"I?" Catinka flashed a fiery glance at her questioner. "But what is this you would say? I did nothing to that lady. I killed her not. No! I swear it is so by all the saints!"
"But you know so much that----"
"What I know you will be told," interrupted Catinka, "that is, my good sir, if you this moment will be silent and wait."
"I am quite at your disposal, mademoiselle," said Paul, and composed himself to listen to what could not fail to be an interesting and strange story.
"Good! that is so right," said Catinka, and resumed her seat. The light of the sun poured in through the high window, and enveloped the violinist in a haze of golden glory, so that she had to spread out the particoloured fan in order to shade her eyes from the glare. But she did not move out of that pool of heat and light, for it seemed to please her greatly, and she basked in the ardent rays like a cat. Paul never forgot that scene; the cheerful room, the bright sunshine, and the pretty woman who glowed and sparkled with southern vivacity in the radiance. She told a strange story, truly, and told it in the calmest of voices, so that long before she finished Paul concluded that Baldini was right when he declared Catinka had no heart. Here it will be best to set forth the tale in other words than her own, since her phraseology was foreign, and not always correct. The substance of what she related was as follows:--
"For you to understand what I tell you," she began slowly, "you must learn who I am and what are my aims. I have no reason to keep my desire secret in this free England of yours; but in Poland, in Russia--ah! there it would be a different matter. My name is Catinka Poluski, and I was born at Warsaw some twenty-five years ago. I am of a noble family, and my parents were much hated by the Russians for their patriotic desire to see a free Poland. They conspired against the tyrant Czar when I was but a child, and being discovered they were arrested and sent to Siberia--sent there without a trial, to their doom! Ah! God! why dost Thou permit such evils to befall noble hearts."
"Are your parents still alive?" asked Paul when she ceased for a moment, to conquer her emotion.
"Dead, Mr. Mexton," replied Catinka, in a low voice, "dead these many years. I was left alone in the world, to the care of an old servant. Our estates were confiscated by the tyrant, and there remained nothing to me but poverty and shame, and a heritage of hatred against those who sent the noble Poluski and his wife to their graves in cruel Siberia, but that Luzk saved me."
"Luzk!" repeated Mexton, struck by the peculiar name, "and who was Luzk?"
"The servant I spoke of," said Catinka, with emotion, "the faithful man who looked after me when I was a helpless orphan. He came from the town of Luzk, and took the name, for some reason connected with the troubles of our unhappy land. It was Luzk who worked for me, who clothed and fed me, and had me educated. By him I was taught the violin, for which I had always a great love, and I soon was able to play very well."