“To me it is everything. Life away from you would be such a blank that I do not care to picture anything so dreary.”
Does the reader wonder at our ability to take things so quietly, even with an awful tragedy ever looming before us? I sometimes feel surprise thereat myself, until I remember that, in spite of our experiences, we were both still gifted with the elastic spirits of youth, and that the mere joy of being reunited was enough to make us temporarily forgetful of painful subjects.
Of course we had many confidences to exchange, and Sergius removed my mystification concerning several things. It seems that the man with whom I had seen him walking on the previous evening was Ivan Vassoffskoy, the husband of the handsome young woman I had seen at Hyde Park Corner, and the individual who would have had to officiate as my husband’s substitute in the event of his failure to respond to the injunction to repair to Moscow at once. Ivan Vassoffskoy had even more reason to dread recognition by government spies than had Sergius, for it was in Moscow itself that he had been denounced, and, but for the injunction of the Society, would ere now have sought safety in flight. His wife was already in England, having been deputed to carry out some plans for the Fraternity, of which she also was a member.
“Ivan has wonderful powers of contortion, which have saved him from discovery more than once,” said Sergius, when speaking of his colleague. “It would take his dearest friend all his time to recognize his naturally handsome face in the twisted and distorted visage which he presents to the public gaze. I have only heard of three people who could equal him in this direction. These were an English actor, a Japanese contortionist, and an English murderer. All three used their peculiar talent to good purpose, and were able to mystify whom they liked. The murderer even went so far as to masquerade in your Scotland Yard, although he knew that detectives were on the lookout for him. If Ivan’s powers of contortion serve him as well as they served the English malefactor he will have cause to be thankful for them.”
“I thought he looked very singular,” I said. “But I would never have dreamed that he could by any possibility be regarded as a handsome man. But tell me, where were you going when I saw you together?”
“We were going to visit and take pecuniary help to the wife of a man who has fallen a victim to official rancor. He had the misfortune to have a pretty daughter, who was beloved by a youth in every way worthy of her. Now, although both Olga and her father and mother favored this young suitor, he had several rivals for her hand. Olga is a very nice girl, but I fancy that the good pecuniary position of the family had something to do with the love of at least one of those who proposed for her hand. Be this as it may, on finding himself rejected, he swore to be revenged both upon his rival and upon the girl who had had the temerity to award a man of his standing the insult of a refusal.”
“His threats were heard with dread, for he was in a position of some importance, in which he had facilities for dealing underhand blows at those who were unfortunate enough to offend him. A large proportion of the denunciations, which result in death, imprisonment or banishment, are the outcome of personal malice; and when once a man or woman is in the position of an accused prisoner, there is small hope of delivery, especially if there is property to confiscate.”
“And did this bad man fulfill his threats?”
“Indeed he did. You shall judge what difference this enmity made to Olga and her parents when I tell you that her father and brother have been sent to Siberia as political exiles. The mother and daughter are reduced to poverty, and have found it impossible to support the younger children without help from friendly sympathizers, who have to exercise the greatest precautions in visiting them, lest they, too, fall into the power of iniquitous officialism.”
“And Olga’s lover—what of him? Can he not help them in their emergency?”