My interview had been so successful and the Prince’s submission so
complete that it never occurred to me to look for still further
treachery from him.
I had carried everything before me so triumphantly; had secured Helga’s
freedom, and was on my way to take her the good news; she and I would
leave the country; Siegel would be cleared from all trouble; and on
every point I had forced from the Prince just those conditions which I
chose to impose.
So overcome was my opponent, so prostrated, that only with a great
effort had he been able to keep up to the end. And if I was inclined
to be conceited over my victory it must be remembered that I had been
pitted against a man of wide influence, drastic power, and very high
position.
It did occur to me, indeed, as I was driving to the prison, that the
Prince had not given me the order for Helga’s release, and that he had
worded his phrase peculiarly.
“Bring me her consent,” he had said; but this appeared no more than the
ordinary caution he would employ, seeing that he was not likely to set
her at liberty without some such pledge. What he had really had in
mind, however, I was to learn later.
At the prison no hesitation was shown about complying with his order. I
was shown into a bare room with a small table and a couple of chairs--a
place just one remove from an ordinary cell; and after I had waited
some few minutes Helga was brought to me.
She was very pale, but a flush of surprise, and I think delight, swept
over her face at seeing me. She just put her hands into mine as I
stretched them out to her and left them there while I gazed into her
eyes.
“You are very pale, dearest,” I said at length. It was the first time
I had ever used such a term of endearment, and her eyes and a smile
noticed it.
“I am so glad,” she answered, with sweet inconsequence. “But I don’t
in the least know how you have done it. It must be some new American
method.”
“This is the American method,” I whispered, and drew her to me till her
face was close to mine, and then I held her in a passionate embrace
while I pressed my lips to hers.
“I have been so anxious for you,” she murmured, putting her arms about
my neck. “I did not care for myself. I am so glad.” And then of her own
volition she kissed me again, and let her head fall on my shoulder with
a sigh.
For a while I had no need for words, and just stood lost in the delight
of her new tenderness and witching mood of love.
“You caught me so weak,” she said at length, “in the joy of seeing you
safe. Now satisfy my curiosity. I am only a woman, you see.”
“I have come from Prince Kalkov to tell you you are free, sweetheart.”
At the mention of the name, she started and would have drawn away from
me had I let her.
“From him? But you have been a prisoner?”
“No, never in any real danger of being one.”
“You are free now?” she cried, looking at me curiously.
“Yes, of course.”
She laughed then, and backed out of my arms.
“Then my sympathy was wasted; and my remorse----”
“It was a very sweet remorse, Helga,” I said, as she left the sentence
unfinished.
“I thought you had been arrested, and charged with Vastic’s murder;
that I had brought you to ruin and shame. Oh, it was unendurable.”
“And if you had known?” I asked, with a glance she read. “Was it only
remorse?”
“One does strange things on--on impulse. I have suffered so, and it was
such a relief.”
“The gates of relief are still open,” and I spread out my arms.
“I mean to see you,” she cried, with a flash of the eyes and a blush.
“And I mean--to feel----”
“Come, let us be sensible and talk.”
“I think we have been very sensible without talking.”
“They will not let us be long together,” she continued, ignoring my
words and looks and sitting down.
“That will depend on you, Helga.”
“On me? How?”
“You have but to say one word, and we shall be always together.”
“Another American method? They are very elastic,” she laughed.
“They are very thorough.”
“How did you escape? Please tell me everything.”
“Yes. I have come to do that. All is well now. Siegel was caught at
Kovna instead of me. I got through with the papers, returned, put them
in safe keeping in the capital, tried to see the Emperor, and saw
Kalkov instead; and when he realized what had happened, he agreed to
release you, in order that you and I might leave Russia together.”
“You bewilder me,” she said.
“I will give you the details;” and I told her at some length all that
had passed since we had parted in the train.
The story did not produce the effect upon her I wished. My note was
one of jubilant congratulation; but I saw a look of thoughtful doubt
settle gradually upon her face, and it hardened when I spoke of
Kalkov’s condition that she should abandon her war against him.
“Did he tell you he had seen me? You have not mentioned it,” she said.
“No; not a word.”
“He came here--here to this prison--to this very room.”
“For what?”
