“I have been threatened many times, M. Denver, by men as desperate as yourself—and still live. But now,” he asked as he rose, “will you leave Russia, or do you compel me to order your arrest on this murder charge? You are young, with a bright future.”
“Never mind my future,” I put in. “Do what you will.”
“Your violence to me will be added to the charge now, and our influence with our judges is great.”
“Go, before there’s another death to be added also.”
He went to the door and turned.
“I am still very reluctant, for you tried to serve us. Take another day to think, and give me your word of honour to make no attempt to escape. You can then stay here.”
“Go,” I cried, turning my back on him, and I did not look round until he had left the room.
Desperate as my own plight was, my thoughts were not for myself, but for Helga. I cursed myself a thousand times for my insensate blundering stupidity which had brought all this danger upon her, the very blunder against which she herself had warned me.
I remembered scribbling the words in the carriage, and saw now that instead of tearing up the paper on which I had written I must have torn up the blank sheet. I recalled that when she had warned me not to throw even the fragments in one place, I had found none but blanks in my fingers, and I could have torn my hair out to think I had been such a reckless idiot as not to search my pocket again to make sure.
I had destroyed her. I who would have given my life to save her; and that bitter hour of miserable unavailing remorse held horrors for me no description can convey. It will never pass from memory, and I marvel that in my agony I did not go insane.