They did not speak for some time, and then it was the girl who broke the silence.
“I have a confession to make and a favor to ask,” she said bluntly.
Paul’s attitude denoted attention, but he said nothing.
“It is about the Baron de Chauxville,” she said.
“Ah!”
“I am a coward,” she went on. “I did not know it before. It is rather humiliating. I have been trying for some weeks to tell you something, but I am horribly afraid of it. I am afraid you will despise me. I have been a fool—worse, perhaps. I never knew that Claude de Chauxville was the sort of person he is. I allowed him to find out things about me which he never should have known—my own private affairs, I mean. Then I became frightened, and he tried to make use of me. I think he makes use of everybody. You know what he is.”
“Yes,” answered Paul, “I know.”
“He hates you,” she went on. “I do not want to make mischief, but I suppose he wanted to marry the princess. His vanity was wounded because she preferred you, and he wanted to be avenged upon you. Wounds to the vanity never heal. I do not know how he did it, Paul, but he made me help him in his schemes. I could have prevented you from going to the bear hunt, for I suspected him then. I could have prevented my mother from inviting him to Thors. I could have put a thousand difficulties in his way, but I did not. I helped him. I told him about the people and who were the worst—who had been influenced by the Nihilists and who would not work. I allowed him to stay on here and carry out his plan. All this trouble among the peasants is his handiwork. He has organized a regular rising against you. He is horribly clever. He left us yesterday, but I am convinced that he is in the neighborhood still.”
She stopped and reflected. There was something wanting in the story, which she could not supply. It was a motive. A half-confession is almost an impossibility. When we speak of ourselves it must be all or nothing—preferably, nothing.
“I do not know why I did it,” she said. “It was a sort of period I went through. I cannot explain.”
He did not ask her to do so. They were singularly like brother and sister in their mental attitude. They had driven through twenty miles of forest which belonged to one or other of them. Each was touched by the intangible, inexplicable dignity that belongs to the possession of great lands—to the inheritance of a great name.
“That is the confession,” she said.
He gave a little laugh.
“If none of us had worse than that upon our consciences,” he answered, “there would be little harm in the world, De Chauxville’s schemes have only hurried on a crisis which was foreordained. The progress of humanity cannot be stayed. They have tried to stay it in this country. They will go on trying until the crash comes. What is the favor you have to ask?”
“You must leave Osterno,” she urged earnestly; “it is unsafe to delay even a few hours. M. de Chauxville said there would be no danger. I believed him then, but I do not now. Besides, I know the peasants. They are hard to rouse, but once excited they are uncontrollable. They are afraid of nothing. You must get away tonight.”
Paul made no answer.
She turned slowly in her seat and looked into his face by the light of the waning moon.
“Do you mean that you will not go?”
He met her glance with his grave, slow smile.
“There is no question of going,” he answered. “You must know that.”
She did not attempt to persuade. Perhaps there was something in his voice which she as a Russian understood—a ring of that which we call pigheadedness in others.
“It must be splendid to be a man,” she said suddenly, in a ringing voice. “One feeling in me made me ask you the favor, while another was a sense of gladness at your certain refusal. I wish I was a man. I envy you. You do not know how I envy you, Paul.”
Paul gave a quiet laugh—such a laugh as one hears in the trenches after the low hum of a passing ball.
“If it is danger you want, you will have more than I in the next week,” he answered. “Steinmetz and I knew that you were the only woman in Russia who could get your father safely out of the country. That is why I came for you.”
The girl did not answer at once. They were driving on the road again now, and the sleigh was running smoothly.
“I suppose,” she said reflectively at length, “that the secret of the enormous influence you exercise over all who come in contact with you is that you drag the best out of everyone—the best that is in them.”
Paul did not answer.
“What is that light?” she asked suddenly, laying her hand on the thick fur of his sleeve. She was not nervous, but very watchful. “There—straight in front.”
“It is the sleigh,” replied Paul, “with your father and Steinmetz. I arranged that they should meet us at the crossroads. You must be at the Volga before daylight. Send the horses on to Tver. I have given you Minna and The Warrior; they can do the journey with one hour’s rest, but you must drive them.”
Catrina had swayed forward against the bar of the apron in a strange way, for the road was quite smooth. She placed her gloved hands on the bar and held herself upright with a peculiar effort.
“What?” said Paul. For she had made an inarticulate sound.
“Nothing,” she answered. Then, after a pause, “I did not know that we were to go so soon. That was all.”
XLII
The Storm Bursts
The large drawing-room was brilliantly lighted. Another weary day had dragged to