“To threaten me first, and then to offer me your and my liberty. He
swore to me that you had been arrested, and that all the papers had
been found upon you; that you were charged with Vastic’s murder, and
that he could secure your conviction--and then he offered me liberty.”
“On what condition?”
“Practically the same as you have mentioned. You have done well for me,
my friend, but the Prince is too tortuous for straight-minded men to
deal with him.”
I began to feel about as cheap as a five-cent piece. He had failed with
Helga, and then made a show of submission to me in order to use me to
influence her. It was not a pleasant reflection.
“What did you say to him?”
“That so long as a breath remained in my body and a pulse in my heart I
would spend that breath and exhaust the pulse to vindicate my father’s
memory and revenge him.”
I had no answer to make; and sat chewing the cud of this new reverse.
Helga saw how hard I was hit, how keen my disappointment, and tried
gently to soften the blow.
“No honest man can deal with the Prince,” she said; and added with a
smile: “You have secured the papers by a magnificent stroke and we
shall win now. It was for you I was troubled.”
“It’s good of you to soften the fall, but it hurts a bit all the same.”
My smile was a very rueful one. “If it was mere revenge I should urge
you to give it up; but it’s your father’s memory, and I can’t.”
“He strove hard. He seemed to know he could make me feel more keenly
striking at you than at me; and when he said the papers were in his
hands I was very near despair.”
“I can understand. Well, we’ll see it through to the end.”
“Not you,” she cried eagerly. “You must take no part. I----”
She stopped, meeting my look.
“You forget,” I said lightly. “It is I who have the papers now.”
“I cannot speak nor think lightly of it where you are concerned,” was
her earnest reply. “You must see the danger is real.”
“I need no more evidence than your presence here. Yet _you_ do not give
in. If you are troubled for me, do you think I am indifferent about
you? Helga!”
“No, no, I don’t think that. Oh, you know,” and she stretched out her
hand to me. “But this purpose is my life. It is greater than all else.
Yes,” she cried in answer to my look, “greater even than that.”
“Then I am jealous of it, Helga; so jealous that I will destroy it--or
it shall destroy me. There is nothing to me greater than my love.”
“It can never be,” she said slowly, shaking her head sadly. “It would
be cruel for me to give you hope, much as I would wish--ah, God! how
much!”
“I will find a way,” I declared firmly.
“There is one by which you can help.” She spoke suddenly after a pause.
“What is that?”
“You are free; use your freedom to get the papers out of the country to
a place of safety. Then from that vantage ground you can help me.”
“It is ingenious,” I said with a smile. “You mean I should be safe.”
“If I know you are safe I shall be happier. I told you once I was
stronger when you were away. I should be stronger now.”
“But I am not going. I will not leave you here. The papers are
absolutely safe in Marvyn’s hands.”
“You do not yet know the Prince. While the papers are in Russia he
will leave no stone unturned to find them.”
“But they are not in Russia. Where the Stars and Stripes fly over the
Embassy it is American territory; even he is powerless.”
“He will find a way. Even now I believe he has some scheme. He may have
sent you here in order to search your room. He will have your movements
to-day traced, and find out where you have been.”
“So much the better. He will not get much satisfaction at either
Embassy. He can but prove the truth of what I told him and feel the
iron pressure all the closer.”
“But what can you do if you remain in Petersburg?”
“I shall be with you.”
She answered with a gesture that the place was a prison.
“Near you, then. I cannot go away--unless we go together.”
“A kindness that is almost cruel,” she sighed, and then a silence fell
between us.
It was an _impasse_. The Prince was not likely to let her get out of
his grasp unless she promised to forego her purpose; that was certain.
Equally certain it was in that she would not yield. I could not ask her
to abandon the work of clearing her father’s memory. She had lived all
her life for that one object; and knowing her so well as I now did, I
felt she would cling to it to the end in the very face of death itself.
“It is an almost hopeless outlook for you,” she said, breaking the long
silence and speaking my own thought.
“But we have to find the way, and we shall;” and then, as if in answer
to my wish, a view of the matter which had not struck me flashed upon
me.
“You have thought of something,” she said, reading my face.
“It may not please you. It is a compromise.”
“A compromise? How? I see none.”
“Well, I will put it. You have a double motive in this fight with the
Prince--to clear your father’s memory, and to punish Kalkov. Let me see
him and tell him if he will right your father’s name you will leave him
alone.”
