"Do you think now it is safe to break away from me? But that is not all. There is another consideration. You have drawn your sister into these Nihilist snares. You know how she is compromised. I know it too. There are more dungeons than one in Russia. If you were in one, I would see to it that she, who has scorned and flouted and insulted me, was in another; with her chance also of a jaunt across the plains." The flippancy of this last phrase was a measure of her hate.
The thought of the poor girl's danger beat me. What this woman said was all true—damnably, horribly, sickeningly true.
"Have you planned all this?" I asked, when I could bring myself to speak calmly.
"No, no, Heaven forbid. I had not a thought of it in all my heart; not a thought, save of love and a desire to shield you from any real danger that threatened you, till,"—and her voice changed suddenly—"yesterday, when you loosed all the torrents that can flow from a jealous woman's heart. I am a woman; but I am a Russian."
She was lying now, for she was contradicting what she had said just before.
"My sister's fate is nothing to me," I said, callously. "She has made her bed, let her lie on it. But as for myself"—I had but one possible to seem to yield—"I care nothing. I am not the coward you once thought me, and my meeting with Devinsky shews you that clearly enough. But I doubted your love when I found you did not answer to the test I made."
"You do not doubt it now. I am here at the risk of my life; at the risk of both our lives," she said, her eyes aflame with feeling as she hung on my deliberately spoken words.
"This morning has been a further test, and I should not be a sane man if I doubted you now, or ever again."
"Then kiss me, Alexis."
She sprang from her chair and threw herself into my arms, loading me with wild tempestuous caresses, like a woman distraught with passion.