“Yes,” he continued to Paul in English; “the general sent me over with a sotnya of men, and pretty hungry you will find them. We have covered the whole distance since daybreak. A report reached the old gentleman that the whole countryside was about to rise against you.”
“Who spread the report?” asked Steinmetz.
“I believe it originated down at the wharfs. It has been traced to an old man and his daughter—a sort of peddler, I think, who took a passage down the river—but where they heard the rumor I don’t know.”
Paul and Steinmetz carefully avoided looking at each other. They knew that Catrina and Stépan Lanovitch had sent back assistance.
“Of course,” said Paul, “I am very glad to see you, but I am equally glad to inform you that you are not wanted. Steinmetz will tell you all about it, and when you are ready for dinner it will be ready for you. I will give instructions that the men be cared for.”
“Thanks. The funny thing is that I am instructed, with your approval, to put the place under martial law and take charge.”
“That will not be necessary, thanks,” answered Paul, going out of the open door to speak to the wild-looking Cossacks sent for his protection.
In Russia, as in other countries where life is cheaply held, the death formalities are small. It is only in England, where we are so careful for the individual and so careless of the type, that we have to pay for dying, and leave a mass of red-tape formalities for our friends.
While the young officer was changing his uniform for the evening finery which his servant’s forethought had provided, Paul and Steinmetz hurriedly arranged what story of the evening should be given to the world. Knowing the country as they did, they were enabled to tell a true tale, which was yet devoid of that small personal interest that gossips love. And all the world ever knew was that the Princess Howard Alexis was killed by the revolted peasants while attempting to escape by a side door, and that the Baron Claude de Chauxville, who was staying in the neighborhood, met his death in attempting to save her from the fury of the mob.
On the recommendation of Karl Steinmetz, Paul placed the castle and village under martial law, and there and then gave the command to the young Cossack officer, pending further instructions from his general, commanding at Tver.
The officer dined with Steinmetz, and under the careful treatment of that diplomatist inaugurated a reign of military autocracy, which varied pleasingly between strict discipline and boyish neglect.
Before the master of the situation had slept off the effect of his hundred-mile ride and a heavy dinner, the next morning Steinmetz and Maggie were ready to start on their journey to England.
The breakfast was served in the room abutting on the cliff in the dim light of a misty morning.
The lamps were alight on the table, and Paul was waiting when Maggie came down cloaked for her journey. Steinmetz had breakfasted.
They said good morning, and managed to talk of ordinary things until Maggie was supplied with coffee and toast and a somewhat heavy, manly helping of a breakfast-dish. Then came a silence.
Paul broke it at length with an effort, standing, as it were, on the edge of the forbidden topic.
“Steinmetz will take you all the way,” he said, “and then come back to me. You can safely trust yourself to his care.”
“Yes,” answered the girl, looking at the food set before her with a helpless stare. “It is not that. Can I safely trust Etta’s memory to your judgment? You are very stern, Paul. I think you might easily misjudge her. Men do not always understand a woman’s temptations.”
Paul had not sat down. He walked away to the window, and stood there looking out into the gloomy mists.
“It is not because she was my cousin,” said Maggie from the table; “it is because she was a woman leaving her memory to be judged by two men who are both—hard.”
Paul neither looked round nor answered.
“When a woman has to form her own life, and renders it a prominent one, she usually makes a huge mistake of it,” said the girl.
She waited a moment, and then she pleaded once more, hastily, for she heard a step approaching.
“If you only understood everything you might think differently—it is because you cannot understand.”
Then Paul turned round slowly.
“No,” he said, “I cannot understand it, and I do not think that I ever shall.”
And Steinmetz came into the room.
In a few minutes the sleigh bearing Steinmetz and Maggie disappeared into the gloom, closely followed by a couple of Cossacks acting as guard and carrying despatches.
So Etta Sydney Bamborough—the Princess Howard Alexis—came back after all to her husband, lying in a nameless grave in the churchyard by the Volga at Tver. Within the white walls—beneath the shadow of the great spangled cupola—they await the Verdict, almost side by side.
XLIV
Kismet
Between Brandon in Suffolk and Thetford in Norfolk runs a quiet river, the Little Ouse, where few boats break the stillness of the water. On either bank stand whispering beech-trees, and so low is the music of the leaves that the message of Ely’s distant bells floats through them on a quiet evening as far as Brandon and beyond it.
Three years after Etta’s death, in the glow of an April sunset, a Canadian canoe was making its stealthy way up the river. The paddle crept in and out so gently, so lazily and peacefully, that the dabchicks and other waterfowl did not cease their chatter of nests and other April matters as the canoe glided by.
So quiet, indeed, was its progress that Karl Steinmetz—suddenly white-headed, as strong old men are apt to find themselves—did not heed its approach. He was sitting on the bank with a gun, a little rifle, lying on the grass beside him. He was half-asleep in the enjoyment
