“Indeed, Sergius,” I protested, “Nina is the last woman in the world to betray her friends, and it was because she saw me tortured with all sorts of conflicting fears that she showed me the purely political nature of your sudden departure, which she no doubt knew without fresh information from you. And she certainly never dreamed that I would follow you, for I did not give her the slightest hint of my intention to do so. It was surely better for her to enlighten me than to leave me a prey to the misery of unexplained desertion.”
“Perhaps you are right, Dora. All the same, your arrival here will certainly complicate matters for me. Still, I can understand your desire to learn as much as possible—and, why, I do believe you must have been suffering from jealousy! Tell me, is that so?”
“Well, I knew that you had seen a woman at Hyde Park Corner, whom you would have liked to avoid while with me. She knew you, I could tell. And she is so much handsomer than I am that you must own it was natural for me to imagine her power to be of a different nature to what it has proved.”
“How do you know yet that she had anything to do with my sudden departure?”
“I don’t know. I can only conjecture.”
“Well, I will tell you. You have gone through such a bitter trial, and have suffered so much, that I cannot be angry with you, even for doubting my love. Vera Vassoffskoy is a member of our Fraternity. So also is her husband. Both have sad reason to hate an oppressive government, for it has robbed them both of kindred and fortune. But Madame Vassoffskoy, though at one with us in all our general plans, hates individual bloodshed. She was on a secret mission to London when she saw me. Before she left Moscow, she knew that the ballot had fallen upon me, with reversion to her husband in the event of my failure to appear on the scene in time. I shrank back when I saw her, for I regarded it as an evil omen to be confronted with my secret obligations on my wedding-day. But she was determined not to lose sight of me, and tracked us home by means of a cab which she called to her assistance. Having found my address, her next proceeding was to have an official message conveyed to me, commanding my instant return to Russia, to fulfill the great plan for relieving the sufferings of our oppressed country. Death is the reward of disobedience to the mandates of the Executive Council, and my grief at leaving you at such a time showed me that I could not have done my duty to my country if I had witnessed your distress. Hark! there is the signal! Our time is up, and we seem to have explained so little. And you still look so ill!”
“Indeed, I am quite recovered now, and will give you no trouble. To be with you is all I want to make me happy and well.”
It was even so. I felt that, by his side, I could bid defiance to the threatenings of fate. Sergius tightened his arms round me and kissed me with all a young husband’s devotion. But his caresses were rather those of one who is bidding a painful farewell than of one just reunited to the idol of his heart, after a trying separation.
“You must trust me, darling, whatever befalls,” he whispered; and, could it be true? were those tears of grief which trickled down his cheeks? I stood up in suddenly returned alarm, but before I could question him at all there was a much louder knock at the door than the first one had been. Another second, and it was thrown open. Sergius hastily replaced his domino, and, kissing me once more, said: “I am ready.”
The next moment I was standing alone in the little room. Sergius had gone. The door was closed and bolted, and I was a prisoner once more.