“I will not excuse myself, Madame,” I answered slowly. “Neither have I accused you.”
“Your tone is an accusation,” she returned with a touch of bitterness. “Oh, I know well that men are ready to pardon many things in one another which they will not pardon in us.”
“I am sorry if I have wounded you,” I said with real compunction. “Let us say no more about the tragedy that is past. Am I right in thinking that you have come to me for aid?”
“I do not know. I do not know why I am here. Perhaps it is because I am mad.”
I gazed at her flushed face and trembling hands, unable to resist the feeling of compassion which was creeping over me.
What was I to think? What was this woman’s real purpose in coming to me?
Had her employers, had the unscrupulous Petrovitch, or the ruthless Minister of Police, indeed charged her to remove me from their path; and had her courage broken down under the hideous burden?
Or was this merely a ruse to win my confidence; or, perhaps, to frighten me into resigning my task and leaving the Russian capital?
Did she wish to save my life, or her own?