“It is not that, exactly. I am too much of a coward, I know. But mother’s fortune comes to me and—oh, this miserable money; they want it for the cause.”
“Phew!” I whistled. “I begin to understand.”
“You thought it strange, I expect, that I was so little affected by my uncle’s fate; but I——”
“Don’t say any more if it worries you,” I said when she paused.
“Oh, I must tell you; only—the fact is, I was always afraid of him and he brought me away from home this time, saying only that I was to go on a visit to some friends; but when we were near Bratinsk he told me what the real object was and—and that mother and he had agreed that I was to be married.”
“Married!” I exclaimed.
“Married to a man who is high up in the Fraternity, and that I should not go back home until—until that was done.”
I thought more things about Count Peter—stronger and harsher things too, this time.
“I had not heard this an hour before you saw me at the station.”
“No wonder you looked troubled.”