“So we hope. But even if they do, are you sure of the Emperor? He told me that the Duchess Stephanie had seen the Emperor and poisoned his ear with the tale that you are a Nihilist. Do you think Kalkov is not cunning enough to meet a charge from such a source? It is not those papers the Prince fears, it is the complication with the Powers. If you were free to press your claim for justice, it might be otherwise: but as we are, we are desperately weak.”
“It is like treachery to my father,” she said vehemently.
“If it were so in reality I should not press it, Helga. But I do;” and I went on to urge it, using every consideration that occurred to me. Indeed the more I thought of it, the more was I convinced that it offered the only solution to an impossible position.
That she should be anxious to punish the man who had dealt so cruel a blow at her father, and was now pursuing her so relentlessly was natural enough; in truth I would have been glad to take a strong hand in the work. But he was old and a year or two more of unmerited honours for him weighed but little against the disastrous consequences to both of us.
The one consideration that began to tell at last with Helga, however, was the fact that her father’s reputation might be righted if she gave in to me, and would probably not be if she were to remain in prison or be sent to Siberia.
“But he cannot do it,” she urged, when my insistence upon this point began to influence her. “To right my father is to prove the Prince’s wrong-doing. He cannot do it.”
“Well, there, let me try it. If he cannot we shall be only where we stand now. I have sufficient faith in his craftiness; but we shall still have our weapons left to us. We may gain; we cannot lose.”
Her brows drawn in deep thought and her face set, she was considering her answer when the door was opened, and we had a genuine surprise.
Prince Kalkov entered.
I stood up and stared at him.