His eyes implored the girl, but she turned her face away.
“Very well,” he said, and drew close to her side. “I must speak to you then, little one, as though we were alone. Forget that there is any one present but you and me.” His voice was trembling with emotion. He paused an instant to collect himself and moistened his lips nervously. “Before I say anything else, I must say this: for the wrong I did you in a moment of madness I have suffered much. Perhaps if you knew the whole story—but no; there is no excuse. I say to you only that I have suffered, that I have done great penance. All that was torn out of my life and cast aside many months ago. Since then I have thought only of my country and of you. The baron can tell you that this is true—since he has used that old affair to secure an accomplice in the plot against me.”
She was staring at him with wide-open eyes, white to the lips, her hands pressed against her heart. He made no motion to touch her, but his eyes never wavered from hers.
“Even then,” he went on rapidly, “I would not have dreamed of coming near you—no, not yet. I would have worked on for my country and cleansed myself with sacrifice—loving you always and hoping that some day you might find me worthy; but this, this alliance—it must not be! Do you know what you are doing? You are riveting again on half a million people the shackles they have just thrown off after a struggle of two centuries....”
“We are willing to leave it to the people themselves, sir,” put in the baron quietly.
“Ah, yes,” cried Jeneski, “after you have corrupted them with I know not what promises! Of course they will choose the easy way!”
“Well, then,” said the baron.
“They are not fit to choose—not yet. Let them learn first what freedom means. Come—I ask nothing for myself—nothing,” he went on, turning back to the girl. “I have no right to ask anything for myself. Do I not know it? Yes—better than any one. But for my country I do ask—I have the right to ask; not much—only this: that you delay this marriage for a year—for six months, even—then leave it to the people....”
He had raised his arms in his excitement, and as he brought them down with an impassioned gesture, there was a spatter of blood across the papers on the table, and a steady drip, drip from under his sleeve and across his left hand to the floor.
He seized his left arm near the shoulder and held it tight.