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Title: Lucy Harding
        a romance of Russia

Author: Mary Jane Holmes

Release date: December 17, 2024 [eBook #74921]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: American News Company

Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCY HARDING ***



[Illustration: “NICOL PATOFF! DO YOU KNOW HIM? WHERE IS HE?”]




                              LUCY HARDING
                         _A ROMANCE OF RUSSIA_


                                   BY
                             MARY J. HOLMES

                               AUTHOR OF

   “Edna Browning,” “The Homestead on the Hillside,” “Maggie Miller,”
                      “Tempest and Sunshine,” etc.

[Illustration: [Logo]]

                       THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY
                           PUBLISHERS’ AGENTS
                                NEW YORK




                            Copyright, 1905
                           By Mary J. Holmes


                              Lucy Harding




                             LUCY HARDING.




                               CHAPTER I.
                            _NICOL PATOFF._


In the summer of 189– I was one of a party of tourists who were going to
St. Petersburg. There were eight of us, all women, strong, fearless and
self-reliant, and all natives of Massachusetts. Two were from Boston,
three from its suburbs, and three, including myself, from Ridgefield, a
pretty little inland town among the Worcester hills. We had a guide, of
course, Henri Smeltz, a German, and if his credentials, which I now
think he wrote himself, were to be believed, he was fully competent to
take charge of eight women with opinions of their own and as much
knowledge of the country they were to visit as he had. It had been the
dream of my life to see the water-soaked city, and when the opportunity
came I accepted it eagerly, with, however, some dread of the fatigue of
the long journey and the annoyances I might meet in the capital of the
czar. I was not a good sailor and I had a great dislike for train
travel, and by the time we had crossed the Atlantic and the Continent
and were on the Gulf of Finland, I was in a rather limp and collapsed
condition. But I rallied as the bright July day wore on, and when the
Russian officers came on board I was quite myself and felt able to cope
with them all if necessary. I had nothing to fear. I was an American
citizen and wore the colors of my country in a knot of ribbon on my
dress. My passport was all right, so far as I knew. But better than this
was the fact that I could speak Russian with a tolerable degree of
accuracy. I was fond of languages, and during my school days had
mastered German and French to the extent of reading and writing them
fluently. My teacher was Nicol Patoff from St. Petersburg, who, outside
of his school hours, had a class in Russian which I joined, and
astonished both Nicol and myself by the readiness with which I acquired
the difficult language which the most of my companions gave up in
despair after a few weeks’ trial and in spite of the entreaties of
Nicol, who assured them that with a little patience what seemed so hard
would be very easy.

He was a tall, handsome young man, with large, dark eyes which seemed
always on the alert, as if watching for or expecting something which
might come at any moment. All we knew of him was that he was from St.
Petersburg. That his father, who was dead, had once been wealthy, in
fact had belonged to the minor nobility, but had lost most of his money,
and this necessitated his son’s earning his own living, which he could
do better in America than elsewhere. This was the story he told, and
although he brought no credentials and only asked to be employed on
trial, his frank, pleasing manners and magnetic personality won him
favor at once, and for two years he discharged his duties as teacher of
languages in the Ridgefield Academy to the entire satisfaction of his
employers. Many conjectured that he was a nihilist, but there was about
him a quiet reserve which kept people from questioning him on the
subject, and it was never mentioned to him but once. Then a young girl
asked him laughingly if he had ever known a nihilist intimately.

“But, of course, you haven’t,” she added. “I suppose they only belong to
the lower classes. You might see them without knowing them well.”

For a moment the hot blood surged into Patoff’s face, then left it
deadly pale as he replied: “I have seen and known hundreds of them. They
belong to all classes, high and low, rich and poor—more to the rich,
perhaps, than the very poor. They are as thick as those raindrops,” and
he pointed to a window, against which a heavy shower was beating. “There
is much to be said on both sides,” he continued, after a few moments.
“You are subjected to tyranny and surveillance, whichever party you
belong to. It is a case of Scylla and Charybdis. Of the two it is better
to be with the government than to be hounded and watched wherever you go
and suspected of crimes you never thought of committing. A nihilist is
not safe anywhere. His best friend may betray him, and then the
gendarmes, the police. You have no idea how sharp they are when once
they are on your track.”

This was a great deal for him to say, and he seemed to think so, for he
stopped suddenly and, changing the conversation, began to speak to me in
German and to correct my pronunciation as he had never done before.

