Now that the excitement of his escape was over, his whole being was torn with the agony of Sonya’s loss. He saw her march, calmly erect, down the stairway to her arrest, saw her sitting handcuffed in the sleigh; saw her, in his imagination, meeting a dozen dreadful fates, and, whatsoever they were, meeting them with the calm heroism of Joan of Arc upon the pyre at Rouen. And into his agony shot the breath-taking thought that she loved him, and he lived again that one supreme moment when he had held her in her arms.
And then he recalled the cry of Freeman that they had been betrayed. But for this traitor, she would now be free! But for him, their love might have come to bliss!
He sprang suddenly aflame with wild rage against this unknown Judas. Who could the traitor be? The desire to know, the desire for vengeance, mastered him. He knew of but one person at liberty with whom he might consult—Sabatoff; and he hurried away to his house.
Drexel knew that Sabatoff, the better to maintain his character of an orthodox official, the better to keep suspicious eyes turned from him, had surrounded himself with stupid servants who had an inherited loyalty to the Czar. But he considered that, fugitive though he was, his gendarme’s uniform would pass him by these hirelings, and so the event proved.
He found the Keeper of the Seals making a pretense of examining some documents of his department; whatever might happen, he had to play his part. Sabatoff also believed that their plans had been betrayed by some one of their number; only through a traitor could the Government have learned such exact details. The man could not be Delwig, for he would hardly betray himself; nor Freeman, nor Razoff, for they were under arrest—and one by one Sabatoff counted off the others who had been concerned in the plan. Unquestionably it had been none of them. Yet a spy, a traitor, there certainly had been.
Drexel had told Sabatoff in detail all the happenings of the evening, and Sabatoff now thought upon them for a long space. At length he looked up.
“The lady who warned you,” he said slowly, “she loves you, does she not?”
Drexel could not deny what he had plainly seen. “But what has that to do with the matter?”
“Does it not explain why she warned you—and you alone?”
Drexel sprang up as Sabatoff’s meaning broke upon him. “You think she is a spy?”