"It is but natural that I should take an interest in the affairs of
nations, I suppose."
"Let us put them aside," I said. "We are not rival diplomatists, but
husband and wife; we--"
"Yes, yes," she cried, interrupting. "I am happy because you are here
with me; you, whose presence I have been fearing for so long. See! I
smile and am happy;" and she gave vent to a hollow, discordant laugh.
"Happy because you have so successfully mystified me," I sighed.
"No. Happy because I love you, Geoffrey," she exclaimed, again throwing
her arms affectionately about my neck, and raising her full red lips to
mine. "Forgive me; do say you will forgive me," she implored.
"How can I ever forget the ingenuity and deep cunning with which you
deceived me," I said. "I cannot but recollect how, on that night at
Chesham House, Grodekoff congratulated you upon your marriage, yet how
careful he was not to disclose to me your identity. Again, even my
friend Verblioudovitch must have known who you really were. Why did he
not tell me?"
"Because the staff of the Embassy had already received strict orders
from St Petersburg not to acknowledge me," she exclaimed, with a smile.
"Lord Warnham fancied he recognised me, and spoke to the Ambassador; but
the latter succeeded in assuring him that before marriage I was Ella
Laing, and that the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna was at that
moment with the Tzarina at Tzarskoie-Selo. He believed it, and
afterwards M'sieur Grodekoff assured me that was the first occasion he
had been enabled to successfully deceive your lynx-eyed Foreign
Minister."
"You feared that the Earl might recognise you," I exclaimed, surprised,
for I now remembered the effect produced on my chief when his eyes had
first fallen upon my wife. "You knew him, then?"
"Ah, no," she faltered; "well, we were not exactly acquainted," and she
appeared rather confused, I thought, for her cheeks were suffused by the
faintest suspicion of a blush.
"Did you expect he would be there?"
"No; you told me distinctly that he was not going, otherwise I should
never have accompanied you," she said frankly.
"Why?"
"Because I did not desire to meet him," she replied, adding, with a
laugh, "As it was, however, he was satisfied, and went away marvelling,
no doubt, at the striking resemblance."
"Yet you told me nothing," I observed reproachfully.
"No; I was afraid," she replied, in a serious voice. "With you I lived
on from day to day, fearing detection, dreading lest you should discover
some facts regarding my past, and by their light believe me to be an
adventuress. Yet, at the same time, I worked on to achieve my freedom
from a yoke which had become so galling that, now I loved you, I could
endure it no longer."
"And did you not succeed in breaking asunder this mysterious bond?" I
inquired, half doubtfully.
"No," she answered, shaking her head sorrowfully. "By an untoward
circumstance, against which I had not provided, I was prevented, and
compelled to flee."
"If you will divulge absolutely nothing regarding the manner in which
you became possessed of the stolen convention, or the reason you have
masqueraded as my wife, you can at least tell me why you received so
many communications regarding clandestine meetings, and explain who was
your mysterious correspondent who signed himself `X.'"
Her heart beat quickly; she sighed, and lowered her gaze. She strove to
preserve a demeanour of calm hauteur as befitted her station, but in
vain.
"You have also found those letters," she remarked, her voice trembling.
"Yes. Tell me the truth and put my mind at ease."
"I can put your mind entirely at ease by assuring you, as I did after
you detected me walking in Kensington Gardens, that I have had no lover
besides yourself, Geoffrey," she cried vehemently. "I have told you
already that I worked to secure freedom of action in the future. Those
letters were from one who rendered me considerable assistance."
"What was his name?" I demanded quickly.
"I may not tell you that," was her answer, uttered in a quiet, firm
tone.
"Then, speaking plainly, you refuse, even now, to give me any
elucidation whatever of this irritating mystery, or to allow me to
obtain any corroboration of your remarkable story," I said, with a
sudden coldness.
She noticed my change of manner, and clung to me with uplifted face,
pale and agitated. Her attempt to treat me as other than her husband
had utterly failed.