During the next few weeks he received several letters from Russia, and
grew so abstracted in his manner that once when hearing our lesson in
Russian he began to talk to us in French, then in German, and finally
lapsed into English, saying with a start: “I beg your pardon. My
thoughts were very far away.”

“Where?” the girl asked who had questioned him on nihilism.

He looked at her a moment with a peculiar expression in his eyes, and
then replied: “In Russia, my home, where I am going at the end of this
quarter.”

We were all sorry to lose him, and no one more so than I, although I
said the least. There was something in his eyes when they rested upon me
and in his voice when he spoke to me which told me I was his favorite
pupil, but if he cared particularly for me he never showed it until the
day before he left town, when he called to say good-by. I had been
giving my hair a bath and was brushing and drying it in the hot sun when
he came up the walk. I disliked my hair and always had. It was very
heavy and long and soft and wavy, and I had the fair complexion which
usually goes with its color; but it was red, not chestnut or auburn, but
a decided red, which I hated, and fancied others must do the same, and
when I saw Nicol coming up the walk I shrank back in my seat under the
maple tree, hoping he would not see me. But he did; and came at once to
me, laughing as I tried to gather up into a knot my heavy hair, which,
being still damp, would not stay where I put it. I know he said
something about Godiva, then checked himself with “I beg your pardon,”
as he saw the color rising in my face; and, lifting up a lock which had
fallen down, he said: “I wish you would give me a bit of this as a
souvenir.”

“Are you crazy,” I asked, “to want a lock of my hair? Why, it is red!”

“I know that,” he said; “but it is beautiful, nevertheless, especially
in the sunlight. I like red. Can I have a bit?”

He took from his vest pocket a small pair of scissors, and handed them
to me. I was too confused for a moment to speak. No one before had
praised my hair. I had made faces at it in the glass. My brother, who
was a few years older than myself, called me Carrots and Red-top, and,
when in a very teasing mood, pretended to light a match on it. And Nicol
called it beautiful, and wanted a lock of it as a souvenir. My first
impulse was to give him the whole, if I could, and be rid of it; but, as
I gathered the shining mass in my hand, and saw how the sunlight made it
brighten and glisten, I began to have a certain feeling of pride in it,
it was so long and thick and glossy, and curled around my fingers like a
living thing.

“Yes, you can have some of the old, red stuff, if you want it,” I said,
laughingly; and, taking his scissors, I cut a tress where it could not
be missed and handed it to him.

He was my teacher, my friend; he was going away, and I felt I scarcely
knew how toward him, as, with my hair still down my back—for it was not
yet dry, sat beside him, while he talked of Russia, and the difference
between life there and in America, appearing all the while as if there
was something he wished to say, but could not, or dared not.

“Domestic life there is not what it is here. You would not like it,” he
said.

“I know I shouldn’t,” I answered, quickly, and he went on: “But it is
home to me. My people are well born, and I must cast my lot with them,
whether for good or bad.”

“I hope not for bad,” I said, with a little lump in my throat.

“That depends upon the standpoint from which you look,” he replied. “If
I join the nihilists, and you sympathize with them, you will think I go
for good. If I side with the government, and help hunt the nihilists
down, and your sympathies are there, you will say I go for good.”

“Never!” I answered, hotly, stamping my foot upon the ground. “Nihilism
may be wrong, but I detest the government, with its iron heel upon the
poor people, and in a way upon your czar, who is kept more in ignorance
of what is taking place than I am. You are all slaves, every one of you,
from the czar in his palace to the poor serf in his mud house on the
barren plain. I wish I could give your grand dukes a piece of my mind!”

Nicol laughed at my heat, and answered: “You didn’t have that red hair
given you for nothing, did you? I wish you might give them a piece of
your mind, but am afraid it would do no good. Russia is pretty firm in
her opinion of herself. I wish she was different. I have learned many
things in your country which I shall not forget. My life has been very
pleasant here, and my thoughts will often travel back to Ridgefield, and
the freedom such as we Russians do not know.”

“Why not stay, then?” I asked, the lump in my throat growing larger, and
making my voice a kind of croak.

“That is impossible,” he replied. “Russia may be bad, but I can no more
stay away from it than the bird can stay away from the nest where its
young are clamoring for the food it is to bring them.”

“You have friends to whom you are going!” I said; and he replied:
“Friends? Yes; thick as the leaves on the trees in summer, and they are
waiting for me. I am going into danger or honor. I have not quite made
my choice.”

