Madame had collected herself, but it was quite obvious that she was unused to adventures of this sort. Her hand, when he took it, trembled, and more than once she glanced furtively toward the door.
"Yes, I have come," she murmured. "I do not know why. It is not right for me to come; yet there are times when I am weary—times when Paul seems fierce, and when I am terrified. Sometimes I even wish that I were back——"
"Your husband seems very highly strung," Bernadine remarked. "He has doubtless led an exciting life."
"As to that," she replied, gazing around her now, and gradually becoming more at her ease, "I know but little. He was a student professor at Moschaume when I met him. I think that he was at one of the universities in St. Petersburg."
Bernadine glanced at her covertly. It came to him as an inspiration that the woman did not know the truth.
"You are from Russia, then, after all," he said, smiling. "I felt sure of it."
"Yes," she admitted reluctantly. "Paul is so queer in these things. He will not have me talk of it. He prefers that we are taken for French people. Indeed," she went on, "it is not I who desire to think too much of Russia. It is not a year since my father was killed in the riots, and two of my brothers were sent to Siberia."
Bernadine was deeply interested.
"They were amongst the revolutionaries?"
She nodded.