The Queen's Advocate

by Arthur W. Marchmont

He considered again for a space, and then rose. “I accept your word, Mr. Bergwyn, and will leave you while I send for Colonel Petrosch, and consider what else to do.”

I gave a deep sigh of relief when he left the room. I had pulled through the first stage; and that was something. I glanced at Gatrina’s face, ashen, horror-filled, and drawn with trouble and suffering. I could not bear to witness it, so I turned away and stared blankly out of the window into the darkness, now changing rapidly to the grey of the dawn.

For a long time not a word was spoken. Her agony of mind was far beyond words; and nothing that I could do or say could relieve it.

She was not thinking of herself, I knew. All thought of self, even the uncertainty of her own fate involving as it did the issue of life and death, was lost in the numbing, staggering blow dealt by the news of the Queen’s murder.

Now and again a moaning sigh burst from her lips and told me how acute was her agony. Twice I turned to make some clumsy attempt at consolation; but each time the look her face bore stopped the words on my lips, and I turned back to watch the light without strengthening slowly as the time crept on.

I had one consoling thought. The longer the interval between the fell occurrences at the Palace and the coming of the soldiers for Gatrina, the stronger grew the hope that she might escape the fate which had been decreed for her.

That thought led me slowly to another—the necessity of having a definite proposal to make as to Gatrina’s future movements. I remembered what Colonel Petrosch had said as to the wish of the army that she would go from Belgrade.

Now that the King was dead, the question of the succession had become acute. Gatrina’s presence in the city might be a greater embarrassment than before in the settlement of that question. I recalled, too, Elma’s statement of the Russian scheme in this respect. Even those who, like that brute of a captain, had resolved to cut the knot of the difficulty with a sword blade, might be glad to be relieved of her presence.

Foul, dastardly, inhuman even, as was the policy of assassination, it was yet founded upon a sort of crude, barbarous logic. The resolve to exterminate the dynasty was the murderous major premise; and the relentless and hideous resolve to put to death all who, by claims of family, stood in the way, followed as a ruthless consequence.

That was Gatrina’s danger. But if she would consent to abrogate her claims and could be prevailed upon to leave the city at once, there was the chance that she might even yet be spared. Colonel Petrosch had avowed his desire to spare her; and if he could be assured that she would offer no opposition to the army, his hands would be greatly strengthened.