“You are not a nihilist?” I exclaimed, starting to my feet, as if to get
away from him.

With a low, musical laugh, habitual to him when he laughed at all, which
was seldom, he put up his hand and drew me back upon the seat.

“I thought you sympathized with the nihilists?” he said.

“I do,” I answered; “but it is hard to associate you with one. I think
of them as a kind of desperadoes, made so by oppression.”

“There you are mistaken,” he replied. “I told you once that the
nihilists are found with the rich as often as with the poor. Some time
you may, perhaps, read of a gang of people starting for Siberia, and I
may be with them. If not, there will be others in it just as heartbroken
at leaving their homes as I should be. Pray for them, but do not be
troubled for me. I shall escape. I was not born to be a slave, a
prisoner, and there is not power enough in all Siberia to keep me, if I
choose not to stay.”

He stood up, tall and straight, and his eyes flashed with a fire I had
never seen in them before. After a moment he resumed his seat, and
continued: “There is no doubt that Russia is hovering on the crater of a
volcano, which may, at any moment, burst out like Vesuvius. But St.
Petersburg is a right jolly place, after all, and it is my home. I hope
you will go there some day. Your knowledge of the language will make it
easy for you, and you will not find us a bad lot, or know a nihilist
from a partisan of the government. They are all mixed in together. If
you go, I may or may not be there, but find No. — Nevsky Prospect. It
was once my home, where we kept forty servants, falling over each other
and doing less work than half a dozen do in America. It is part of the
system. Here is my card. Good-by, and God bless you!”

He passed his hand caressingly over my hair, and, stooping, kissed me on
my forehead. Then he left me, and I put my head upon the back of the
seat, and cried, with a feeling that something had gone out of my life
which had made it very pleasant.

For a long time I expected to hear from him, but no word had ever come,
and years had gone by, and I was a woman of nearly thirty-five, with my
schooldays behind me, but with a vivid remembrance of that part of them
when Nicol was my teacher. His card was all I had left of the handsome
young Russian who had stirred my girlish heart as no other man had ever
done. I had never forgotten what he said to me of the gang bound for
Siberia, asking me to pray for them, and, in imagination, I had often
seen that gang, and he was always in it, and when I prayed I am afraid
it was for him—for Nicol alone. And now I was going to his country, and
might possibly meet him, if he was there. He would be older, and
probably married. But that did not matter. The pain in my heart and the
lump in my throat when he bade me good-by were gone. That chapter was
closed, but I was thinking of it, and of him, when I had my first
meeting with a Russian gendarme.




                              CHAPTER II.
                            _THE GENDARME._


I had pictured them as old, or middle-aged, with gray or white hair,
hard faces and fierce eyes, which could look through one and see if
there was anything concealed. But the tall man, who bowed so
deferentially, and hesitated a little before speaking, as if he thought
I would not understand, was quite different. He was neither very old nor
grizzled, although his heavy beard, which covered the most of his face,
was streaked with gray. I could not judge well with regard to his eyes,
as the lids were partially closed, the result of some chronic trouble
with them, I afterward learned. I knew they were looking at me
sharply—so sharply, indeed, that I felt my face growing red with
resentment, and, as he continued to scrutinize me, coming close to do
so, all my dread of him and his craft vanished, and, with a proud turn
of my head, I said: “Why do you stare at me as if you thought me a
smuggler, or a nihilist? I am neither.”

Instantly there came upon all I could see of his face for the heavy
beard and into all I could see of eyes for the drooping lids a smile,
which made my brain whirl, and for a moment I asked myself if theosophy
were not true, after all, and I had lived another life somewhere, and
been in the position in which I now found myself, face to face with a
gendarme, who, as the smile disappeared under his heavy mustache, said:
“Madame speaks Russian well.”

“Thanks!” I replied. “I ought to, with so good a teacher as I had in
Nicol Patoff.”

I don’t know what spirit possessed me to mention Nicol’s name. I had
never rid myself of an impression that he would rather I should not
speak of him to strangers, and I had blurted it out to this gendarme,
who started visibly, and repeated: “Nicol Patoff! Do you know him? Where
is he?” he asked, and, with every sense alert lest my old teacher’s
safety was in danger, I answered: “The last time I saw him he was in
America.”

“In America. Yes; but what do you know of him _now_? Where is he?” was
his next question.

