RECONCILIATION
For three hours the unconscious Czarina lay as one dead; then life
began slowly to return, news received with feelings of intense relief
by Wilfrid and Ouvaroff, who, seated by the cheerful light of a
log-fire—Prince Sumaroff, it seemed, hated the national stove—were
discussing the situation.
“It’s satisfactory to know that Baranoff has gone to his long account,”
remarked Wilfrid.
“It’s impossible to be sorry,” returned Ouvaroff, “though I would have
saved the unworthy wretch if I could, but he sank like lead, and never
rose again.”
The entrance of Prince Sumaroff put an end to this conversation.
“Gentlemen,” he said, taking a seat between them, “that the Empress
has been spending a month of religious seclusion in the Convent of the
Ascension, a story I have hitherto believed, is evidently untrue. You, I
think, can clear up this mystery. As you shall see by-and-by, I do not
ask this from idle curiosity.”
Thereupon Wilfrid frankly told the whole story of his dealings with the
Czarina, beginning with Baranoff’s offer at Berlin, and ending with the
events of that very night, Ouvaroff confirming him in such parts as he
was able.
When Wilfrid had finished, Sumaroff rose to his feet.
“Pardon my absence for a few minutes. When I return I shall have a
pleasant surprise for you.”
Wilfrid and Ouvaroff resumed their interrupted talk.
“And your suspicion of me——?” said Wilfrid.
“Was the prompting of Baranoff. Long before I met you at Berlin he had
assured me that the Czarina, the Grand Duchess Elizavetta she was then,
had a secret lover in some Englishman. He refrained from giving the name,
however, till the night of that ball. ‘To-night,’ said he, ‘I will point
out to you the favourite of the Grand Duchess.’”
“And he did it,” said Wilfrid, “by writing my name upon a card and
sending it to you as we sat together. And you could believe him! Serge,
my boy——”
Wilfrid stopped on seeing the Prince enter, leading by the hand a girl
who seemed reluctant to come forward.
It was Nadia of the Silver Birch, as pretty as ever, but deadly pale and
so timid that after one glance at Wilfrid she averted her eyes, and did
not look at him again.
“Now, Nadia, tell your tale,” said Prince Sumaroff. “It is the only way
to set matters right.”
So Nadia told how, bribed by Baranoff with the price of her own and her
father’s freedom, she had introduced the Englishman into the bedroom of
the Czarina—whom she then only knew as a great lady. Immediately upon
doing so she had apprised the Czarina’s maids, who (themselves in the
plot) were awaiting her summons. Then, having done the work assigned
her, Nadia had fled to a room above, where the removal of a knot of
wood in the flooring had enabled her to observe all that passed in the
chamber below. She could thus testify to the lady’s innocence and the
Englishman’s honour. Her father having died shortly afterwards, Nadia had
come to St. Petersburg and entered the service of Prince Sumaroff. One
day when she was on the Nevski Prospekt there rode by in state a lady,
whom she recognised with fear and trembling, and who, she learned from
a bystander, was the new Czarina. After a long struggle with herself
she resolved to confess her misdeed and chose for the occasion the
night of the masquerade. Putting her statement into writing and having
incidentally learned from the Princess Sumaroff in what costume the
Czarina intended to appear, Nadia had watched her opportunity to present
the letter to her, saying no more about it than that its contents would
exonerate her and Lord Courtenay from a false charge. The Czarina eagerly
took the missive, but said she would reserve the reading of it till she
should have returned to the Winter Palace. “‘And,’ she added, ‘since I
am known to you by my costume, I may be known to others, and therefore,
good Nadia, in order that I may be incognita, you and I in this quiet
nook here must exchange costumes for a time.’” It was agreed that they
should meet again in the same spot an hour after midnight; and so the
two parted, the Empress in the plain grey domino and Nadia in the rich
brocaded silk. The Czarina, however, failed to appear at the time and
place appointed, a fact that puzzled Nadia very much. The Empress during
a whole month having taken no notice of her and her writing though the
matter was one of vital interest to her good name that very day, Nadia,
moved by some indefinable fear, had revealed all to the Prince and
Princess of Sumaroff.
“And you are willing to tell this story in the presence of the Czar
himself?” asked Ouvaroff.
Nadia expressed her willingness, even though the telling should end in
her exile to Siberia.
