“I suppose so, but yet it seems strange. I suppose they know in England how matters are with me, and what must eventually happen if nothing is done.”
“All Europe knows of the difficulties of your position,” I answered diplomatically.
“And all Europe does nothing but look on with folded hands, leaving me helpless to kick against the pricks. Do they think I bear a charmed life to withstand for ever the plots against my life that are being daily formed, and that I can go on for ever avoiding the poison or the dagger or the bullet that my enemies have ever in readiness for me? Do they take me for a zealot so tired of living that I am willing to keep my life always on offer to the first hand daring and shrewd enough to take it? And all this for a freedom which they mouth about and will not help, and for a people who have been corrupted to hate me, though I have doubled their country, led them to victory, and saved them from overwhelming disasters. By Heaven! the ingratitude of this people is as colossal as their selfishness.”
I said nothing, and in a moment his bitterness passed, and he smiled.
“This is poor hearing for one who has come generously to offer me his services, and who has already placed me under a load of obligation. But at least I will be frank with you, Count Benderoff. I can give you this commission, give it gladly, and welcome you for what I believe you to be—an honourable man; but your services are of no use to me. They come too late—too late.”
“I do not understand your Highness.”
“It shall not be for want of plain dealing with you, then. The dear friend whose life you saved, and who has brought you to me, is urging—the impossible. She does not know it, or cannot realise it, or will not—what you will; but, mark me well, my days in this ungrateful country are numbered. You will not use the information I give you—but I have resolved to abdicate.”
“To abdicate?” I cried, for this was news indeed.
“Yes; to abdicate. That is my fixed and irrevocable resolve. Had you brought me the promise of help from England, I would stay and fight it out, and strive to realise those high hopes with which, under God, I declare I accepted the throne. But what can I do alone, or almost alone, against a people who plot and plan to depose or murder me, who have tired already of the puppet ruler which other Powers imposed upon them, and against the cursed canker of this Russian intrigue? In all the land I cannot now tell who is friend and who foe. In my very household the air reeks with conspiracy and intrigue. I know not whether any man I meet by chance may not be sent to do murder. I never lie down at night without wondering whether I shall see the next morning’s sun. I never taste a meal without the thought of poison. I never speak a word without the expectation that it will be carried to the ears of my implacable and ruthless foes. And never a sun rises and sets again without I know that the deadly work of corruption has been carried a stage farther.”
“Such thoughts as these, your Highness, grow by brooding.”