“I know nothing of him, except what is good, and, if I did, I should
keep it to myself, if the telling it would harm him. He was my teacher
and friend, and a gentleman,” I said, rather hotly.

I did not know what right he had to be asking me about Nicol Patoff, and
was very angry as I confronted the gendarme, who, I fancied, was
laughing at me.

“You don’t know where he is now?” he continued, in good English, and, to
my look of surprise, continued: “You see, I can speak your language,
though not as well as you speak mine. Nicol Patoff must have been a good
teacher, and you an apt scholar.”

I did not reply, but, with a formal bow, left him and joined my
companions, who were curious to know what I had been saying to the
gendarme. But I was noncommittal, and gave some evasive answer, as I
watched him in the distance, with his staff, of which he seemed to be
the head. Standing near the purser, later on, I said to him, rather
indifferently: “Who is that officer with the queer eyelids? He carries
himself as if he owned the ship and all the passengers.”

Glancing stealthily around, as if to make sure no one was listening—a
habit I noticed in many of the Russians—he spoke very low, and said:
“That! Oh, that is Michel Seguin, one of the very highest of the police.
The suspects dread him as they would the plague. He’s a regular
sleuthhound, and can detect a criminal and unearth a plot when everyone
else has failed. I don’t know why he was sent here to-day, unless they
had heard there was a suspect on board. You can’t escape Michel Seguin,
when once he is on your track.”

He looked hard at me, as if he thought I might be the suspect Michel
Seguin was sent to arrest. He had certainly talked with me longer than
with anyone else, and I had been rather saucy to him. But I was not
afraid of him, and had a feeling of quiet and safety just because I had
talked with him. We were through with the police for the present, and
were free to look upon the frowning fort of Cronstadt, bristling with
guns and threatening destruction to any enemy’s vessel which might
venture near it.

From Cronstadt we could see in the distance the golden dome of St.
Isaac’s towering against the sky, and around it the turrets and spires
and roofs of the city I had come so far to see, and where I was destined
to meet with so many adventures. The sail up the Neva to the wharf was
soon accomplished, and we were in the whirl and hubbub of a great town,
where Henri, our guide, nearly lost his wits in the confusion, and
finally left the ordering of affairs to me, as I could speak the
language so much better than he. Most of our party chose to take a large
conveyance from the station to our hotel, but I preferred a _drosky_, as
I had heard so much of them from Nicol Patoff, and wished to try one.
Half a dozen were ready for me in a moment, and, after my choice was
made, I said to the coachman, who looked like a small haystack, or
rather like a feather bed with a rope tied around its center: “Don’t
drive fast. I shall fall out.”

He nodded that he understood me, gathered up his reins, which looked
like two narrow strips of leather, shook them at his horse, and we were
off like the wind, jolting over the cobblestone pavement, now in one rut
and now in another, while I tried in vain to find something to hold to.
There was nothing; neither side nor back was of any use. To clutch the
padded garment of the driver was impossible. It was like holding so much
cotton wool in my hands. There was no alternative but to pound him with
my fists, which I did, in imminent danger of being thrown from the
_drosky_. At last the point of my umbrella reached him, and, slacking
his speed, he asked: “What will little madame have?”

“Drive slower,” I said. “You have nearly broken every bone in my body,
and I have nothing to hold to.”

“Very well,” he replied, and started again, faster than before, it
seemed to me, as I swayed from side to side.

A breeze had blown up from the Neva, and this, added to the motion of
the _drosky_, took my hat from my head and carried it along, with little
swirls of dust and dirt, until it was some distance in front of us. The
blows I dealt that padded figure in front were fast and furious, but of
no avail. Nothing availed, not even my umbrella, till I sprang to my
feet and clutched him around his neck, as if about to garrote him.
Stopping his horse with a suddenness which drew the beast upon his
haunches, he gasped: “In Heaven’s name, what will little madame have
now?”

“I’ll have my hat!” I cried, pointing to my crumpled headgear, which
some little girls had picked up and were examining, one of them trying
it on and turning her head airily.

I think the driver swore, but am not sure.

“Madame shall have her hat,” he said, and was about to plunge on, when I
stopped him again, by saying: “Let me out. I will walk the rest of the
way. We are almost there,” and I pointed to what I was sure was our
hotel, for I had studied St. Petersburg so carefully before coming that
it seemed to me I knew every street and alley and public building.