“I will answer for it that no hurt shall befall you,” said Ouvaroff. “The
Czar will be more pleased than angry to hear your tale. But it’s as well
for Baranoff that he has gone to his account.”
At a sign from Prince Sumaroff, Nadia disappeared.
“I invited the Count here this evening,” he said, “and in Nadia’s
presence taxed him with his guilt. Unable to deny it and rendered craven
by fear, he implored me to keep the matter a secret from the Czar. Moved
by his entreaties, I said, ‘Write me out a confession and I’ll give you
three days within which to get out of Russia.’ I little thought when
he stepped into the boat that the hand of Death was already upon him.
Heaven, you see, would not let him escape.”
“He met with a just doom,” commented Wilfrid, “dying by the very death he
had appointed for another.”
For it was evident now that the four liveried ruffians at the masquerade
were Baranoff’s hirelings and that it was not the Czarina’s life they
sought, but Nadia’s.
“I think,” mused Sumaroff, “that we are now in a position to effect a
reconciliation between the Czar and Czarina.”
“I would give much to see it,” remarked Wilfrid. “Through me,” he added
moodily, “an empress seems destined to forfeit both husband and crown.”
“You have nothing to reproach yourself with,” said Sumaroff cheerfully.
“You have acted throughout as an honourable man. Let us review the points
in your favour. First, there’s the affair at the Silver Birch. _That’s_
satisfactorily explained.”
“The kiss in the garden witnessed by the Czar,” said Wilfrid.
“Merely a reward for a great service to the State.”
“She lingered very much over it.”
“Still the Czar must overlook it. Doubtless,” he added, with a twinkle
in his eye, “he, too, has lingered considerably over the kisses he has
bestowed upon the fair Pauline.”
“The four weeks of love-making at Castle Runö?”
“To be pardoned, when the circumstances are considered. _She_ had
forgotten her identity; _you_ believed her to be an unwedded woman. The
Baroness can testify to the truth of this—is testifying, perhaps, at this
very moment.”
“All very good,” returned Wilfrid. “But there’s another difficulty—the
greatest. The Czarina herself is opposed to a reconciliation. In her
present state of mind, Alexander is an object of dread to her.”
“He’ll soon cease to be so,” replied Sumaroff with a mysterious smile.
“But the hour is late; let us to bed. If the plan I have in view
succeeds, by this time to-morrow all will be in harmony again.”
And so ended the most memorable day in Wilfrid’s career, a day in which
he had won and lost the love of a wedded empress! It was a pleasure to
think, as Prince Sumaroff had remarked, that through it all his honour
had remained stainless.
Late in the forenoon of the following day Wilfrid was summoned to the
presence of the Czarina. At first he demurred. Better, he thought, for
the interests and happiness of both that they should never meet again.
“You had better see her,” said Prince Sumaroff, appreciating Wilfrid’s
hesitation. “The sequel will, I trust, prove the wisdom of this advice.”
So persuaded, Wilfrid was conducted to a small cabinet where, the Prince
retiring, he found himself alone with the Czarina.
She was seated, pale and stately, in an antique high-backed chair, her
eyes grave and sorrowful. Her manner was in singular contrast with that
of the previous evening. She was no longer the “Princess Marie” of his
love-dream; she seemed to have waked up to the consciousness that she was
an empress, between whom and Wilfrid was an impassable gulf. He had been
hoping that she might forget her love for him, and yet, now that his wish
was realised, it sent a pang to his heart.
“Be seated, Lord Courtenay.”
Grimly contrasting this formal title with the caressingly spoken
“Wilfrid” of the previous evening, he sat down and waited for her to
proceed.
She set her beautiful eyes upon him and said in a tone approaching almost
to awe:—
“Do you know who it was that came upon us last night in the Sumaroff
Gardens?”
_Last night!_ The event was distant by four weeks, yet she spoke of it as
occurring but a few hours previously. For a moment Wilfrid stared blankly
at her. Then the truth flashed upon him, and he realised the cause of her
altered manner.
There had happened to her mind one of those phenomena which, by no means
rare, are yet extremely puzzling to students of psychology.
The shock of her second immersion in the Neva had nullified the effects
of the first, and had caused the return of her memory, with this defect,
however, that the intervening period was a complete blank. She had no
recollection whatever of the love episodes at Runö.
Wilfrid’s silence, due to his surprise, drew from the Empress a
reiteration of her question.
“Do you know who he was?”
“I shall be pleased to learn his name from you.”
