An electric bell hummed through the cottage.
Gabrielle put down her book in surprise. She had scarcely expected a
visitor at that late hour. Yet it was not really late, but in this
sleepy Hertfordshire village nine o'clock was considered an unusual time
for anyone to be out.
She drew back the blind. A black night pressed against the window. The
country-side, unillumined by moon or stars, was just a wall of darkness,
as if reclaimed by "chaos and old night."
A servant entered with a card. Gabrielle glanced at the slip of
pasteboard, and the observant maid noticed that a sudden rush of colour
swept into her mistress's face.
"I will see him," said Gabrielle.
There entered Ivan Féodor Vassilitch. The lines of his face relaxed at
sight of her, and a smile almost of sweetness raised his black
moustache. "Why do you not light your English country roads?" he
demanded, laughing. "I had only the light of your window to guide me for
a mile."
"Pardon; they are not my roads," she answered, in the same bright
spirit of banter. "I am not yet naturalized. Where have you been?"
[Illustration: "THERE ENTERED IVAN FÉODOR VASSILITCH."]
"To Russia." He spoke the truth.
"Ah!" Instantly she became serious. "And you returned----?"
"Yesterday."
"Will you sit down, monsieur?" She spoke with a palpable effort. Some
emotion had robbed her of breath.
"Shall we go straight to our subject?" asked Vassilitch, perfectly
controlled, as he always was.
"For what else are you here?"
"My first thought was that I should see you; my second was that I had a
more definite errand."
He bore her sudden coldness so steadily that she was compelled to
relent. "Well," she said, "I am very pleased to see you, monsieur."
"You are exceedingly kind. On the day following the evening on which I
received your instructions I set about the business, and I was not long
in finding the man who worked you and yours so great a wrong."
"Not long? Impossible that he was in England?"
"On the contrary, mademoiselle, he was in this country. Do not ask me
how I discovered him. As an ex-officer of Cossacks you will understand
that my inquiries were respected. The task was not difficult; in fact,
it was ridiculously easy."
"Why do you laugh like that? You found this monster; what then?"
"He went to Russia. I went also."
"And you challenged him there?" cried Gabrielle, and the womanly
softness fled from her eyes.
"I did not."
"Monsieur! monsieur!"
"Listen. He returned to England; and I, too, followed."
"What! You permitted him to escape? You lost this chance?"
"Mademoiselle, there is one thing which both of us overlooked--or,
rather, of which we were in ignorance."
"That you were afraid?" said Gabrielle, rising to her feet, with a world
of scorn and anger in her beautiful face.
Vassilitch regarded her with steadiness; he took the word as he would
have taken a pistol ball, and again she relented. "Forgive me," she
said. "I was hasty; I wronged you."
"Mademoiselle, the Queen can do no wrong." He took the hand she gave
him, made as if he would have raised it to his lips, then released it
with infinite gentleness. "The one important point that we overlooked,"
he continued, "is that this man--I wonder if you can guess?"
"No, no. Go on."
"----is that this man loves you, mademoiselle."
"Loves--me?"
"So I discovered. You are his guiding star. To you his life points;
round you it revolves. Parted from you by an infinite distance, he is
yet bound to you by the strongest of laws, and can no more escape your
sway than the earth the pole-star to which it looks, about which it
rolls. And knowing this, I could not kill him--just yet."
"Why, what folly is this that you are talking?" exclaimed Gabrielle, a
trifle awed in spite of herself. "You are not serious, monsieur? You
cannot be."
Vassilitch did not answer.
"His name? Tell me his name," was the impatient command.
"I will tell you, but not now."
"You are very mysterious," said Gabrielle, watching him closely. "You
must be aware that you are keeping me in suspense."
Vassilitch rose. "It is merely a fancy of mine," said he. "I ask you to
believe that I have spoken the simple truth. I am still prepared to
carry out your instructions; but I should like you to consider the
assurance that I have given you. In a short time I hope to see you
again. Perhaps--anyhow, you know that I am your servant; you have but to
command me. I will wish you good-night, mademoiselle."
Gabrielle extended her hand. She was troubled by the bitterness of his
smile. Certainly this man was mysterious to-night. "Where are you
staying?" she asked, suddenly, willing to prolong the conversation.
"At the L---- Hotel."
"You will dine with me one night? This place is quiet, but it has its
charm."
"Nothing would delight me more."
"To-morrow?"
"You are very good, but I have an engagement. Do you recollect the
Englishman--I have his card here--George Tweed? That is it. He was in
Cumberland when----"
"I remember him perfectly."
"Well, we met this evening in London. He extracted from me a promise to
take supper with him to-morrow night. He wants me to meet a great friend
of his, and a countryman of ours, whose conversation he vowed would
interest me."
"Indeed? Did he mention the name?"
"Yes. It was--it was--no, it has slipped my memory. It scarcely
matters."
A servant came at a touch of the bell. The visitor descended the stairs
and left the cottage. Impelled by a sudden impulse Gabrielle ran to the
window and pulled up the blind. He would see her standing there. What of
that? The crunch of his heavy footfall sounded upon the gravel, and his
voice came clearly--"Good-night!" She replied and felt glad.
Gabrielle drew down the blind again and retreated into the well-lighted
room. She paused by the table and put to herself, aloud, a direct
question: "Why did I tell him that--that he was my brother?" And she
replied, in as direct a fashion: "I imagined that he--cared for me a
little. If he had known the truth should I have been able so to command
him? I cannot think so."
The recollection of the time when she had met Ivan Vassilitch brought to
her certain details of the occasion; and suddenly she remembered that
conversation in which famous echoes that appear to gather sound and
reverberate had been likened to actions that will not leave a life. She
had compared that cruel wrong which had destroyed her peace with one of
these deeds that come back to break in thunder. She recalled the
reminiscence with a sense of uneasiness.