“As the little madame likes,” was his polite rejoinder, followed by a
call to the girl who was still sporting my hat, to the evident
admiration of her companions.

“Drop it, or it will be the worse for you!” he cried, with a flourish of
his whip. “It is madame’s.”

But I did not need his interference, for, as I came up to the girl,
breathless and panting, a tall gendarme crossed from the other side of
the street, and at sight of him the children fled in haste, leaving my
hat behind them. Picking it up and brushing some particles of dust from
it, and straightening the crushed flower with a deftness I hardly
expected in a man, he handed it to me, and said: “You will not wear it
again, after it has been on her head,” and he motioned toward the girl,
who, with her two companions, was scampering away as fast as her little,
bare legs and feet could carry her. I had another hat in my trunk, and,
remembering what I had heard of the condition of Russian heads,
answered, emphatically: “Never! She can have it. Here, girl, come back!”
I screamed to the child just disappearing in the distance.

I doubt if my call would have reached her if the gendarme had not sent
after her a short, shrill, peremptory whistle, which brought her to a
standstill as quickly as if she had been shot. Turning round, she saw me
beckoning to her, and holding at arm’s length my hat, as if there was
contagion in it. In a few moments she had it, or, rather, the three had
it, pulling and fighting over it, until the last I saw of it one little
girl was dangling a long ribbon, a second appropriating the bunch of
forget-me-nots, while the eldest was wearing the poor, shorn thing as
proudly as if it were a great acquisition.

I had scarcely realized till then, in my excitement, that the gendarme
who had come to my aid was the one who on the boat had questioned me of
Nicol Patoff. Would he ask me about him again, I wondered, and was
relieved that he did not even act as if we had met before. Glancing at
my hair, which I was beginning to rearrange, he said: “Madame must go
bareheaded.”

“Only from here to the hotel. I have another hat,” I answered, thinking
of the day Nicol Patoff had found me drying my hair, and complimented
its beauty.

It was darker now, with a wonderful sheen upon it in the sunlight, and I
could not help feeling that the man was admiring it through his
half-closed eyes, and scanning me very closely. He had certainly been
going in the opposite direction when I first saw him across the street,
but he turned now and went with me to the hotel, where my friends
gathered round me, asking what had happened, and why I had come on foot
and without my hat. While I was explaining to them, the gendarme was
speaking to the clerk about me, I was sure, as he glanced toward me, and
nodded that he understood. Then, with a bow in my direction, which
included those of my party standing near me, the gendarme walked away.

I had learned by this time that our German conductor, Henri, was of very
little use, except to smoke and take a glass of beer when he could get
it, and, if I wanted a thing done, I must do it myself. I could speak
Russian much better than he could, and, as I wished to ask some
questions, and was particular about my room, I went to the desk to
register. After I had written my name, “Miss Lucy Harding, Ridgefield,
Massachusetts, U. S. A.,” the clerk called a young boy, whom he
designated “Boots,” and bade him show Miss _Garding_ and her friend, who
was to room with her, to a certain number. If there is in the English
alphabet one letter which puzzles a Russian more than another, it is the
letter “H,” and he usually ends by putting “G” in its place.
Consequently, I became Miss or Madame Garding, developing, finally, into
a Garden, and remaining so during my stay in St. Petersburg. From what
we had heard of Russian hotels, we were not prepared for palatial
apartments, and I was surprised at the large, airy corner room into
which I was ushered. Turning to Boots, I asked if there was not some
mistake. Was he sure this room was intended for us, and if it were not
the best in the house?

When he found I could speak his language, Boots became communicative and
familiar, although, evidently, he had no intention to be pert. It was
one of the best rooms, he said, and tourists did not often get it, as it
was reserved for Russian gentry when they came to town from the country.

“I heard Monsieur Seguin ask the clerk to do his best by you. I guess he
thinks you are some great lady at home.”

Just then there was a hurried call for Boots, and he left me wondering
what possible interest Michel Seguin could have in me. I had been rude
to him on the boat, and had not shown myself very friendly since.
Probably any special attention he might pay me was prompted by a wish to
learn something of Nicol Patoff. But forewarned was forearmed, and
Nicol, who undoubtedly was under some ban and in hiding, was safe so far
as I was concerned.

“I’ll take the good the gods provide,” I thought, as I unpacked my trunk
in my spacious, airy room, and then went down to dinner, where I found
several tourists, all eagerly discussing what they had seen and what
they expected to see.