“He was my husband—the Czar, Alexander Paulovitch!”
She watched him keenly as if to mark the effect of her words. Wilfrid,
therefore, endeavoured to simulate amazement.
“You are the Czarina Elizavetta?” he said in a tone of feigned
incredulity.
“I am,” she answered proudly. “And you have dared to address words of
love to me, words heard by—by _him_!”
“He will surely pardon on learning that I was ignorant of your name and
rank?”
“You he may pardon; will he forgive me—me, who listened to you? It was
but for a minute, I know. For a minute only I was tempted to forget my
duty to him, when I remembered how he was neglecting me for the smiles of
Pauline de Vaucluse. One brief minute, yet I fear it will be a fatal one
for me!”
It was with a keen sense of anguish that Wilfrid marked her mournfulness.
“Why,” she murmured, “ah! why did I withhold my name on first meeting you
at the Silver Birch? It would have prevented many complications. But,
believing that I should never see you again, I deemed it best to keep my
identity a secret. And when I met you a second time, on that night in the
Michaelovski Palace and would have told you my name, you spoke so hardly,
so contemptuously of Alexander that somehow I shrank, foolishly shrank,
from telling you that I was his wife.”
“Your Majesty, had I known that, I should have refrained from all
comment, still less would I have dared to exact a kiss from——”
At this point he was interrupted by the Empress, eager to learn the
result of the interview between Alexander and Wilfrid.
“The Czar spoke to you,” she said breathlessly. “What did he say or do?”
“He did precisely what I should have done if I possessed a wife and saw a
stranger kiss her. He challenged me to a duel.”
The Czarina’s face showed signs of the liveliest disquietude; in her
agitation she half rose from her seat.
“Oh, but you did not fight! You have not accepted!”
“Your Majesty, do not distress yourself. The duel has not come off—never
will. Now, may I make so bold as to ask your Majesty what strange event
befell you after leaving me. How came you to be in the Neva?”
The Czarina trembled, partly with fear, partly with indignation.
“The recollection turns me cold. I, the Czarina, to be handled so! They
could not have known who I was. They could not have meant to kill their
Empress. I was seized by four men; one pressed his palm upon my mouth—the
others tied my hands and feet. It was the work of a few moments; then I
was lifted up and flung into the river. I have a faint recollection of
rising to the surface, of battling for life; but everything at this point
fades away into oblivion. It seems like a dreadful dream.” She shuddered
and added, “I am told by Prince Sumaroff that my life is due to you.”
“I—I had a hand in saving you,” said Wilfrid, referring to the second
immersion, while she, of course, was thinking of the first—to her the
only one. “I saw you floating on the water and brought you ashore.”
“Then this will be the second time you have saved my life,” she said with
a sort of resentment in her tone. “It makes it harder for me to say what
I _must_ say. Lord Courtenay, you must leave Russia at once. You are
anxious to serve me, I know. It is a cold saying, but the best service
you can do me is to put a thousand miles between us. Your continuance in
St. Petersburg exposes me to suspicion. You have been the means, though
innocently, of setting the Czar against me.”
Around her throat she still wore the gold chain with the locket attached,
containing Wilfrid’s miniature. She hesitated for a moment and then
detached the locket.
“The original cause of all the misunderstanding,” she murmured softly.
“But for this Alexander, prompted by Baranoff, would never have begun to
suspect me.”
She held forth the locket though her eyes told Wilfrid that she parted
from it with sorrow.
He rose, took the locket and remained standing, perceiving that her
interview with him was all but over. That pledge of his ill-starred love,
the gold ring that he had given her on the previous day, was not now on
her finger, and he wondered what had become of it.
“You will leave Russia without delay?”
“Your Majesty, I will.”
He had barely given this promise when he suddenly caught sight of a
startling apparition behind the Empress’s chair. Alexander himself!—no
longer the furious being of the previous night, but mild and gracious of
aspect: nay, with a half-smile upon his lips.
Secreted near he had heard every word freely and spontaneously uttered by
the speakers unaware of his presence, and thus had received convincing
proof that Wilfrid’s relations with the Czarina had been, from beginning
to end, of an honourable character.
The Czarina, apprised of strange happenings by Wilfrid’s stare, turned to
ascertain the cause and beheld—her husband!
Startled, she shrank back, hesitating, shivering, terrified, as she
recalled the kiss and the embrace in the garden; then, re-assured by his
tender and forgiving look, she gasped—
“_Sasha!_”
“Marie,” he whispered bending over her, “I have come to take you back to
my heart!”
