"I take your word," he said, quietly. "Your identity will remain unknown. Your sister will leave for the frontier under escort at midnight. You can take the news to her, and she can leave with you to make her arrangements for departure. I hold you responsible for her; and you will explain only what is necessary to her. You remain a Russian."
And with the permit and the order for her instant release in my hand I left him, conscious that I had been brushing my back against a dungeon door the whole time and had only just escaped finding myself on the wrong side of it.
CHAPTER XXV.
COILS THAT NO MAN COULD BREAK.
Poor Olga! I shall not easily forget the effect the news had on her.
I went out from the interview impregnated with the conviction that I was now indeed hopelessly baffled. I saw how completely the whole position had been changed. The very axis had shifted. And the knowledge that I had to make Olga understand it all before she left Russia was more unpalatable and depressing than I can describe.
Up to the present moment there had indeed been the slight off-chance that we should both escape, and the knowledge that if we could only do so, we might find happiness in another country. But that hope was as dead as a coffin nail. I was bound to Moscow by a shackle more powerful than iron fetters. I had pledged myself not to attempt to go until the Prince himself had given me permission; and I knew that he would never think of doing this until the duel had been in some way arranged. On the other hand the Nihilist attack on the Emperor was to be made in two days' time. If it succeeded an ignominious death at the hands of the law could be the only result for me; while if it failed, death was almost as certain at the hands of the Nihilists who would adjudge me their betrayer.
Between the upper and nether millstones I was helpless; certain only of being crushed by them. Thus nothing could make me believe that I should ever again set eyes on the woman whose release I had thus secured and whom I now loved with all my heart.
Nor could I part from her without allowing her to see something of this.