"And yet you venture to remain here?"
"Herr Ziegler is deep in the schemes," she replied, not heeding my question. "You know what the policy is now. To ally ourselves with every disaffected element in the Empire, to stir discontent, to band together every section of malcontents, to lose no chance of throwing discredit on the Government, and when the time comes to raise the cry for Independence."
"And yet you venture to remain here?" I repeated.
"Do you think I am a coward?" and again she laid her hand on my arm. "No, Mr. Bastable, we Poles are dreamers and visionaries, but we are not cowards."
"I should not make that mistake, I assure you."
"I have told you because--well, because I wish you to know. I would trust my life to you. I have never in all my life had such friends as you and your sister."
"I thank you for that," I said in a low voice, averting my eyes that she might not see how deeply her words moved me.
She was silent for fully a minute, and my heart was beating so lustily that I half feared she would hear it.
"And is your father deeply concerned?" I asked, to break the trying silence.
"My dear father," she replied, with a smile and a sigh. "Ah, Mr. Bastable, if you could see him you would smile at your own question. In former years he was a power in the movement; but he is old now, and has brooded so long upon his wrongs that his mind has been affected. He was then indeed an enemy to be counted with, but he is no more his old self. Things are done in his name because of the influence he once wielded, but he himself does them no longer. They have broken him on the wheel of persecution. Pity rather than terror should be the emotion he stirs; but what do the iron rulers of this great Empire know of pity?"