                              CHAPTER III.
                           _THE DOG CHANCE._


As the sun was not down—for we were in the midst of the long, northern
days, when darkness and daylight almost kiss each other in a parting
embrace—I suggested that we take a little stroll and look at St. Isaac’s
and other points of interest. As we were leaving the hotel, we met the
gendarme, Michel, who, I found, came often to the hotel, inquiring after
passports and any newcomers, or those who had changed their quarters. A
civil bow was all I awarded him, as I hurried outside, where I found my
friends crowded around a huge mastiff, sitting upon his haunches, as if
waiting for some one—his master, probably. He was of a species which, in
America, we call a Russian collie, and esteem for their fidelity and
gentleness. He was the handsomest dog I had ever seen, with his fine,
intelligent face, and long, silky mane, and, as I was fond of animals of
all kinds, I stooped to caress him, while he beat his bushy tail in
token of appreciation and good will.

“You are a beauty,” I said. “I wonder whose dog you are, and what is
your name?”

“Chance, and he belongs to me,” came in quick response, which made the
dog start up, while I turned to meet the drooping eyes of the gendarme
fixed on me with a quizzical expression.

“Chance,” I repeated, still keeping my hand buried in the soft wool of
the animal, who was stamping his feet and shaking his head, as if ready
for action of some kind, if he only knew what it was. “Chance,” I said,
again. “It is a strange name for a Russian dog. I had a little poodle,
years ago, which I called Chance. I’ve never heard the name since.”

“No, it is not common; and it came to him from a friend,” the man
replied. “He is a noble fellow. His grandmother was from the royal
kennels, so, you see, he has kingly blood in him. I was offered a
thousand dollars for him by one of your countrymen, and would not take
it. He is young, but is already my factotum on whom I depend.”

“Do you mean he is like a bloodhound, whom you put on the track of the
poor wretches you are hired to run down?” I asked, thinking of Nicol
Patoff, and recoiling from the dog, who put up his big paw, as if to
shake my hand, and thus conciliate me.

The gendarme laughed, and replied: “I have little need of a dog, except
in case of murder. If the czar were killed, for instance, and the
assassin were hiding, I might call in Chance’s help; and he would find
him, too, if he had ever seen him before, or anything belonging to him.
You are not afraid of him?”

“No,” I answered, and, before I could say more, the officer continued,
to the dog: “Salute the lady!”

In an instant two great paws were on my shoulders, and Chance was
looking into my face, with an expression so human that I began to feel
cold and sick, and tried to free myself from him, and in my effort
dropped my handkerchief.

“Down, Chance! That will do,” his master said, and then to us: “He will
know you now wherever he meets you, especially after I have shown him
this.”

He had picked up my handkerchief, a soiled and torn one, I saw, with a
pang, and, handing it to the dog, bade him give it to Miss Harding. He
mastered the “H,” and I was not a “Garden” to him. Obediently, Chance
brought it to me, shaking his head and holding it a while in his teeth,
as if loath to let it go.

“It is all right,” the gendarme said, taking it from the dog, but not
returning it to me. “Chance has looked on your face,” he continued, “and
smelled an article of your wardrobe. I could track you now to Siberia,
if necessary, if I had this handkerchief to show him.”

I shuddered, and put out my hand to take my property, but, with a kind
of authoritative air I had never seen in him before, he put it in his
pocket, saying, quietly: “Allow me to keep it as a means of safety to
you and your party. I have met many Americans; they are all alike; they
wish to see everything, and go everywhere, and never think of danger,
or, if they do, it does not deter them. That Dutch guide of yours,
lounging on a settee and smoking cigarettes, is no good. He will take to
vodka next, and be more stupid than ever. Madame, with her knowledge of
Russian, is a better guide than he. May as well give him up, and run
your own canoe. You see, I am up in Yankee slang. I have heard a good
deal of it. But don’t risk too much. St. Petersburg is as safe as most
cities, but be a little cautious where you go and when you go. As a
rule, our women are not often seen in the streets unattended. But we
expect different things from tourists, particularly Americans, who dare
anything to satisfy their curiosity. You are intending to go out this
evening, and the sun is nearly down. Wait till to-morrow, and, if Chance
happens to join you, don’t think it strange, either to-morrow or next
day. In the summer, when the city is full of sightseers and the court
and nobility are away, there is frequently a set of impostors and
marauders from the country, who come into town for theft and spoil,
thinking to find the visitors an easy prey. Chance knows them by
instinct, and will keep them at a distance. If he growls, you will know
there is danger, and the beggar a fraud.”

