It was not destined that Olga should leave Russia yet.
A terrible event happened within the next few hours, the report of which rang through Russia like a clap of thunder, convulsing the whole nation, and shaking for the moment the entire social fabric to its lowest foundations. And one of its smaller consequences was to ruin my plans and expose me to infinite personal peril.
Olga was to start at noon, and I proposed to see her an hour before then, for what I knew would be a very trying ordeal. But I was at that hour in the midst of a very different kind of interview.
Outside official circles I was one of the first men to learn the news. Just before ten o'clock a messenger came with a request for me to go at once to the chief Police Bureau. I started in the full conviction that for some cause Tueski had changed his mind and meant to arrest me. I was of course helpless: and could do no more than scribble a hasty line to Olga telling her of my appointment, asking her not to wait for me, and bidding her good-bye. But I did not send it. The police agent said with great politeness he would prefer my not doing anything then: I could send the note equally well from the Bureau. I knew what that meant, and yielded.
The moment I arrived at the office I could see that some event of altogether unusual importance and gravity had occurred. The air was laden with the suggestion of excitement. There was an absence of that orderly, business-like routine always characteristic of Russian public offices. The police agents were present in exceptionally large numbers; hurrying through the corridors, thronging the rooms, and standing in groups engaged in animated discussion.
I was kept waiting some time, perhaps half an hour, before a word was spoken to me by anyone in authority; and then I was ushered into the presence of a man I did not know.
"I am sorry to trouble you, Lieutenant Petrovitch, but there are one or two questions you can answer—and I need not say that as a Russian officer, bearing the Emperor's commission, we shall look to you to reply very fully."
I bowed. It was a fit preface to a conversation which should end as such things generally did. But at any rate I should learn what they intended to do with me. Before he spoke again I asked that the letter I had written to Olga might be sent; but he put the question aside, with a curt reply that it could wait until the Emperor's business was finished; and again I bowed in acquiescence. I could do nothing.
"Please to tell me exactly what passed between you and M. Tueski yesterday," he said. "And particularly how you obtained the permits for yourself and sister. I invite you to be particularly frank."
The question startled me. I couldn't understand it.