“So much the better. He will not get much satisfaction at either Embassy. He can but prove the truth of what I told him and feel the iron pressure all the closer.”
“But what can you do if you remain in Petersburg?”
“I shall be with you.”
She answered with a gesture that the place was a prison.
“Near you, then. I cannot go away—unless we go together.”
“A kindness that is almost cruel,” she sighed, and then a silence fell between us.
It was an impasse. The Prince was not likely to let her get out of his grasp unless she promised to forego her purpose; that was certain. Equally certain it was in that she would not yield. I could not ask her to abandon the work of clearing her father’s memory. She had lived all her life for that one object; and knowing her so well as I now did, I felt she would cling to it to the end in the very face of death itself.
“It is an almost hopeless outlook for you,” she said, breaking the long silence and speaking my own thought.
“But we have to find the way, and we shall;” and then, as if in answer to my wish, a view of the matter which had not struck me flashed upon me.
“You have thought of something,” she said, reading my face.