“Yes,” she said; “bring me your niece. I can tell you in confidence, Ivan was very fond of her. From the moment he saw her, she took so strong a hold of him that he could think of little else. ‘If I were an American, I’d try to win her,’ he often said; and, as it was, he thought of going to America, and becoming one of its citizens, hoping this might help his cause. Poor Ivan! My dear boy! All his hopes blasted! Nothing but Siberia now!”
She didn’t cry—she couldn’t—but her face quivered, and her red eyes had in them a look I did not like. The next day I took Katy to see her, and found her with the same drawn expression on her face; but it relaxed at sight of Katy, and it seemed to me there was a faint moisture in her tired, sunken eyes. Katy saw it, and with her soft hand she closed the lids gently, and saying to the poor woman: “Try to cry; it will do you good.”
I watched the process anxiously, and was delighted, at last, to see a great tear force its way under the lids and roll down her cheek. It was succeeded by another and another, until they fell like rain, amid moans and gasps, as if crying gave her pain.
“I believe you have saved my life,” she said, when the paroxysm had subsided. “I had not cried before since they took my husband away, and there was a pressure like fire in my head and eyes.”
She did seem better, and at last fell asleep, with Katy smoothing her white hair and forehead.
That night M. Seguin called, seeming at first under some restraint, as if he had lost favor with us. He did not mention Ivan until I asked where he was, and what would probably be his fate.
“Siberia, undoubtedly; but not for a long time, as they can find nothing criminal against him,” he said. “He is an agitator—a stirrer-up. He kept the thing simmering wherever he went. A very fine fellow, but a dangerous man, with his principles and pleasing personality. We had to arrest him to keep him out of mischief. I am sorry that you were present at the arrest.”
I think he said all this on Katy’s account, but she made no comment. There were two red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes were unnaturally bright, as she listened to him.
“Since you have been so intimate with Ivan, and came from Paris with him, you will probably be questioned as to what you know of his movements,” Michel said to us.
“Oh, no!” Katy gasped, and the red on her cheeks faded to a deadly pallor. “I can’t be questioned. I have done enough. My scarlet cloak betrayed him.”