By Right of Sword Part 25

"There's a woman in most things," I answered, equivocally.

"Yes, I suppose so." She turned away and looked down, and asked next:--

"Were you very fond of her, Alexis?"

"Judging by the little ripple that remains on the surface now that she's gone out of my life, no: judging by the splash the stone made at first, yes. But she's gone."

"Yet the waters of the pool may be left permanently clouded. I am sorry for you, Alexis: and if you were really my brother, I would try and help you two together."

"That's not altogether a very proper thing to say." I spoke lightly, and she looked up to question me. "Her husband might not thank you, I mean: though I'm not quite sure about that;" and then having told her so much, I told her the story of my last meeting with Sir Philip Cargill and Edith. But she did not take it as I wished.

"You must have loved her if you meant to kill her," she said.

"And ceased then, if I left her to live a miserable life."

"I should like to see the woman you have ceased to love," she said, woman-like in curiosity--and something else.

"You may do that yet, if only Alexis Petrovitch can make a safe way for his sister out of Russia;" and then I added, pausing and looking at her with a meaning in my eyes which I wished her to understand though I dared not put it in plain words:--"But we shall not be brother and sister then."

She glanced up hurriedly, her face aglow with a sudden rush of thought--pleasurable thought too--and then looked down again and smiled.

"In that case how should we two be together?" she asked.

"Do you mean that such a time as this will be likely to render us ready to part?"

To that her only answer was another glance and a deeper blush. Then I made an effort and recovered myself on the very verge.

"But while we are here, we are brother and sister, Olga;" and feeling that if I wished to keep other things unsaid I had better go away, I left her.

CHAPTER XV.

A SHE DEVIL.

The more I contemplated the position the less I liked it, and the more urgent appeared the reasons for hurrying Olga out of the country.

All my care was for her. Before this new feeling of mine for her had forced itself upon me, the situation had been really a game of wits with my life as the stake; but now Olga's life, or at least her liberty, was also at stake. It was there the crisis pinched me till I winced and writhed under it. Fear had got hold of me at last and I tugged restlessly at the chain.

That night and the next day, the day of Christian Tueski's funeral, were occupied with heavy duties, because the authorities, both military and civil, persisted in believing there was danger of an emeute. I could have counselled them differently if I had dared to open my lips.

At least I thought I could; although I did not then hold the key to the mystery.

I got it from Paula Tueski.

In the afternoon of the day but one after the funeral, I had a brief note asking me to call on her.

I went and found her surrounded by all the signs and trappings of the deepest mourning. She received me very gravely, and while there was anyone in the room, she played the part of the sorrowing, disconsolate widow: but the instant we were alone she shewed a most indecent and revolting haste to let me know her mind.

"We are alone, now, Alexis," she said.

"I have called as you asked and because I wished to express my sympathy...."

"Ps.h.!.+ Don't let us be hypocrites, you and I," she exclaimed, half angrily, and with great energy. "I do not pretend to you that I am sorry to be free, and don't you pretend to me either."

I didn't answer, and my silence irritated her.

"Would you have me weep, tear my hair, put ashes on my head and grovel in the dust because the biggest villain and coward and beast that ever lived in human shape is dead? I hated him living; shall I love him dead?"

"At least the dead are dead, and to revile them is mere empty brutality," said I, somewhat harshly.

"Then I like empty brutality if it relieves my feelings. G.o.d! I have been a hypocrite long enough. I should hate myself if I did not speak the truth to you."

I shrugged my shoulders. I had no answer.

"Why didn't you send a wreath of pure white flowers as an emblem of your regard? Why not a message to swell the millions of lies that men have uttered in their squalid fear of offending the Government by silence? Ugh! It makes me sick when I think of it all;" and she shuddered as if in disgust. "He was a devil, and I won't call him by any softer name merely because his power to harm is gone. Didn't he try to murder you? And wasn't it jealousy? Ah, we have much to be thankful to the Nihilists for, you and I." There was an indescribable suggestion of a hidden meaning about this.

I hated the woman.

"You have no clue yet, I suppose?"

"Yes, I have a clue," she replied, with a laugh that sounded like a threat. "I can put my hand on the murderer when I will--and I will, if he proves a traitor."

"You are in a dramatic mood," I answered. "Who is the man? Why not denounce him? Surely this act is what you must call treachery."

"There was a Nihilist plot to kill the man," she said, speaking with contemptuous flippancy of accent of the dead.

"Yes, I told you that myself," I replied.

"It was because of that he died."

"So everybody thinks."

"And how do you account for it?" she asked, looking at me keenly.

"I have no more idea than yourself."

She laughed; and a hard forced laugh it was. Then she got up from her chair and walked twice up and down the room in dead silence. She stopped in front of me and stared down into my eyes.

"Alexis, do you really love me?"

The question was an exceedingly unpleasant one and filled me with disgust.

"Surely this is no time for us to speak of such things," I said.

"Do you love me, Alexis," she repeated.

"I will not answer now," I said, rising.