Khodkine was for taking it from her at once, but she refused to relinquish it.
"You have quite enough to carry, Gregory Hochwald. If you will permit me--I am quite rested."
And with a glance at her face he smiled and led the way into the building. The hour was late and she was assigned to a room immediately, while Khodkine wearily bearing his suit-case which he like Tanya refused to relinquish, disappeared with the clerk.
Once within the sanctuary of her own room and the door closed and bolted behind her, Tanya sat upon the bed breathing hard, weak in the forces of reaction. But she realized that her difficulties had only begun. Her thoughts whirled tumultuously for a moment as she tried to picture Khodkine when he learned of the deception she had practiced upon him. There was no time to lose. She must do something with this money, something to put it forever out of Gregory Khodkine's way--but what?
CHAPTER XII
PURSUIT
Rowland's head ached, his muscles were stiff and the wounds in his cheek and shoulder needed first aid, but after they were given attention he lost no time, and breakfast eaten, Zoya Rochal's car was brought to the gate by Liederman and in less than an hour they were upon their way. Another suit of clothes and some linen from the posthumous wardrobe of Ivanitch, had restored the American to a semblance of presentability and he found his courage and optimism rising with every mile that they traveled. Barthou and Shestov remained with Signorina Colodna at Nemi to explain to the new arrivals the cause and extent of the disaster, and to keep in touch with the telegraph office in the village below, that they might be informed as to what happened in Germany.
Max Liederman drove and Rowland and Zoya Rochal sat in the tonneau.
On its face, this was a mad errand--to go flying into the heart of the enemy's country from which after weeks of trial Rowland had managed miraculously to escape. But a transformation had been worked in Rowland's point of view, as well as in his appearance. He seemed, in the few short hours he had spent at Nemi, to have achieved a mission and an object in life, something, he was forced to admit, that he had never possessed before. The mission,--a defeat of Prussian intrigue, the object,--Tanya Korasov. If the success of Monsieur Khodkine had for the moment balked him, he was aware now of a spirit of mild exaltation at the prospect of the dangers he must run in the hope of success. The sense of danger always made him cheerful and rather quiet. And so though the massive Liederman sat gloomily, driving with a heavy hand which at narrow places in the road seemed to threaten destruction, swearing volubly over his shoulder in the odd moments, and Zoya Rochal chattered excitedly in three languages, Rowland sat grinning hopefully into the long stretch of road which lay before them, thinking of Tanya Korasov and wishing that he had Monsieur Khodkine's throat in his fingers again. He would pinch harder next time.
Rowland had devised a plan which he hoped would enable him to pass the frontier in safety. And so, when a mile distant from the military posts that guarded the German line along the main highway, Rowland got down and after making a rendezvous at a small town which Liederman suggested, three miles beyond the border, turned into the woods by the roadside and moved stealthily westward. This was a dangerous game, for in his escape from Germany a few days before, he had done most of his traveling by night, sleeping in the woods by day. But there was no time to be lost and nothing else to be done. Herr Liederman and Madame Rochal had their own passports of course and would go through without trouble, and once within the borders of Germany the inspection of the machine and its occupants would be less rigid than at the frontier gates.