CHAPTER XXII.
ORLOFF’S INTERVIEW WITH THE PRINCESS.
The words seemed to burst from her throat, and die upon her lips. She threw herself back on the bed to the farthest side of the wall, where with flaming eyes she looked ready to devour Orloff, who stood gazing at her horror-stricken.
“Yes! we are married, are we not? Ha, ha, ha! we are man and wife?” said she, but a convulsive cough cut short her indignation for the moment. “Where have you been all this time? You promised, I waited.”
“Look here,” gently said Orloff, “let us forget the past, let us play comedy no longer. You must realize by this time that I was the faithful slave of my sovereign, and that I only obeyed her commands.”
“Treachery, deceit!” screamed the unhappy girl; “never will I believe it.… Do you hear me? The great and powerful Russian empress would never have had recourse to such perfidy.”
“I swear to you they were her orders.…”
“No, I do not believe one word of it, traitor,” screamed the unfortunate girl, shaking her fists at him. “Ekaterina could command anything—demand my surrender, burn down the town that gave me refuge, take me by force, but not that. But you, you yourself, might have pierced me with a dagger, poisoned me. You knew of poisons,—but what have you done with me? what?”