The weeks dragged slowly along. I had begun to feel even a sort of security for my friend, when all at once a volcano burst beneath our feet. One evening, on returning to the modest apartment in which I had lived in Wilna since Count Kourásoff's imprisonment, I found awaiting me a gentleman who politely informed me that my presence was required at General Klapka's headquarters. I had little to fear for myself, but I felt an alarm for those who were so dear to me; and I had lived long enough in Russia to know that the military governor of a province can ruin whom he will. I followed my companion with a composed countenance, but a sinking heart. Upon reaching the barracks I was ushered into a small room to await General Klapka's pleasure, my polite captor remaining with me. To enliven my spirits, he dwelt upon the horrors of exile.
"But, my friend," I replied, "exile does not now mean what it did in the time of the Czar Peter. There are whole villages of prosperous inhabitants in Siberia, priests, school-masters, clerks, Government employés, all exiles, only the emperor prefers them to live in a certain part of his dominions."
"Ah," said he, sighing and shaking his head, "they are those who acknowledged their guilt and threw themselves on the mercy of the emperor. For those who persisted in calling themselves innocent, the mines—the railways—"
"But if I wished to call myself guilty, of what should I accuse myself? Of trying to get a settlement of my affairs with Count Kourásoff?" This view seemed to strike him so forcibly that he left me to my own sad fancies.
The hours dragged on until nearly midnight, when I was awakened from a heavy but troubled sleep before the stove by a messenger from General Klapka commanding my presence. I followed my guide to a small anteroom, where I saw the general at a table in an inner room, reading a closely-written paper. He motioned me to enter, and, rising, carefully closed the door after me. He was simply frightful in his anger. He thrust the paper at me, and I began to read it; it was a minute account of Vladimir Kourásoff's escape, of the true meaning of the visits of the village priest and myself to Count Loris, of Olga Orviéff's faithful devotion to him—even a copy of a few lines she had once rashly conveyed to him.
While I was reading, he had taken his sword from the scabbard, and was passing the naked blade through his fingers with a sort of murderous delight. "I have you—the tool—and in a few minutes I shall have the principal," was the only remark he made to me.
I seemed to have waited hours, when there was a sudden and peremptory knock at the door. General Klapka rose and opened it immediately. Two members of the police and a figure completely enveloped in a large fur cloak stood outside. "Excellency, it was the prisoner who knocked so loudly," began each of the police in a breath; but General Klapka, motioning the prisoner to enter, abruptly closed the door.
The room was well lighted, and the person who entered, walking boldly forward, dropped the cloak, and Olga Orviéff stood revealed. She was in a brilliant ball-dress of pale and shining green, and pearls gleamed softly on her milk-white neck and arms. She made a profound and graceful courtesy to General Klapka, adroitly spreading out her rich train as she did so. "I had not looked for the pleasure of seeing General Klapka when only a few moments ago I was unexpectedly called from the ball," she said with a certain grand air that she knew very well how to assume; then, catching sight of me, she suddenly dropped her stately manner. "You here, my friend?" she cried in a tone of laughing familiarity. "Have you been conspiring too?"
"Mademoiselle Orviéff, allow me to claim your attention first," said General Klapka. I looked at her to see if his infuriated presence had made any impression on her. If it had, it was only to arouse further her fearless spirit. He was still nervously feeling the edge of his sword. "You spoke just now of conspiring: conspiring may bring that white neck of yours into jeopardy," said he, looking as if he would like to try the blade on it.
She drew herself up and arched her proud neck. "Do you threaten me?" she said with cool scorn.