The eyes of Ivanitch, paling as though they could not endure the sunlight, stared wildly as he raised his haggard face.
"You have known from--from the beginning?" muttered Ivanitch.
"Yes, yes," cried Rowland eagerly.
"It is not true, Kirylo Ivanitch," he heard the girl Tanya crying. "He knew nothing. He knows nothing now." And then, appealingly to Rowland, "Oh, go, Monsieur. Please go, at once."
But Ivanitch was oblivious.
"Destiny!" he muttered wildly. "The Visconti----!"
Rowland started back.
"Visconti!" he repeated. It was the family name of his own mother.
Ivanitch wagged his great head from side to side, his fists clasping and unclasping in the throes of some mad indecision. And then he came for Rowland, head down, his long arms groping. The American heard the girl's scream and the shouts of the other men as he sprang aside to elude the rush, but Ivanitch was quick and in a moment they were locked in struggle.
Rowland was tall, wiry and agile, but privation had sapped some of his strength and the grip of the Russian around his body bore him backward up the lawn, along the wall where they both tripped over a projecting root and fell to the ground, Ivanitch uppermost. The fall stunned Rowland, but he managed to get a hand on the Russian's throat and clutched with the strength of desperation. A madman! Once in a German trench he had fought with such another, but there were weapons there, and fortune had favored him. But his fingers seemed to meet in the throat of the fanatic and the grip around his own body relaxed as, with an effort, he threw the man away from him and rolled clear. As he sprang to his feet he was aware of the other men attacking him. There was a sound of shots and the familiar acrid smell of powder, but he felt no pain and as the shock-headed fellow came at him, a short arm blow under the chin sent him reeling against a tree where he crumpled and fell.