“Of our love?”
I cast her hand aside, and jumping to my feet, paced the room in desperation. She clutched my arm, entreating me to tell her the cause of my agitation. Suddenly I stopped before her.
“Princess,” I whispered hoarsely, grasping her slim, white wrist, “hear me! I am base, ignoble: I have deceived you!”
“What! You love me not—you——”
“I love you better than life. I would do anything to save you, yet, by a devilish conspiracy of circumstances I am compelled to kill you!”
“Kill me!” she gasped in Russian. “God! You are an imbecile—mad!”
Her face blanched; she tottered and almost fell.
“Yes, I was mad,” I said bitterly. “Mad to love you when I knew that I must kill you. I am a Nihilist!”
“A Nihilist!”
“Yes. By your evidence some members of our Organisation have been sent to Siberia, and the sentence the Executive has passed upon you is death.”