Trembling with wild joy she rose to her feet and fell within the arms
that opened eagerly to receive her.
“Plainly I’m not wanted here,” thought Wilfrid, and he vanished from the
apartment.
He had not gone far before he met Prince and Princess Sumaroff, to whom
he gave an account of his interview and its dramatic termination.
They received his tidings with smiles of satisfaction.
“So my innocent little artifice has succeeded,” said the Prince. “Early
this morning I went to Runö and saw Alexander. The lapse of a few
hours had made him more amenable to reason. The Baroness had already
half-persuaded him of the Czarina’s innocence. I brought him here and he
listened to Nadia’s story and read Baranoff’s confession. That convinced
him. ‘If you require further proof,’ said I, ‘why not secrete yourself
and watch Lord Courtenay as he takes his farewell of the Empress? You
will be able to judge by their language whether their relations have been
guilty or not.’ For I knew, Lord Courtenay, that you would say nothing to
the Czarina but what would become an honourable man. You have vindicated
my opinion of you, with the happiest results.
“All’s well that ends well,” remarked Wilfrid philosophically.
“But the end has not _quite_ come,” said Princess Sumaroff with a
peculiar smile. “You must put the finishing touch to this reconciliation
by making it impossible for Alexander’s thoughts ever to wander again
towards the Baroness Runö.”
“And how can I do that?”
The Princess laughed sweetly.
“By making her Countess Courtenay, of course!”
Wilfrid started. Such an idea had never before occurred to him. How
could it, with his mind full of Marie? But now that love had become
part of his nature, who more capable of satisfying that sentiment than
Pauline, in whom he had always taken an interest bordering on affection?
Her recent course of deception, censurable as it was, had done little
to diminish his regard for her, seeing that she had not sought her own
aggrandisement, but the supposed welfare of France.
Princess Sumaroff drew forth a gold ring, set with amethysts, and gave it
to Wilfrid.
“Yours. I took it last night from the Czarina’s finger while she slept.
She might have been asking awkward questions about it, and it will be
better for her to remain in ignorance. Now, why not bestow this ring upon
the Baroness? She loves you,—not that she has ever said so—at least to
me. I judge by the warmth with which she speaks of your bravery, your
honour, your good looks, your accomplishments, your heaven-knows what.
It is my firm belief that you are the cause of her refusing an empress’s
crown when it was within her grasp. Don’t let her make the sacrifice in
vain. The Baroness is walking in the gardens at this moment, miserable
because she thinks she has lost your good opinion. Seek her, and on your
return let us have the pleasure of greeting her as the future Countess
Courtenay.”
Wilfrid, his heart beating with pleasurable sensations, walked out into
those gardens which four weeks before had been the scene of so much
mystery and romance.
He found Pauline alone, walking on the terrace that overlooked the river.
Her face, sad and pensive, brightened at his approach; and still more
when she learned the result of his final interview with the Czarina.
“That is good,” she murmured.
Side by side the two slowly paced the terrace in silence.
Wilfrid was thinking of the words spoken by Princess Sumaroff, Pauline
of Wilfrid’s coming departure. He had told her of his intention to leave
Russia within a few days; she received the news with a strange sinking of
heart. How desolate her future if deprived of his presence! Yet what had
she done to deserve his companionship? Nothing! but much to forfeit it;
and yet, if the true working of her mind could be known to him, he would
see that she was not _quite_ so bad as he perhaps thought her.
“And you have no word of reproach for me?” she said gently.
“It was wrong of you, but I am willing to forgive you on one condition.”
She looked at him, uneasy in mind as to what his next words would be.
“The condition is that you consent to be Countess Courtenay.”
Greatly daring, he put his left arm around her, and, taking her left hand
within his right, drew her towards him.
He had need to hold her: but for his strong grasp she would have fallen
to the ground in sheer amazement at words so unexpected.
Recovering somewhat, she strove to put aside his arms, saying many times
over, what she sincerely believed, that she was not worthy of him.
“Do you _really_ love me?” she said at last, raising to him eyes in which
tears were glittering.
“You are the dearest woman in the world to me—now,” he replied,
encircling her finger with a ring that had once adorned the hand of an
empress. “It would not be true to say that you are my first love, but
then, perhaps,” he added, thinking of Alexander, “neither am I yours.”
