_August._
_Dearests:--_
Peter is here. Last night, about nine o'clock the door opened and he
rushed into the room. I got to my feet on impulse, and then tried to
brace myself and control my disordered reason, for, of course, I
believed myself delirious. He stopped by the door long enough to throw
down his suitcase, and in that instant I struggled fiercely to
disbelieve my eyes. I was fighting myself. My legs trembled. But when I
fell, his arms were around me, supporting me.
"Is it you? Is it you?" I don't know whether I said the words out loud
or not, but I remember feeling the muscle in Peter's shoulder and
wondering if I could have gone out of my head as much as _that_.
"What on earth has happened to you two?" he said at last.
"Let me sit down," I said, feeling suddenly very sick and faint, and a
black spot in front of my eyes expanded all at once and shut out the
swaying room.
"Why didn't you come to Bucharest?" he asked again.
"How white and thin you are. Isn't he, Marie?" I observed, the blackness
gone from my eyes.
"Please answer me. What is the matter? You both look sick."
"We are under arrest for espionage," Marie and I suddenly burst out in
chorus, and we both began talking as fast and as loud as we could.
"That's all right. I'll fix things for you," Peter reassured us when we
stopped at last, out of breath. I suddenly wanted to hide him so they
wouldn't get him as well as ourselves. He was so self-confident. What
did _he_ know of how things happened over here? He was talking and
acting like a rational human being, which was sure proof he was in no
position to cope with the Russian Secret Service. I felt a frantic
desire to get him out of the room and make him promise that on no
account would he admit he knew us.
"You must go at once," I whispered. "There's a spy at the door. If he
sees you, they'll arrest you, too. Please go, go at once." And I tried
to push him away.
"You poor things," he said, laughing. "There's no need to be frightened
like this. Of course I won't go. Why should they arrest me?"
"Why should they have arrested us? Oh, you _don't_ know." My teeth were
chattering.
"Now, look here," he said seriously. "You've been alone and scared, and
I'm sure you haven't eaten anything for days. Now, don't think about
this any more. I'll get you out in no time. Have you a cigarette,
anybody?"
I sat back, and my body stopped shaking. Everything seemed very still. I
had the distinct thought, "What is to come, will come," and I drew a
deep breath that seemed to come from my toes. It was enough Peter was
here, after all.
We talked till three in the morning. Peter had gone to Bucharest to meet
us, and when we didn't arrive, he took the first train to Kiev. I began
to believe in his bodily presence. Before he left to go back to his
hotel, I had regained my conviction he was a match for even the Russian
Secret Service.
Can you imagine how we feel to-day? We go tottering round the room,
taking things up and putting them down again, in a nervous anxiety to
_do_ something. We chirp the rag-times popular in America two years ago.
We feel as though we were just recovering from a sickness, with a
pleasant bodily weakness like a convalescent's in the springtime. Peter
brought me a bunch of red roses when he came over this morning. I am
writing this while he is seeing Mr. Douglas, the English Consul.