"There are stronger things than wild horses, child; and I shall appeal to one in your case. You must go in order to try and get me out of the muddle here."
"Yes, I'll go for that, if it's necessary," she declared as readily as a moment before she had declined.
"It is necessary. Shortly, my idea is this. We can't get away together at the same time. We are shut in here in the very centre of Russia; and if we left together we could not hope to reach the frontier for many hours after we had been missed from here; while if we were missed only ten minutes before we got to the barrier, it would be long enough for us to be stopped. Besides, there are ten thousand things that come in the way. But that doesn't apply to your travelling alone; and if I can get a passport or a permit for you, I believe you will be able to get across the frontier before anyone has an idea that you have even left the city. In my case that would be impossible. There are three separate sets of lynx eyes on me. The Prince's police—the most vigilant of all; the Nihilists—the most dangerous; and Paula Tueski's—the most vengeful. I shall have the most difficult task to evade them, and I believe it will be only possible, if at all, by a sort of double cunning. But there is one way you can help."
"What is that?" asked Olga, whose interest was breathless.
"I have a friend, Balestier; you've heard of him—the Hon. Rupert Balestier. He saw your brother in Paris and believes that some devilment is on foot. If you can find him and tell him all that has happened and the mess that things are in, I believe, in fact I know, that he would exhaust every possible means of helping me. It is possible that our Foreign Office might be moved by the influence he could bring to bear; and I know that in such a task he'd stir up every friend and relative he has in the world. My plan is simply this. You must go with all possible speed to Paris: find him, tell him all, and get him to do what he thinks best and use what efforts he can. In the meantime if I can't escape I shall either have to feign consent with this wretched duel and marriage business and wait on events: or if I get a chance of leaving, slip off in an altogether different direction."
"It is a terrible trouble I have brought you to, Alexis," said the girl sadly.
"I would pay a far bigger price for this trouble," I answered, taking her hand and kissing it. "And when we are once out of this too hospitable land of yours, we shall laugh at it all together."
"Yes, when?" she said; and her tone suggested a hopelessness which responded only too well with that which I felt secretly.
While we were together, however, it was impossible for us to feel downcast for long. There was such infinite pleasure in mere companionship, that the grim troubles which surrounded us were shut out of our thoughts. The present was so bright that it seemed impossible the gloom could soon close in on us.
But when I had left her and was alone in my rooms, I was gloomy enough; and my spirits were certainly not raised when my new servant ushered in Paula Tueski.