“Let him continue to prosper on his infamy? You ask this?”
“If you cannot tear down the stones of this place, will you help
yourself by dashing your head against the walls? As we stand, we are
helpless.”
“I can punish him, and all Russia.”
“Will that help in the really greater object?”
“You are tempting me to be untrue to my whole life.”
“I am showing you how possibly you may gain your end.”
“But the proofs of his baseness will get to the Emperor.”
“So we hope. But even if they do, are you sure of the Emperor? He told
me that the Duchess Stephanie had seen the Emperor and poisoned his
ear with the tale that you are a Nihilist. Do you think Kalkov is not
cunning enough to meet a charge from such a source? It is not those
papers the Prince fears, it is the complication with the Powers. If you
were free to press your claim for justice, it might be otherwise: but
as we are, we are desperately weak.”
“It is like treachery to my father,” she said vehemently.
“If it were so in reality I should not press it, Helga. But I do;”
and I went on to urge it, using every consideration that occurred to
me. Indeed the more I thought of it, the more was I convinced that it
offered the only solution to an impossible position.
That she should be anxious to punish the man who had dealt so cruel
a blow at her father, and was now pursuing her so relentlessly was
natural enough; in truth I would have been glad to take a strong hand
in the work. But he was old and a year or two more of unmerited
honours for him weighed but little against the disastrous consequences
to both of us.
The one consideration that began to tell at last with Helga, however,
was the fact that her father’s reputation might be righted if she gave
in to me, and would probably not be if she were to remain in prison or
be sent to Siberia.
“But he cannot do it,” she urged, when my insistence upon this point
began to influence her. “To right my father is to prove the Prince’s
wrong-doing. He cannot do it.”
“Well, there, let me try it. If he cannot we shall be only where we
stand now. I have sufficient faith in his craftiness; but we shall
still have our weapons left to us. We may gain; we cannot lose.”
Her brows drawn in deep thought and her face set, she was considering
her answer when the door was opened, and we had a genuine surprise.
Prince Kalkov entered.
I stood up and stared at him.
“This interview was to be private,” I said quickly.
“I have come to take part in it, monsieur. I have something to say that
will interest you both, and probably affect your decision.”
“I do not welcome the intrusion,” I declared.
“And I have nothing to say to my gaoler,” said Helga.
I thrust one of the two chairs over to him, and pulling the small table
towards me, sat down on it between him and Helga.
“You omitted to tell me to-day that you had already seen mademoiselle,
and that she had refused your offer.”
“It was not necessary--then. Now, however, it is different. I will be
frank with you. I sent you here that I might have your rooms at the
hotel searched, and your movements to-day ascertained.”
“Mademoiselle, knowing you, had already told me that was probably your
object. I assured her that you would gain nothing, unless you called
at a certain Embassy.”
“And you were right, monsieur,” he answered, quite unmoved. “I admit
your caution and admire it. It has confirmed my opinion of your
strength in this.”
“Well?”
“What I said to you before, I repeat now--those papers must be
returned to my hands, at any cost.”
“There are two sets of papers,” I reminded him.
“Those affecting me you can retain. I can protect myself from any
charges and slanders founded upon mistake.”
“Mistake!” exclaimed Helga bitterly.
“I said mistake, mademoiselle; and I am going to prove to you before I
leave that what I say is true. But first, you are here together, and I
invite you to say on what terms the other papers shall be placed in my
hands.”
“You had my answer to-day,” said Helga.
“I do not accept that answer, mademoiselle.”
“I have no other.”
“I am here in no spirit of hostility, neither to make or to hear
recriminations. I wish the important papers to be recovered with the
least disturbance and trouble to all concerned.”
“That is a threat,” I put in.
“It is not so intended, M. Denver. You have acted cleverly, but you
have not exhausted the resources at my command. If no terms are made
now, it will leave me no option but to have you arrested, charged with
treason and conspiracy in regard to these papers, and then I can use my
influence with your Ambassador to secure that the papers lodged with
Mr. Marvyn shall be held inviolate and then returned eventually to me.
It is for you to make your choice, whether to stand by mademoiselle’s
answer or to make better terms with me.”
Here was a fresh turn indeed, and when I glanced at Helga I saw she had
turned pale, and that, like myself, she was at loss how to parry it.