“Anything you like.”
“There is such a thing as the fire of purification. But—” he put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, “you can’t call it down from Heaven. You must await its coming. So we get back to my original remark. Patience, more patience, and always patience.”
This was consoling for the moment; but after a few days’ further grappling with the Polish language, he burst into Boronowski’s lodgings and found the patriot at his table, immersed in work.
“If we don’t start soon,” he cried, “I’ll go mad. I haven’t slept for nights and nights. I’ll only sleep when we are on our journey, and I know that all this is reality and not a dream.”
“I’ve just had orders,” replied Boronowski. “We start to-morrow morning. Here are our tickets.”
That night, Triona wrote to Olivia. It was an eternal farewell. On the morrow he was leaving England to offer up his unworthy life as a sacrifice to the Great Cause of Poland. The only reparation he could make for the wrong he had done her was to beseech her to look on him as one already dead. It covered many pages.
When he returned to his musty room after this last hour’s heart-breaking communion with her, he sat on his bed overwhelmed by sudden despair. What guarantee had she of this departure for Poland greater than that of his mission to Helsingfors last summer? Would she not throw the letter aside in disgust—another romantic lie? He wished he had not written. He took faint hope again on the reflection that by posting another letter from Warsaw he could establish his veracity. But why should he keep on worrying her with the details of his miserable existence? Better, far better that she should look on him as dead; better, far better that she should believe him dead, so that she could reconstruct her young and broken life. He might die in battle; but then he might not. He had already carried his life safely through battles by land and sea. Again he might come out unscathed. Even if he was killed, how should she hear of his death? And if he survived, was it fair that she should be bound by law eternally to a living ghost? Somebody had said that before. It was Olifant. Olifant, the fool out for Grails, yet speaking the truth of chivalry. Well, this time—he summoned up the confidence of dismal hope—he would make sure that he was dead and that she heard the news. At any rate, he had prepared the ground; Boronowski would communicate with Olifant.
Then came a knock at his door—it was nearly midnight. The night porter entered. A man downstairs wished to see him—a foreigner. A matter of urgent importance.
“Show him up,” said Triona.
He groaned, put both his hands up to his head. He did not want to see Boronowski to-night. His distraught brain could not stand the patriot’s tireless lucidity of purpose. Boronowski belonged to the inhuman band of fanatics, the devotees to one idea, who had nothing personal to sacrifice. Just like lonely old maids who gave themselves up to church-going and good works, and thereby plumed themselves on the acquisition of immortal merit. What soul-shattering tragedy had Boronowski behind him, any more than the elderly virgins aforesaid? If Boronowski kept him up talking Poland till three o’clock in the morning—as he had already done—he would go mad. No, not to-night. The mounting steps on the uncarpeted stairs hammered at every nerve in his body. And when the door opened, it was not Boronowski who appeared, but a pallid, swarthy wisp of a man whom Triona recognized as one Klinski, a Jew, and a trusted agent of Boronowski. He was so evilly dressed that the night porter, accustomed to the drab clientele of the sad hostelry, yet thought it his duty to linger by the door.