But Pauline repudiated this with warmth.
“I have never loved any one but you.”
And with this answer Wilfrid was content.
THE END.
THE SHADOW OF THE CZAR
By JOHN R. CARLING
Illustrated. 12mo. $1.50. _Fifth Edition_
“An engrossing romance of the sturdy, wholesome sort, in which the action
is never allowed to drag,” (_St. Louis Globe-Democrat_) best describes
this popular novel. “The Shadow of the Czar” is a stirring story of the
romantic attachment of a dashing English officer for Princess Barbara, of
the old Polish Principality of Czernova, and the conspiracy of the Duke
of Bora, aided by Russia, to dispossess the Princess of her throne.
It is not an historical novel—the author makes his own events after the
manner of Anthony Hope, and the _Boston Herald_ is of the opinion that it
“excels in interest Anthony Hope’s best efforts.” “Rarely do we find a
story in which more happens, or in which the incidents present themselves
with more suddenness and with greater surprise,” says the _New York Sun_.
“Mr. Carling has a surprising faculty of making it appear that things
ought to have happened as he says they did, and as long as the book is
being read he even succeeds in making it appear that they did happen so,”
says the _St. Louis Star_.
“The Shadow of the Czar” fairly captivated two countries. In England the
_Newcastle Daily Journal_ says it “transcends in interest ‘The Prisoner
of Zenda.’”
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
BOSTON, MASS.
_A New Romance by the Author of “The Shadow of the Czar”_
THE VIKING’S SKULL
By JOHN R. CARLING
Illustrated by Cyrus Cuneo. 350 pages. 12mo. $1.50
A tale full of stirring surprises.—_Philadelphia North American._
A capital tale of mystery and detection of crime and retribution.
The ingenuity with which its intricacies are threaded is really
wonderful.—_New York Times Saturday Review of Books._
It is a remarkably lively story, with a novel mystery, wrought out of old
Norse history, but the scene is modern England for the most part, and all
the characters belong to to-day.—_Chicago Record-Herald._
The reader who once becomes entangled in its meshes will sit up until
the small hours to finish it. It is a romance pure and simple from the
outset, and refreshing to a degree.—_Brooklyn Eagle._
An engrossing tale of love, adventure, and intrigue, the reading of
which makes hours fly on the wings of minutes. An ingenious, dramatic,
interest-compelling romance.—_Boston Herald._
LITTLE, BROWN, &. CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON
_At all Booksellers’_
_A Surprising and Engrossing Tale_
THE WEIRD PICTURE
_By_ JOHN R. CARLING
Author of “By Neva’s Waters,” etc.
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50
Mr. Carling keeps us guessing as he deepens our interest, for the story
is a succession of startling surprises.—_Detroit Free Press._
The plot is absorbing and well concealed; the reader goes breathlessly
from page to page, eagerly wondering what the denouement will be....
The story rotates around Daphne Leslie, a charming young woman, and is
replete with thrilling situations.—_Public Opinion._
A story of tragedy and love, told in such a manner that the interest of
the reader is held from beginning to end, and yet it does not partake of
the undue excitement common to novels of this class.—_Minneapolis Times._
Leads the reader through a maze of mystery and adventure which holds his
imagination in a close grip from the very beginning.—_Brooklyn Eagle._
Of pronounced originality and written in a terse, clear-cut style. Having
yielded in the least degree to the spell of the story, one is compelled
to follow its development to the very end.—_Chicago Daily News._
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254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON
_Grips and Holds the Reader_
A LOST LEADER
_By_ E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
Author of “The Malefactor,” etc.
Fully Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50
For his latest hero, Mr. Oppenheim has taken a modern leader who has
elected to stand aloof from the conflict of the political world, but he
has created a strong, distinct personality, and not merely exploited one
already familiar. “A Lost Leader” is as fascinating a story of modern
life as novelist has yet conceived, and one that arrests the mind by its
fine strenuousness of purpose.
An admirably woven story. The reader will follow its every phase with
absorbed interest.—_London Morning Advertiser._
The characters are all capitally drawn, and the story is developed with
all the skill and power of a born dramatist.—_The Northern Whig._
Full of originality and interest from first to last.—_London Daily
Graphic._
A highly attractive story, with an ingenious plot and daringly
up-to-date.—_Newcastle Daily Chronicle._
His stories thrill with human interest.—_Milwaukee Sentinel._
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254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON