“Good-night, monsieur. As a man I am sorry for what has happened and for what may have to come. I hope we may not meet again.”
“Wait till we do. Your sorrow may be wanted for your own side;” and without waiting for more, I wheeled my horse round and set off back at a gallop followed by the groom. And I took back with me a very anxious heart and a whole crowd of perplexing doubts and harassing fears.
Turn which way I would, dangers of some kind blocked the path—dangers for Helga or myself separately when they did not threaten us both in common.
I had had a fairly adventurous life, and in my time had run up against some ugly risks; but these had been of the nature of sudden emergencies to be met promptly and overcome. But never before had I been called upon to face such a danger as this threatened to be—enduring, shadowy, secret and all encompassing. And I am not ashamed to admit I was considerably shaken.
It is one thing to take your life in your hands, at a crisis, face the music and fight for all you are worth while the bother lasts; and quite another to pit yourself against a secret society, to find the music a perpetual dirge, threatening constantly to develop into your own funeral march, and to breakfast, dine and sup, walk, sit and sleep, talk, laugh and be merry with the cold circle of a revolver barrel pressed to your forehead.
But it had to be done, it seemed, so long as I remained in Russia, and how long that would be must depend upon an extremely explosive contingency—Helga’s intentions.
My hope was to get her to give up her country and adopt mine; but it was impossible to be sanguine. They say a woman can bear pain far better than a man, and it seemed to me that, given the requisite courage and a sufficient motive, she could also bear the strain of ever-present danger with greater fortitude.
So far as I could judge, Helga had been for years risking the kind of danger which now loomed upon me as so formidable; and I saw very little reason to believe she would regard the new development as anything worse than just a fresh complication which had to be faced, and from which she would steadily refuse to run away.
When I got back to the house I very soon had reason to see that this was her frame of mind, and that there was more in this visit of the Duchess Stephanie than I had yet had time to learn.
The night’s experiences, coupled with his wife’s arguments and entreaties, had made an end of Boreski as a conspirator. He had persuaded himself, or she had persuaded him, which came to the same thing, that he had now nothing to hope for from the elaborate scheme by which he had designed to force the Imperial consent to his marriage and everything to gain by abandoning it. I found the two of them importuning Helga to take a similar view; and some high words seemed to have passed.