“Sydney Bamborough is your husband,” said the Frenchman, without taking his dull eyes from her face.
“He is dead!” she hissed.
“Prove it!”
He walked past her and leaned against the mantelpiece in the pose of easy familiarity which he had maintained during the first portion of their interview.
“Prove it, madame!” he said again.
“He died at Tver,” she said; but there was no conviction in her voice. With her title and position to hold to, she could face the world. Without these, what was she?
“A local newspaper reports that the body of a man was discovered on the plains of Tver and duly buried in the pauper cemetery,” said De Chauxville indifferently. “Your husband—Sydney Bamborough, I mean—was, for reasons which need not be gone into here, in the neighborhood of Tver at the time. A police officer, who has since been transferred to Odessa, was of the opinion that the dead man was a foreigner. There are about twelve thousand foreigners in Tver—operatives in the manufactories. Your husband—Sydney Bamborough, bien entendu—left Tver to proceed eastward and cross Siberia to China in order to avoid the emissaries of the Charity League, who were looking out for him at the western frontier. He will be due at one of the treaty ports in China in about a month. Upon the supposition that the body discovered on the plains of Tver was that of your husband, you took the opportunity of becoming a princess. It was enterprising. I admire your spirit. But it was dangerous. I, madame, can suppress Sydney Bamborough when he turns up. I have two arrows in my quiver for him; one is the Charity League, the other the Russian Government, who want him. Your husband—I beg your pardon, the prince—would perhaps take a different view of the case. It is a pretty story. I will tell it to him unless I have your implicit obedience.”
Etta stood dry-lipped before him. She tried to speak, but no words came from her lips.
De Chauxville looked at her with a quiet smile of triumph, and she knew that he loved her. There is no defining love, nor telling when it merges into hatred.
“Thursday evening, before dinner,” said De Chauxville.