Princess Zara Part 20

"He is a nihilist. He has just returned to the city. All these years he has been absent, and had Stanislaus waited for his coming your story, and mine also, would have had a different ending. But Stanislaus did not wait. The man you mean is Captain Alexis Durnief."

She started bolt upright.

"You knew it? You knew it?" she cried. "Tell me how you knew it?"

"I guessed it only just now. I guessed it from the expression of your eyes when you greeted him last night, that is, coupling that expression with the recital of to-day, and with one or two hints of his character that I gleaned from him. He is the man?"

"Yes. He--is--the--man!!!"

"And you receive him here?"

"I cannot help it. My hands are tied."

"How are they tied?"

"You have already said."

"Yes? How?"

"He is a nihilist. He does not know that I am aware of all his foulness and villainy. He has been a.s.sured that I do not know it! And"--here she leaped to her feet and confronted me like an enraged tigress--"he has the effrontery to pretend that he is in love with me, and to believe that I can love him. Pah!"

"And you?" I asked.

"I?"

She crossed the room, but turned and retraced her steps, reseating herself upon the couch. She was smiling now. Her composure had returned though she was still pale, and there were deep rings under her eyes which told of the suffering she had undergone.

"Until you came I had thought that I would marry him," said she, calmly. I was more utterly amazed than I could have supposed possible.

"Indeed?" I remarked, raising my brows, but otherwise not showing the surprise I felt. Here was still another phase of the character of the woman I loved so madly. But I could see that she spoke in the past tense; of something no longer considered.

"Yes; I thought that. Why not? It seemed the only way by which I could secure the revenge I believed I must have. I could have obtained it in that way. Long ago he sheltered himself from anything that I could do, under the cloak of our order. I could have married him, and in six months have tortured him into the grave; or, if that had failed, I could have poisoned him. Ah! did you ever hate--truly hate--anybody? If you never did, you cannot imagine the rage that has been in my heart against those two men. No, they are not men; they are beasts, reptiles." So she spoke of Alexis Durnief and Alexander, the czar. I could scarcely recognize this woman who could hate others with such intensity.

"Do you think, princess," I said, slowly, "that if Stanislaus were alive, he would approve of such a method of taking revenge for the wrong done to him, and to his sister?" I asked the question impersonally, and without any resentment in my tone, or manner. Indeed, I felt none. We were referring to a possibility that was now as far in the past as were the incidents of the story she had related. But I desired to probe that other side of her, the vengeful one, as deeply as possible, and when she did not reply, I added: "Do you think he would have rested contentedly in his grave, if you had become the wife of the man who wronged him most, no matter what your purpose might be?"

"No," she said. "I do not. But I had not thought of it in that light. I remembered only Yvonne--and him."

"Zara, did you love Stanislaus?"

She sighed deeply. She raised her eyes to mine, and she stretched forth a tentative hand for me to clasp, and hold. My touch gave her a sense of personal protection.

"How you probe the innermost secrets of one's heart, Dubravnik," she smiled at me. "I will tell you the truth, and the whole truth. It is because I never loved him, because I never knew and appreciated his worth, until he was dead, that I believed that I could not live and bear the thought that he should continue unavenged, while Alexis Durnief, the perpetrator of such outrages, appeared boldly here at St.

Petersburg, and even dared to make love to me. I was a girl then, and I did not appreciate all the love that was lavished upon me. I am a woman now, and you have taught me what love is. I am not the same creature, now, that I was a few short hours ago. You have changed the world for me, for you have made what was once a h.e.l.l, a heaven of sweet thoughts."

"Zara, had you already abandoned the insane idea of becoming Durnief's wife, before we referred to it, now?"

"Yes, I never really entertained it. It only occurred to me as a means of accomplis.h.i.+ng an end. I hate the man so, for all he did to Yvonne; and when he dared to raise his hopes to me, knowing that I had been her nearest and dearest friend, knowing also that I was once pledged to Stanislaus, I was filled with a bitter hatred more terrible than words can describe. Oh, if you knew the bitterness of one who is used only for a tool, because she happens to possess beauty. But you cannot know; you cannot guess."

"True, I do not know; but I can guess. Remember, I heard what you said to your brother, on this same subject, in the garden."

"Ah!"

Like a flash of light through the darkness, my own peril returned to her.

"You! What are you going to do?" she exclaimed.

"I am going about my daily duty just as though nothing had happened," I replied.

"Those men out there are waiting to kill you. Come! Let us see if they are there still."

We went to the window together and peered out. The _karetta_ was still waiting.

"Tell me your true name again," she demanded, rather irrelevantly I thought, as we drew back. "You told me, but I have forgotten. To me you are Dubravnik; but I suppose I must learn the other one."

"You must learn how to answer to it, also, for it is to be yours as well as mine." Then I mentioned it, and she repeated it after me several times, under her breath.

"Do you know of any way, no matter how, to escape those men who are waiting outside?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied, "I know of one."

"What is it?"

"I can have them arrested where they are--every one of them; that is, if one of your servants can be induced to carry a message a short distance, for me."

"He would be stopped. The message would be taken from him, and read."

"He would be permitted to go on again, for the message would mean nothing to those who stopped him. It would be in cipher, and a.s.sistance would not be long in coming, once it were delivered. Men in whom I can implicitly trust would soon clear the streets for us. We would have nothing to fear after that."

"Then you _are_ connected with the police, Dubravnik." But when she made the statement I noticed with joy that there was no suggestion of her former displeasure. There was no indication now that she would love me the less because I was a.s.sociated with the powers she had been taught all her life to abhor.

"No, Zara, not with the police. I have nothing to do with them, nor with any department of that service. The men I shall send for are not even Russians; and they serve me, not this government. They will serve you, as well."

"I believe you, dear one; forgive me. You shall have the messenger."

"You have forgotten one thing, princess."

"What?"

"Your own danger."

She shrugged her shoulders and laughed at that. It was a return to the Zara I had first known. "I have forgotten much since you came," she said. "In what way am I in danger?"

"If those men are arrested, they will know that you have betrayed them to me. Their friends will know it, also."

"You mistake. I had not forgotten that. But I have remembered that you are here to protect me, Dubravnik. What have I to fear when you are near me?" It was sweet indeed to hear her say such words, sweeter still to realize the full import of them. But there was a phase of our present dilemma which had not yet claimed her attention, but regarding which it was necessary to remind her. Her brother Ivan was doubtless one of the a.s.sa.s.sins, waiting outside.

"What of Ivan, your brother?" I asked her.