There was a silence as I stood upon the threshold.
“Come,” cried the man petulantly. “I want her here.”
A weak, thin voice, low and trembling, responded, and from the gloom slowly emerged a female figure in thick, ill-fitting clothes of grey cloth, unkempt and ragged.
“Move quickly,” snapped the gaoler. “Here is someone to see you!”
“To see me!” repeated the weak voice slowly. Next moment, the light of the lantern revealed my face, I suppose, for she dashed forward, crying in English: “Why—you, Mr Trewinnard! Ah! save me! Oh! save me! I beg of you.”
And she clung to me, trembling with fear.
It was the girl Luba de Rosen! Alas! so altered was she, so pale, haggard and prematurely-aged that I scarcely recognised her. Her appearance was dejected, ragged, horrible! Her fair hair that used to be so much admired was now tangled over her eyes, and her fine figure hidden by her rough, ill-fitting prison gown, which was old, dirty and tattered. I stared at her, speechless in horror.
She was only nineteen. In that smart set in which her mother moved her beauty had been much admired. Madame de Rosen was the widow of a wealthy Jew banker, and on account of her late husband’s loans to certain high officials to cover their gambling debts, all doors had been open to her. I recollected when I had last seen Luba, the night before her arrest. She had worn a pretty, Paris-made gown of carnation chiffon, and was waltzing with a good-looking young officer of the Kazan Dragoons. Alas! what a different picture she now presented.
“Luba!” I said quietly in English, taking her hand as she clung to me. “Come outside. I am here to speak with you. I want to talk with you alone.”
The gaoler, who had had his orders from the Governor, relocked and bolted the door, and taking his lantern, withdrew a respectable distance while I stood with Luba under the wooden wall of the prison wherein she had been confined.