"Do you suppose, even then, that they would believe you, and spare me?" I asked, with unconcealed irony, forcing myself even against my will, to render my question bitterly offensive.
"Yes, oh, yes! I would give myself as hostage for your honor. My life would be forfeited, too, if you should not keep the oath."
I hesitated. The opportunity was an alluring one in a way, for it would render the entire organization like an open book to me. But more than all else was the communion of interest that would thus be created between this peerless woman and me. Still, there were other things to be considered. The danger I would thus incur might render impotent the entire fabric that I had constructed with so much care; and truth to tell I could not bring myself to the point of utilizing a woman's confidence in order ultimately to betray her and her friends.
"I cannot take the oath, princess," I said, calmly.
"Think! think!" she exclaimed.
"I have thought. I cannot do it."
"Sit down again, Mr. Dubravnik. There is no danger as long as you remain here. I wish to tell you something. I want you to know why I am a nihilist; then, perhaps, you may be of a different opinion."
I obeyed her and she resumed her position on the couch, but her entire manner had undergone another change. The contempt, the scorn, the anger had all died out of her face which now assumed a retrospective expression and when she next addressed me her eyes had in them a dreamy, far away light, as though she were living in the past while she recited the strange tale that thrilled me as nothing else ever had, or ever has done.
"I have heard," she began, "that you yourself have seen some of the horrors of Siberia, but I doubt it. I do not even believe that you are a Russian, and to be perfectly frank I do not believe that your name is Dubravnik. I am of the opinion—and I did not think of it until since the commencement of this interview—that you are not what you seem to be, and that your mission in Russia is in some way connected with the Government police; that you are more than a passive enemy of nihilism—that you are, in short, an active one. If I am right there exists all the more reason why I must appeal to your manhood, your honor, your sense of justice, to your bravery and chivalry. Who are you, Mr. Dubravnik?"
"I am Daniel Derrington, an American, in the service of the czar."