"Dudley Ogle!" I echoed in blank amazement. "Are you certain that the
servant's suspicions were devoid of foundation?"
"Absolutely," she answered in quick breathlessness. "In those days I
was supercilious and disdainful, being taught to regard my dignity as
Grand Duchess with too great a conceit to make a _mesalliance_. My
mother used constantly to urge that in the marriages contracted by
members of our family love was not absolutely necessary--position was
everything. Well, the months went by. We left Algiers, returned to St
Petersburg, and soon afterwards my mother died, leaving me alone. I
found myself possessor of great wealth, and when, after a period of
mourning, I reappeared in society, I was courted and flattered by all
sorts and conditions of men. In a year I grew tired of it all and
longed to return to England, the land wherein I had spent many years of
my youth; therefore I engaged a woman to pose as my mother, and dropping
my title, went to London and lived there as Ella Laing. Then I met
you," and she paused, looking earnestly into my face with her deep blue
eyes. To me she had embodied everything that was fair, honourable, and
pure, yet I had dreaded some sinister peril from an unknown source.
"And we loved each other," I said simply.
"Yes," she went on fervently. "But from the first I was fettered, being
unable to act as my heart prompted. I loved you fondly, and knew you
wished to make me your wife, yet I dared not to risk such a step without
the permission of our House. I went to St Petersburg, explained who and
what you were, and craved leave to marry you. A family council was
held, but the suggestion was unanimously denounced as a piece of
sentimental folly. Ah, shall I ever forget that night? I pleaded to
them upon my knees to let me obtain happiness in your love, but they
were inexorable and refused. At length, when in a moment of despair I
threatened that if shut out from love by the barrier of birth I would
end my life, a suggestion was made--a horrible, infamous one, prompted
by Makaroff, Minister of the Household. Yet I was ready to commit any
act, to do anything in order to secure happiness with you. Permission
was given me to marry you on condition that I entered the Secret Service
as spy. I appealed personally to the Tzar, but in vain. You were in
the Earl of Warnham's confidence, and it was seen that from you I could
obtain information which would be of greatest utility to our Foreign
Department."
"So you accepted," I said sternly.
"Yes. I accepted their abominable conditions because I loved you so
well, Geoffrey," she said gloomily, her trembling hand upon my shoulder.
"It was not my fault, indeed it wasn't. If I had known what was to
follow I would have killed myself rather than bring about all the
trouble and disaster for which I became responsible."
"No," I said, "don't speak like that."
"I would," she declared despairingly. "What followed was a dark,
mysterious tragedy, while all the time I knew that you must suspect--
that, after all, you might forsake me. Within a week after binding
myself irrevocably to the Tzar's army of spies I made a discovery that
held me appalled. I found that my master, the man to whose will I was
compelled to submit, was none other than our discharged _valet de
chambre_--the man who two years before had declared his love. At the
time my mother had engaged him he was already in the Secret Service, and
had no doubt kept watch upon us. He came to me at `The Nook,' and,
exulting in the fact that I had become his puppet, renewed his
protestations of affection. When, frankly, I told him that I hated him
and loved only you, he at once informed me, with a grin of satisfaction,
that the department in St Petersburg found it compulsory to obtain
possession of a copy of a secret convention at that moment being
concluded between your country and Germany, and that I must get
possession of it at any cost, through you. It was in order that I might
betray you that the Imperial permission had been given to our marriage.
In indignation I refused, whereupon he threatened to expose me to you as
a Russian spy, and I saw only too clearly that any such revelation must
end for ever our acquaintance. He cajoled, urged, threatened, and
explained all the elaborate precautions that had been taken by two
clerks in Russian pay at your Foreign Office in order that on a certain
day you should carry the precious document in your pocket, and how he
had prepared the dummy envelope sealed with your Minister's seal. At
last--at last, after striving long and vainly against the performance of
this ignominious action that I knew must reflect on your honesty, I was
compelled to submit. Ah! you can never know what agony I suffered. I
verily believe that in those few days the terrible vengeance of that
scoundrel drove me insane. The hideous ghost of the past causes me to
shudder whenever I think of it."
I echoed her sigh, but no word escaped me. Her revelations were
astounding. I had never suspected her of being actually a spy, although
the discovery of the stolen convention in her escritoire had lent colour
to that view.
"I deceived you," she went on in a hard, monotonous voice. "But only
because I loved you so fondly, and dreaded that this man, who had long
ago vowed to wreck my life, would expose, and thus part us. Yet I could
not bring myself to commit the theft. How could I place upon you--the
man who was all in all to me--the stigma of having traitorously sold
your country's secrets? The man who held me enslaved, and whose
attentions I had spurned, exulted in his malevolent revenge. Once he
offered, if I would renounce all thought of you and treat him with more
cordiality, to commit the theft himself; but I refused, determined at
all hazards to remain with you as long as possible. Once it was thought
that the secret convention would be sent to Warnham Hall, and I was
compelled to go down there to devise some means of obtaining it. I
found Dudley staying in the village, and we returned to London together.
