"Zara," he said, with deep-toned feeling, "in some ways you are like a daughter to me; in others you are the reincarnation of the woman I loved so dearly. I love you for yourself, and for the sake of those two who gave you life. I shall never plead with you again. My duty will probably nevermore call me into your presence. When we part this day, it is likely to be for the last time. If danger befalls you because of the conditions you create through this entanglement, I cannot go to your rescue, or even to your assistance. I speak to you as with a voice from the grave, beseeching you in the names of your father and mother, to heed what I have said."
"You have forgotten——" She began impetuously to answer, but he unclasped one hand from hers, long enough to make a warning gesture, and enunciated the one word: "Hush! Remember, Zara, you are not to speak until I have finished, and then upon a different subject. But I will answer your unspoken thought, for I read it in your manner. I have not forgotten your little friend Yvonne; nor Stanislaus, her brother. Indeed, my child, this very scene reminds me of it, and renders all the more imperative the duty I am seeking to perform. Let the terrible fate of that poor girl appeal to you. Let the awful end of Stanislaus be a warning. Vengeance should have no part or place in your heart, even though you believe that they cry out to you from their graves to undertake it. But they do not do that, Zara, and if either or both of them could speak now, they would voice the sentiments I have expressed, and emphasize the warnings I have given. Go back to your home in St. Petersburg, my child, and leave politics alone. Alexander, the czar, admires you and esteems you, but I who am his friend, warn you that the admiration and esteem of monarchs can be no more relied upon than the shifting fogs of the Gulf of Finland."
Again Princess Zara would have spoken, for her dark eyes lighted with a sudden fire and she half started from her chair with an eagerness that was impetuously expressive. But Saberevski retained his clasp upon her hands, and without seeming to do so, restrained her where she was; after a moment he added:
"Now, if you please we will change the subject. My duty as I saw it, has been performed, and nothing remains to be said. In a few moments I will leave you, and when I do so, we will probably part for the last time. Now, Zara, tell me something about yourself."
There was a suspicion of tears in her upturned eyes as she looked at him from out of their glowing depths, but she took him at his word, and with a visible effort brought back the smile to her countenance as he returned to his chair at the opposite side of the table.
"There is little to tell you of myself, Saberevski," she replied, while he helped himself to another cigarette. "You know what my life is, even though you have been absent from home almost a year."
"Yes," he said, smiling, "one round of pleasures, and of conquest. Adorers waiting for you on every hand; lovers perhaps——"
"No; not lovers," she interrupted him. "There is no place for them, Saberevski," and a shade of sadness which he attributed to the memory of Stanislaus, clouded her eyes for a moment. Had he but known however, it was no recollection of that young officer of the czar's household, to whom reference has already been made and to whom Zara was once betrothed, that affected her. It was a deeper and more far-reaching consideration that brought the expression of pain for an instant into her eyes, and she longed to cry out the truth to her companion, then and there.
Had she done so, her statement would have been something like this:
"There is no room in my heart for a lover, for the reason that the cause I have espoused fills it completely. The people whose wrongs I seek to redress, the victims whose wandering souls cry out for vengeance, and the women exiles in frozen Siberia whose fates are too terrible to relate, fill my whole heart and being so completely as to leave no room for personal love."