“Madame! Princess!” I was on the point of addressing her by a yet more familiar name. “At least, sit down and recover yourself.”
Like one dazed, I led her to a chair. Like one dazed, she sank into it in obedience to my authoritative pressure.
“Come,” I said in a tone which I strove to render at once firm and soothing, “it is clear that we must understand each other. You have come here to tell me this, I suppose?”
“At the risk of my life,” she breathed. “What must you think of me!”
I recalled the fate of poor Menken, whom the woman before me had led to his doom, though she had not struck the blow.
In spite of myself, a momentary shudder went through me.
The sensitive woman saw or felt it, and shook in her turn.
“Believe me or not, as you will,” she exclaimed desperately. “I swear to you that I have never knowingly been guilty of taking life.
“Never for one moment did I anticipate that that poor man would do what he did,” the Princess went on with passionate earnestness. “I tempted him to give me the Czar’s letter, and I destroyed it—I confess that. Are not such things done every day in secret politics? Have you never intercepted a despatch?”
It was a suggestive question. I thought of more than one incident in my own career which might be harshly received by a strict moralist. It is true that I have always been engaged on what I believed was a lawful task; but the due execution of that task had sometimes involved actions which I should have shrunk from in private life.