And there it was, announced in the columns of the Times. The scene would be an auction room, the battle one of money. He had written to Lobkowitz, asking for his help, and now was waiting anxiously to know what the president had decided to do. He believed that Lobkowitz would continue to trust him to the last, and hoped he would not find it necessary to ask the help and counsel of some more determined members of the committee. Volenski felt that they would never forgive, and look upon his blunder as twin-brother to a crime.
In the midst of his reflections the waiter interrupted him, telling him that a gentleman, a foreigner, desired to speak with him.
“Show him up at once,” said Volenski eagerly.
He hoped it would be Lobkowitz, longed to grasp his old friend’s hand, tell him all he had suffered, and revel in his sympathy. But it was Mirkovitch, sullen, grim, half menacing, who refused to take his hand, and would not sit, but stood firm and silent till Iván had explained, had told him all.
And it was to this stern judge, this man whose unerring hand would inevitably punish the guilty, if guilt there be, that Iván Volenski had to tell the history of his relentless fate.
He told him of the Cardinal’s mission, of the Emperor’s candlesticks with the mysterious, hidden receptacles, into which, believing he was acting for the best, he had hidden the compromising papers. Then of the Cardinal’s sudden caprice in entrusting these candlesticks into the hands of a friend—a lady. He told him of the robbery at Oderberg, the escape of the thief, his own cautious interview with the chief of the police. He described his fruitless search in Grete Ottlinger’s room, his loathsome experience with the coarse woman in the “Kaiser Franz,” his interview with Grünebaum, his journey to London, then his visit to Davies; all fruitless, all leading to more disappointments, more hopeless entanglements. Then finally and, worst of all, the crushing of all his hopes at the door of Mr. James Hudson, who, by some fatality in which the superstitious Pole saw the hand of diabolical agency, had died suddenly that very night.
Mirkovitch had listened attentively and silently through this long narrative of misery and struggle. A kinder look had perhaps replaced the habitual grimness of his face, and when Iván paused at last exhausted he drew a chair near the sick man’s couch, and said almost gently—
“My poor friend, you must have suffered much.”
Iván thanked him with a look, and eagerly grasped the hand the old Socialist now held out towards him.
“I suppose you are quite aware where you committed the great, the only real fault in all this long history of misfortunes?” said Mirkovitch at last, still quite kindly.