."
While he was speaking a large man entered--a wonderfully fine specimen
of Russian manhood. As he stood there, proud but respectful, his
flaming red beard falling over his broad chest, he looked like some
Viking who had just stepped out of an old myth.
"Alexander Andrieff, our overseer," Peter explained, and the man bowed
low to Paul.
"And now, Natalie, if you will entertain Sir Paul for the next hour he
will perhaps overlook my rudeness."
"Not at all, sir," Paul interrupted, "I am the one who should
apologize for having so imposed upon your hospitality." And with
Mademoiselle Vseslavitch he retired.
So her name was Natalie! Paul liked the name--it seemed to fit her
excellently. And he looked lovingly at the charming girl beside him.
"We will take a stroll in the garden, if it pleases you," she
suggested.
Paul was delighted. They stepped outside the house into a large
enclosure surrounded by a high stone wall. Beyond a small lake which
filled the center of the garden, they came to a seat hidden by
screening shrubs from the windows that gave upon the spot.
As they sat there under that wonderful Southern sky, with the air
laden with the perfume of countless cherry blossoms, Paul felt that he
had been translated into fairy-land, and he was almost afraid to speak
lest he break the spell and suddenly find himself back in blasé
Western Europe again.
He took her hand gently in both of his. It was a beautiful hand, so
white and tender and aristocratic. On the third finger was a ring with
a blue antique; on her forefinger--worn in the Russian fashion--a
diamond. It seemed a talisman to Paul, and as he looked at it he was
happy. Feeling the touch of these fingers, his reason stopped dead and
a sweet dream came over him--the continuation, as it were, of some
interrupted fairy-scene.
"Beautiful Princess!" he whispered softly, as he leaned toward her
pale, smiling, gentle face.
Her delicately curved red lips played with mingled melancholy and
happiness, and almost childish impulse; and when she spoke, the words
were deeply toned, sounding almost like sighs, yet with rapid and
impetuous utterance, like a warm shower of blossoms from her
beauteous mouth.
"My lover," she said, and Paul's heart leaped with wild joy at the
words, "my lover for this one day--listen while I tell what I can hide
from you no longer."
And then with halting words she told him of her peril.
"That house where you stayed last night," she said, "it is the home of
my cousin Boris," and a sudden shudder passed over her as she spoke
the name. "He has long wished to marry me--and I have steadfastly
refused; I cannot tell you how I loathe him. It was to escape his
importunities that I went to Switzerland--and alas! now I have come
back, at the order of the Tsar, who commands me to yield to him." She
paused. Paul drew her close in tender sympathy.
"I thought once," she went on, "when I left Paris a week ago, that I
could force myself to do this hateful thing. A faithful subject must
obey the Tsar. But now I know not what the outcome will be. I cannot
make up my mind to consent--and Boris grows more impatient every day.
Tell me," she turned her wonderful eyes up to Paul--"what manner of
people had he with him?"
And Paul described to his lady the villainous Michael with the red
hands, and Virot, the oily Frenchman. And as he told of Mademoiselle
Ivanovitch, the red-haired woman, the lady's lip curled scornfully.
"A tissue of lies!" she cried. "Those men are the scum of Europe,
blackguards of the worst type--the kind Boris has always gathered
round him from his boyhood. And the woman--bah!--he has no sister. She
is but a mistress he would have long since cast off were it not that
she sometimes is of assistance in his wicked plans."
Then Paul told her of the disturbance of the night before, and of his
encounter with the woman that very morning.
Natalie clasped Paul's hand--he thrilled beneath the sudden tightening
of her fingers.
"Ah!" she breathed, in sudden agitation, "they must in some way have
known your mission all the time. I tremble when I think of the peril
you were in. Boris is hot-headed, and it must have angered him almost
beyond endurance when he knew that he entertained a rival beneath his
own roof. Some men, it is said, have entered that evil house never to
be seen more by mortal eyes."
Paul tried to quiet her fears. But, though she soon grew calmer, he
saw that a great dread still lay upon her. And even when they
returned to the house, she started apprehensively at every sudden
sound.
Paul found brother Peter to be indeed a most gracious host. He had
been educated in England, it appeared, and like Paul was an Oxford
man. Indeed, the two found many things to talk about, for Peter well
remembered the stories he had heard of Paul's record as an oarsman on
the 'Varsity eight--traditions of the sort that are handed down from
year to year unto succeeding classes.
But as they talked, Paul noticed that Peter's eyes often rested with a
troubled look upon his sister. In fact, it seemed to Paul that a black
shadow of direful portent hung over them throughout the meal.