"You will then keep Strobel a prisoner," muttered Litizki, "until you have wrung from him by cruelty what you have come for?"
"I shall perform my mission. Now it would be perfectly easy for me to remove you, for you are making yourself an obstacle, a slight one, to my plans. It pleases me better, however, that you should live, and you may yet be an assistance to me. I will show you to the street door whenever you feel ready to depart."
Litizki shot a glance full of evil at his captor, but Poubalov ignored it, and calmly lighted the inevitable cigarette.
"Very well, Alexander Poubalov," said Litizki after a moment, "you may let me go, but expect no gratitude from me. I know only too well that you think to serve your foul purposes by my liberty, but, weak as I am, I shall not rest until Strobel is restored to us or his fate made known, and even after that I shall pursue you! You teach me a lesson, Poubalov, a hard one, but I shall learn it."
"I hope you will. Life will be easier if you do. Must you go now? Permit me," and with a fine pretense at courtesy he unbolted the door and accompanied Litizki to the street door, which he also opened.
"Good-night, Nicholas Litizki," he whispered as he withdrew again into the house.
It was Litizki's purpose to go at once to the house where Paul Palovna lodged, rouse him, and tell him his experience, with all the admissions that Poubalov had seemed to make, and all the inferences that were to be drawn from his remarks and innuendoes; but as he hurried along in the cool night air he felt as if something were leaving him. He slackened his pace, halted irresolutely, went on a few steps, and at last leaned heavily against a building and struck his hand angrily against his brow, muttering:
"Fool, fool!"
What was this sense of loss but a relief from the dominating influence of Poubalov's stronger personality? There, with all his desperation, even at the height of his exaltation, when he seemed to tread the border lands of heroism, he had halted at a single word from the spy. He had stood and listened to threats and sophistry, and had been moved by the one and convinced by the other.
No! he could not tell all this to Palovna, or to any other person except Strobel; to him, if he should ever return, he would make a full confession of his defeat. For the present he must keep it to himself, and if he would still do something to effect his vengeance and rescue Strobel, he must work in secret. And as he reflected that it was just this course that Poubalov undoubtedly expected him to take, he groaned and slunk abashed and mortified to his lonely room.