The end must soon come, I knew. Therefore I lived on in daily terror
of what must follow. At last the day dawned on which I had to meet you
at the Foreign Office, and filch from you the bond of nations. After
breakfast I stood out on the lawn by the sunny river's brink,
contemplating suicide rather than your ruin, when there rowed up to the
steps Dudley Ogle, who hailed me, inviting me to pull up to Windsor, and
there lunch with him. At once I accepted, and after embarking, told him
of my dilemma, and besought his assistance. As you know, he was a good
amateur conjurer, and skilled in feats of sleight-of-hand. Without
thought of the consequences, he resolved to commit the theft for my
sake, and when I had fully explained all the facts and given him the
dummy envelope that the cunning chief of the _Okhrannoe Otdelenie_ had
prepared, he turned the boat and put me ashore at `The Nook,' afterwards
rowing rapidly down to Shepperton to change and go at once to London."
"He did this because he loved you?" I exclaimed sternly.
"No," she answered reassuringly. "Poor Dudley was simply my friend. He
called on you and extracted the document from your pocket while you
lunched together, because he saw in what a dilemma I was. He knew I
loved you dearly, and never once spoke a single word of affection to me.
That I swear before Heaven. What followed his visit to Downing Street
I have only a hazy idea, so full of awful anxieties was that breathless
day. From Waterloo Station he telegraphed to me that he had
successfully secured the agreement and handed it to the chief of spies.
The latter, who had been waiting in Parliament Street expecting me,
seeing him, took in the situation at a glance, and approaching him,
asked for the document, which he gave up. An hour afterwards, fearing
that you might suspect me, I telegraphed to you at Shepperton to dine
with us, well knowing that already the text of the convention was at
that moment being transmitted to Petersburg, and that war was imminent.
You came; you kissed me. I loved you dearer than life, yet dreaded the
frightful consequences of the dastardly act I had instigated. Suddenly,
while we were at dinner, and you were laughing, happy and unconscious of
the conspiracy against the peace of Europe, a thought flashed across my
mind. I well knew that an awful conflict of armed forces must accrue
from my deep, despicable cunning, and it occurred to me, as I sat by
your side, that I would, using the secret cipher I had been provided
with, telegraph to St Petersburg in the name of the chief of spies,
assuring our Foreign Department that a mistake had been made. I slipped
out, and running down to the telegraph office just before it closed,
sent a message to an unsuspicious-looking address, stating that the text
of the convention already sent had been discovered to be that of a
rejected draft, and not that of the actual defensive alliance which had
received the signature of the Emperor William."
"Then it was actually this message of yours that prevented war?" I
gasped, in profound astonishment.
"Yes," she answered. "Before receipt of my telegram all preparations
were being made for the commencement of hostilities, but on its arrival
the Tzar at once countermanded the mobilisation order, and Europe was
thereby spared a terrible and bloody conflict. Ah! that was indeed a
memorable night, brought to a conclusion by a dark and terrible
tragedy."
Her astounding disclosures held me dumbfounded. I remembered vividly
how, during our lunch at the Ship, Dudley had risen and gone out to the
bar to speak to an acquaintance. It was at that moment, having stolen
the document from me, he glanced at its register number and imitated it
upon the dummy with which Ella had provided him.
"But how came you possessed of the original of the convention?" I
asked.
"A week before I fled from you I received it by post anonymously," she
replied. "When compelled by my enemy to leave you and return here to my
true position, I unfortunately left it behind, and knew that, sooner or
later, you must discover it. The man who, with the Tzar's authority,
held me under the lash, still holds me, the plaything of his spite, and
threatens that if I allow you to come here and occupy your rightful
place as my husband, he will denounce me to the British Government as a
spy. Hence I am still his puppet, still held by a bond of guilt that I
dare not break asunder."
"Be patient," urged Sonia, in a deep, calm voice. "Be patient, and you
shall yet be free."
"Ah! Geoffrey," sobbed my wife, her blanched, tearful face buried in
her hands, "you can never, I fear, forgive. After all, notwithstanding
the glamour that must surround me as Grand Duchess, I am but a mean,
despicable woman who foully betrayed you, the man who loved me."
"You atoned for your crime by your successful effort to preserve the
peace of Europe," I answered.
"Yes, yes," she cried, with a quiver in her voice there was no mistaking
for any note save that of love; "but, alas! I am in the power of an
unscrupulous knave who parted us because he saw me happy with you. Can
you ever forgive me? Can you, now you know of my unworthiness, ever say
that you love me as truly as you did in those bygone days at `The Nook'?
Speak! Tell me?"
"Yes," I answered, fervently pressing her closely in affectionate
embrace. "I forgive you everything, darling. You sinned; but, held as
you have been by the hateful conditions imposed upon you by a base,
unprincipled villain, I cannot blame, but only pity you."
"Then you still love me, Geoffrey?" she cried, panting, gazing up into
my face.
For answer I bent until my lips met hers in a long fond caress. In
those moments of ecstasy I was conscious of having regained the idyllic
happiness long lost. Even though her story was full of bitter and
terrible sorrow, and rendered gloomy by the tragic death of her
self-sacrificing friend, the truth nevertheless brought back to me the
joys and pleasures of life that not long ago I believed had departed
from me for ever.
Again and again our lips met with murmured words of tender passion--she
declaring that her crime had been flagitious and unpardonable, yet
assuring me of what I now felt convinced, that her love had been
unwavering. If it were not that she had resolved to renounce her title
and become my wife she would never have fallen beneath the vassalage of
the infamous scoundrel who sought her social ruin.
Thus we stood together locked in each other's arms, exchanging once
again vows of love eternal, while Sonia stood watching us, sad, silent
and motionless, save for a deep sigh that once escaped her. She knew
that supreme happiness had come to the woman she had once denounced as
my bitterest foe.