She moved slightly, raised her cup to her lips with a coquettish air,
and on setting it down her dark bright eyes again met mine with
inquiring glance.
"Well," she exclaimed. "Is it not strange that you, of all men, should
be in Skerstymone?"
"I came to seek you," I said, looking earnestly into her pretty face.
"For what reason?"
"Because by your aid alone can I regain my lost happiness," I answered
in deep earnestness. "Once, before you left London, you made certain
allegations against Ella; but you failed to substantiate them, or to
fulfil your promise in exchange for your passport."
"Yes, I remember."
"She is now my wife, and I have come to hear the truth from your own
lips, Sonia."
"Your wife!" she gasped, glaring at me. "Has--has she actually dared to
marry you?"
"Yes," I answered. "She has dared, because she loves me."
She remained silent, with knit brows, for a long time engrossed in
thought.
Then briefly I told her how, after her departure, we had married, and
related how suspicion had been aroused within me by her clandestine
meetings with Cecil Bingham, her flight, and my subsequent discovery of
her true position.
"Then you are aware who she really is," she observed slowly at last.
"That she has dared to enter into a matrimonial alliance with you is
certainly astounding. Indeed, it is incredible."
"Why?" I inquired in surprise.
"There are the strongest reasons why she should never have become your
wife," she replied ambiguously.
"She lives apart from me. She has returned to her house in Paris," I
said.
"Ah! it is best," she answered mechanically. "It is best for both of
you."
"But we love one another, and although she fears to tell me the truth
regarding all this mystery that has enveloped her for so long, you,
nevertheless, are in a position to explain everything. Therefore I have
come to you. You were my wife's friend, Sonia," I went on. "Tell me
why she has acted with all this secrecy."
"Her friend," she echoed blankly. "Yes, you are right," she sighed.
"It was a strange friendship, ours; she, a Grand Duchess against whom
never a word of scandal had been uttered, and I--well I was notorious.
The people in Vienna and Paris pointed at me in the streets, and
fashionable women copied my manners and my dress. Yet there was, nay
there still is, a strong tie between us, a tie that can never be
severed."
"Tell me of it," I urged, when, pausing, she turned her pale agitated
face away from me towards the small grimy window that overlooked the
great sunlit steppe.
"Once I believed that she was your enemy, and told you so. I feared
that because of her position she would never marry you. Yet it seems
she was really in earnest, therefore I now withdraw that allegation.
She evidently loves you."
"Yes, but we are living apart because she fears the revelation of some
terrible secret if she acknowledges me as her husband."
"And that is why you have come here--to learn of her past!" she cried in
a hoarse hollow voice, as if the truth had suddenly dawned upon her.
I nodded gravely in the affirmative, then told her of our meeting in
Paris, and her refusal to make any satisfactory explanation.
"I envied Elizaveta once," she said reflectively at last. "I envied her
because she was so supremely happy in your love. Yet it now seems as if
I, degraded outcast that I am, have even more happiness and freedom."
"You were once her friend--she visited you every day. You can be her
friend now; and by telling me the truth, bring joy and confidence to
both of us. You can make our lives happy, if you only will."
"No," she answered coldly, her face hard and set. There was a cruel
look in her eyes. "Why should I? Why should I strive for the happiness
of one to whom I owe all my grief and despair?"
"Surely no misfortune of yours is due to her?" I protested quickly.
"Misfortune!" she wailed, her eyes flashing. "Would you not call the
loss of the man you love, misfortune?" Then, in quieter tones, she
added with a sigh, "Ah, you don't know, Geoffrey, how intensely bitter
my strange, adventurous life has been. You believe, no doubt, that a
woman of my character cannot love. Well, I thought so once. But I tell
you that in London I loved one man; the only man I ever met that I could
marry. I had renounced my past, and sought to lead a new life when I
knew that he cared for me, and was preparing to make me his wife. But
she, the Grand Duchess who tricked you so cleverly, came between us, and
we were parted. Then I came here, to Russia, sought solace among my
former companions, the scum of the gaols and ghettos, and have now
descended in despair to what I am. By her, the woman you ask me to free
from a terrible thraldom, I have been thrust back into hopelessness, and
have lost for ever the one chance I had of joy and love."
Then, covering her handsome face with her hands, she burst into a
torrent of tears.
"Come," I said, rising, and stroking her soft, silky hair. Her arms
were upon the table, and she had buried her head in them, sobbing as if
her heart would break. "Come, do not give way," I urged. "Who was the
man you loved?"
"That concerns no one but myself," she murmured. "Even she has never
had proof that we loved one another. Yet to her is due all this grief,
that has fallen upon me."
Raising her head, she strove to suppress her emotion, and her brilliant
tear-bedewed eyes fixed themselves steadily upon mine.
"I may perhaps be able to assist you," I said. "I did on a former
occasion."
"No," she answered, in a voice of intense sorrow. "I have now grown
careless of myself, careless of life, careless of everything since I
left London. With the man I loved so truly I could have been happy
always, yet she knew my past, and would allow me no chance to redeem
myself. It is but what I deserve, I suppose, therefore I must suffer.
But can you wonder that, hating the world as I do, I entertain a certain
grim satisfaction in being leader of this ragged, ruffianly band of
frontier free-lances?"
"No," I answered, echoing her sigh; "I am scarcely surprised, yet I
cannot think that my wife, who was your friend, would willingly serve
you as you believe."
"She did," Sonia answered, again raising her sad, dark eyes. "She alone
I have to thank for the sorrow that has wrecked my life."