"Ah! do not speak so cruelly," she exclaimed, panting. "I--I really
cannot bear it, Geoffrey--indeed I can't. You must have seen that I
loved you. I was, when I married, prepared to sacrifice all for your
sake; nay, I did sacrifice everything until--until I was forced from
you, and thrust back here to this place, that to me is little else than
a gilded prison. Ah?" she cried, sobbing bitterly, and gazing around
her in despair, "you cannot know how deeply I have sorrowed, how
poignant has been the grief in the secret and inmost recesses of my
heart; or how, through these months, while I have been travelling, I
have longed to see you once again, and hear your voice telling me of
your love. But, alas! without knowledge of the strange secret that
seals my lips, you can know nothing--nothing!"
"I only know that I still adore you," I said, with heartfelt fervency.
"Ah! I knew you did," she exclaimed, raising her eager lips to mine in
ecstasy. "I knew you would pity me when you came, yet I feared--I
feared because I had lied to you, and deceived you so completely." Then
she kissed my lips, but I did not return her hot, passionate caress,
although I confess it made my head reel.
"You have not forgiven," she exclaimed, in a voice quivering with
emotion, as she drew back. "You have not yet promised that you will
still regard me as your wife."
I hesitated. The startling fact of her true station, and the revelation
of how ingeniously I had been tricked, caused me a slight revulsion of
feeling. Somehow, as Grand Duchess she seemed an entirely different
being to the plain, unassuming woman I had known as Ella. From the
crown of her well-dressed hair to the point of her tiny, white kid shoe
with its pearl embroidery, she was a patrician; the magnificence of her
dress and jewels dazzled me, yet in her declarations of devotion her
voice seemed to be marred by some indefinable but spurious ring.
Even now she was deceiving me. She would allow no word of her
mysterious secret to pass her lips. It had always been the same. She
would tell me absolutely nothing, vaguely asserting that to utter the
truth would be to invoke an avenging power that she dreaded. I
remembered how she had seemed terrorised on more than one occasion when
I had demanded the truth, yet what I had learned that night increased my
suspicions.
"If I forgive and seek no explanation of the past," I said at last, "we
must, I suppose, remain parted."
"Ah, yes!" she gasped. "But only for a few short weeks. Then we will
come together again never to part--never."
"I can forgive on one condition only," I said--"that you tell me the
truth regarding the dastardly theft from me on the day of Dudley's
death."
For an instant she was silent. Then, burying her face on my shoulder,
sobbing, she answered in a tone so low as to be almost inaudible,--
"I cannot!"
Gently but firmly I put her from me, although she clung about my neck,
urging me to pity her.
"I cannot pity you if you refuse to repose confidence in me," I
answered.
"I do not refuse," she cried. "It is because my secret is of such a
nature that, if divulged, it would wreck both your own happiness and
mine."
"Then to argue further is absolutely useless," I answered coldly. "We
must part."
"You intend to leave me without forgiveness," she wailed. "Ah, you will
not be so cruel, Geoffrey. Surely you can see how passionately I love
you."
"You do not, however, love me sufficiently well to risk all consequences
of divulging your mysterious secret," I retorted, with almost brutal
indifference, turning slowly from her.
"Then kiss me, Geoffrey," she cried wildly, springing towards me and
again entwining her soft arms about my neck. "Kiss me once again--if
for the last time."
Our lips met for an instant, then slowly I disengaged myself and strode
towards the door. In her refusal to throw light upon the incidents that
had so long held me perplexed and bewildered, I fancied she was
shielding someone. Although crushed and downcast, I had resolved to go
forth into the world again with my terrible burden of sorrow concealed
beneath a smiling countenance. I regretted deeply that I had sought
her, now that I was aware of the gulf that lay between us.
"Stay, Geoffrey! Stay. I cannot bear that you should go," she wailed.