As the train drew away from Gatchina, Caruth drew a long breath of
relief. Running express, it would make no stops on the way to St.
Petersburg, scarcely an hour distant, and little was likely to happen
in an hour. Humanly speaking, he felt that Marie was safe.
Quickly the speed increased as the suburbs of the town whisked by, and
almost in a moment the train was running through open fields. Then
might the peasants along the track, if gifted with sufficiently quick
eyesight, have seen in one of the compartments a fashionably dressed
young man ecstatically embracing what seemed to be a workingman.
Marie wore the dress of a laborer. Her lovely hair, coiled on top of
her head, was concealed beneath a rough cap. Her coat collar, turned
up around her neck, hid her slim throat, while a heavy beard, hastily
affixed, concealed the outlines of her oval face. With her nether limbs
thrust into a pair of workingman’s trousers, and her feet hidden in
heavy boots, she bore no resemblance to the fashionably dressed woman
for whom the police were watching so eagerly.
Caruth, however, did not seem to mind her costume, even when her beard
tickled his nose and made him sneeze. Only muttering something about
insisting that she should shave as soon as she became Mrs. C., he
continued to kiss and hug her as though he would never be satisfied.
“To think I’ve got you at last!” he cried. “After all these days and
days of doubt and anxiety. To think that soon we’ll be on our own
yacht, bound for our own country, away from all this horrible plotting
and counterplotting. Oh, I can’t believe it!”
The girl shuddered slightly. “I can’t either,” she sighed. “I’m
afraid--oh, I’m horribly afraid that something will happen yet to
prevent. I didn’t use to be afraid of anything! I always thought that
I could face whatever came without quailing, but now--now I’m a very
woman, dear! Love has made me timid. I don’t think I could bear it if I
were caught now.”
“Caught! You can’t be and shan’t be. Why, we are half way to St.
Petersburg already.”
“Not quite yet! And even if we were--oh, I’m afraid. Lermantoff is not
an alarmist. He never speaks without good reason. No one else could
have persuaded me to wear this ridiculous disguise.”
Caruth grinned. “We’ll keep it as a memento of our honeymoon,” he
observed. “Don’t worry. A good many wives don the trousers after
marriage; you are only anticipating a little. And I don’t think you
need be afraid. I can’t see a cloud on the----”
He broke off as a shadow fell across the compartment, darkening the
window, and a voice, rough and strained, flung a brief sentence into
the interior--a sentence that made Marie spring up in terror.
A man was standing on the running board, hanging to the casement.
A glance at the cap he wore told that he was one of the guards (or
brakemen) of the train. Volubly he sputtered in harsh-sounding Russian
and eagerly Marie drank in his words. Then as suddenly as he had come,
he was gone.
Marie sank back on the cushions, and Caruth could see that she had
grown deathly white.
“It wasn’t to be, dear love,” she gasped. “It wasn’t to be.”
Caruth gazed at her in consternation. This cowering woman was not the
brave girl he remembered. Love had indeed robbed her of her courage.
“What is it? What is it?” he importuned, sinking down beside her.
“Lermantoff shall not back out now. He shall not take you away from me.
If he tries----”
“It isn’t Lermantoff. It’s the police. They know I am here. They know
my disguise. They know I am on this train. They are only waiting till
it stops to seize me. The guard is one of our men. He came along the
footboard at the risk of his life to warn me. It’s all over, dear. I’ll
never see America again.”
For an instant the girl sobbed on; then she buried her hot face in her
hands. “Oh!” she wailed, “I cannot bear it! I had not realized it!
Save me! For God’s sake, save me!”
All his life Caruth had been noted for the speed with which he came to
decisions, and the rapidity with which he acted upon them, and this,
his most exciting experience, furnished no exception to the rule.
Before the last words had fallen from the girl’s lips, he was slipping
out of his light spring overcoat.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he exclaimed. “You cut it fine, Marie.
Why”--with a fleeting glance out the window--“we’re in the city now!”
They were, but fear, like love, has wings, and before the train reached
the station the girl had been disguised afresh. Shorn of her beard, and
clothed in Caruth’s stylish overcoat, with his cap drawn down over her
ears, she made a very presentable boy.
Caruth looked her over critically. “You’ll do,” he decided.
“Oh, I hope so! But aren’t you going to----” She glanced at her
discarded hat and coat.
“Neverlee.” The joy of the game was mounting to Caruth’s head like
wine. “Neverlee! That would be ruin sure enough. I’ve got a scheme
worth two of that. You’ve got a pistol, haven’t you? Let’s see it.”
“Yes.” The girl drew it out wonderingly.
“Good!” He sat down and leaned forward. “Now,” he said, “hit me with
the butt of your revolver. Here.” He laid his finger on his forehead
just at the bottom of the hair. “Hit hard,” he concluded, “and when
the train gets into the station put out for the American Embassy and
stay there till I come. Hit! Hit hard!”
The girl shrank back. “I can’t,” she breathed.
“You must. You’ve got to have time to escape from the railway station,
and this is the only thing that would explain my delay and lend
artistic verisimilitude to a bald and unconvincing narrative, as our
friend, the _Mikado_, once said. Don’t be afraid; my skull is thick,
and won’t be seriously hurt. Quick! We are getting into the station.
Think that I am General Somebodyoffski and hit--hit hard. Quick!”
The girl’s eyes grew big with tears. “I did not think there lived such
a man as you,” she breathed. “Now I understand why your great country
is free. Such men as you must be free. Oh, God! Is there no other way?”
“None. The train is stopping. Quick!” Despairingly, the girl glanced
around. Then she lifted the heavy revolver and struck as Caruth had
directed. Without a moan he sank back, unconscious, in his seat.
For a moment Marie stood gazing at her handiwork. Then a great sob
shook her frame, and she bent down and pressed her lips to the purpling
wound.
“Forgive, forgive!” she cried. “If it had been life alone---- Oh, love,
forgive, forgive!”
The next moment she was gone.