"What was the name of the man you loved?" I asked. "Do I know him?"
"Yes, you know him; but his name is of no consequence," she answered
evasively, in a faint voice, lowering her eyes. "My secret is best kept
in my own heart."
"If my wife did it unintentionally, without knowing you were lovers,
there is some excuse," I said, half apologetically.
"No," she answered, with sudden harshness. "No excuse is possible.
There were other circumstances which rendered her conduct unpardonable."
"I really can't believe it," I said. "I feel certain that she would
never have exposed you willingly."
"Alas!" she said at last, "the evil is now done, and the stigma cannot
be removed. But you asked me to reveal certain facts that would place
her mind at rest, restore her confidence, and give her freedom. I have
told you. I have made a confession to you that no other person has had
from my lips."
"Ah, do not be pitiless," I cried imploringly, feeling assured that she
alone knew the truth. Her assertion that she could restore my wife to
freedom meant, I knew, the removal of that dark cloud of suspicion and
dread that, overshadowing her, held her spellbound by fear. "Think," I
urged, standing close to her, my hand resting upon the bare, unpolished
table. "Once when you came to me, a stranger, and I rendered you a
service, you promised to perform one for me in return when I desired it.
I am now sorely in need of your friendship, and have come to you for
aid."
"We shall be friends always, I hope, Geoffrey," she answered quietly,
pushing back her dark hair from her brow. Her head was untidy and her
hair tangled, for so callous had she grown that she took no heed either
of attire or personal appearance.
"Then you will, at least, fulfil your promise," I said.
"No," she replied, with dogged firmness. "In this matter I absolutely
refuse. I know how weary and wretched your life must be, with mystery
surrounding you as it does, and being compelled to live apart from the
woman you love; but, frankly, the fact that her cold, proud Highness
fears to acknowledge you, or tell you the truth, is a source of
satisfaction to me. She has sown dissension, and is now reaping her
harvest of tears."
The cankerworm of care was eating out my heart, and I resolved to make
one final appeal to her better nature, albeit I saw from her demeanour
how embittered she was against Ella.
"No effort have I left unattempted to seek some solution of the
problem," I said. "Yet all is unavailing. I have sought the truth from
Cecil Bingham, but he refused to utter one word, and referred me to you.
He said you knew all."
"Cecil Bingham!" she cried, suddenly starting. "Do you know him? He
was your wife's friend."
"Yes," I answered. "I know that, although I am unaware of the true
character of their relationship."
"Ah!" she ejaculated, and I thought she winced beneath my words. "He
sent you here?"
"Yes," I said. "But before seeing him I had endeavoured to obtain some
facts from another of Ella's acquaintances, Andrew Beck."
"Andrew Beck?" she repeated in a low, hollow voice, her brows
contracting as if mention of his name were unpleasant to her ears. "You
were jealous of him once," she added in a hard, dry tone.
"Yea," I smiled. "But I am so no longer."
"Why? I thought from what Ella told me long ago that you had some
cause. He certainly was one of her admirers."
"Yes. But he's about to be married."
"Married!" she cried wildly, starting to her feet, her lips moving
convulsively. "Andrew Beck?"
I nodded, for a moment surprised; but, suddenly remembering, I took from
my pocket-book the newspaper cutting announcing the engagement.
Eagerly her strained eyes read the three formal lines of print, then
hastily crushing the piece of paper in her hand she cast it from her
with a gesture of anger. Her face was pale and determined, her thin
hands, no longer loaded with rings as they once had been, twitched
nervously, and I could plainly see the strange convulsion that the
unexpected intelligence had caused within her.
"Do you know the--the girl who is to be his wife?" she stammered
presently.
"No, we have never met," I answered. "His marriage does not, however,
concern us for the moment. It is of Ella and her strange secret that I
seek knowledge. Tell me the truth, Sonia, so that I may be able to
place within her hand a weapon wherewith to combat this mysterious enemy
she fears."
There was a long pause. Her breath came and went quickly in hot
convulsive gasps. Her hands were so tightly clenched that their nails
were driven into the palms; her mouth was firmly set, and in her eyes
was a cold, stony stare. The knowledge of Beck's intended marriage had
aroused within her a veritable tumult of passion.
"The truth!" she cried hoarsely at last, her hand upon her throbbing
breast. "You ask me to clear suspicion from the woman whose whim it has
been to marry you and I refuse, because I should bring her happiness,
and remove from her the terror that now holds her enthralled. But I
have reconsidered my decision. I--"
"Ah, tell me!" I exclaimed, interrupting her in my eagerness.
"I will speak because my disclosures, remarkable though they may be,
will not only bring peace to you and your wife, but will also prove a
trifle disconcerting to her companions. Once they hunted me from town
to town as a criminal; they will now beg to me for mercy upon their
knees."
"Tell me. Do not conceal the truth longer," I cried anxiously.
"No. Only in Elizaveta's presence will I speak," she answered, in a
strained voice quivering with violent emotion. "Let us start for Paris
to-night. When the moon rises I will guide you through the forest into
Germany; we can cross the Jura by the bridge beyond Absteinen, and from
Tilsit take train to Berlin. In two days we can be in Paris. Take me
to her," she said with sudden eagerness, "and you shall both learn facts
that will astound you."
"I am quite ready," I said; "I knew you alone would prove my friend."
"No," she answered, regarding me gravely. "No, Geoffrey. It is a
secret full of grim realities and ugly revelations, which, when
disclosed, will, I fear, cause you to hate me, and count me among your
enemies. But you seek the truth; you shall therefore be satisfied."