He turned abruptly and was gone, followed by Chance, bounding at his
side and occasionally picking up a stick, or whatever he could find, and
taking it to his master, expecting it to be thrown for him to catch and
take back. For a moment we watched him in silence; then the tongues of
the party were loosened, and they began to wonder why this gendarme had
seemingly taken us under his protection and given us the service of his
dog. I offered no opinion. I was still morbidly jealous for the safety
of Nicol Patoff, if he were alive and on Russian soil, as I thought
probable, and Michel Seguin’s interest in us was really centered in me,
with a hope that he might yet learn something of his enemy. It was a
part of his method, which usually proved successful, but would fail for
once.

It was beginning to get a little chilly, and I suggested that we should
return to the hotel. We found our guide, Henri, snoring loudly, with his
mouth open, his arms falling at his side and a half-burned cigarette
held fast between his thumb and fingers.

“The lout! We ought to get rid of him; he is of no earthly use, except
to draw his pay. We do not need him. You can do all he can, and more,
too; and then we shall have Chance,” my companions said, as we went to
our rooms.

As a result of this conversation, after a few days, during which Henri
showed a greater liking for vodka than for attending to us, we separated
by mutual consent, but not until he had done some pretty hard swearing,
saying “he was not hired to carry the satchels and shawl straps and
wraps and umbrellas of eight old maids, no two of whom wished to see the
same thing at the same time, or go to the same place, and who were the
hardest-to-please women it had ever been his lot to conduct.”
“Red-head,” as he called me, was the worst of all, and, if she didn’t
look out, she would find herself in the clutches of the police, romping
round as she did, looking into everything and talking to everybody.

We laughed, and left him to his vodka and his pipe and cigarettes, and
his stupid sleep in the armchair of the office, from which he
occasionally roused enough to inquire about the “eight old maids, and
what they were up to now.”




                              CHAPTER IV.
                            _NICOL’S HOUSE._


We had been told that the time to visit St. Petersburg was in the
winter, when the city is in its glory. The nobility have then returned
from their summer homes. The czar is at his palace. The Nevsky Prospect
is gay with equipages of every description, from the common sledge to
the carriages of the aristocracy, while the Neva, frozen to the
thickness of three or four feet, rivals the Nevsky, with its crowds of
sledges and skates and lookers-on, its colored lights, its bazaars and
booths filled with a laughing crowd till long after the coachmen and
horses, who have stood for hours in the cold before the Winter Palace,
where a ball was in progress, have gone home.

All this I saw later, and was a part of most of it during my second
visit to St. Petersburg; but now, not knowing the difference, I was
satisfied to be there in the summer, although the streets seemed
deserted, and most of the great houses were closed, or left in charge of
a few old domestics, who were faithful to their trust as watchdogs. The
czar, with his family, was at Gatschina, in the great, gloomy palace,
where I was told that, although there were six hundred rooms, the royal
family confined themselves to only six, as they could thus feel more
secure from attacks of nihilists. Whether this was true or not, I do not
know. One hears many wonderful rumors in St. Petersburg of plots and
counterplots, and prying gendarmes, and arrests and banishment to the
fortress or Siberia; but these did not concern us. We were there to see,
and we made good our time, going everywhere we could go, and pushing our
way into some places which at first seemed impossible to enter.

And nearly always Chance was with us. Just where he came from I did not
at first know. We usually found him outside the hotel waiting for us,
and attaching himself to me as if I were his mistress. His master we did
not see until the fifth day, when we met him in front of the house where
Nicol Patoff had once lived. I remembered the number on the card Nicol
had given me, and was anxious to visit it alone, to inspect it at my
leisure, and possibly ring the bell boldly, and ask if the Patoff family
were at home. But this I could not do, for, as I was the only one who
spoke the language, it seemed necessary that our party should keep
together.

Still, I must see the house, and give it more than a passing glance, and
at last I took the ladies into my confidence, telling them why I wished
particularly to see the place. None of them had ever heard of Nicol,
except the girls from Ridgefield, and, as these were much younger than
myself, they only knew of him as some one who taught in the academy for
a time and then disappeared. They were, however, ready to go with me,
and on a sunny afternoon we started along the Nevsky on our tour of
discovery, with our escort, Chance, who seemed to know just where we
were going, and forged ahead at a rapid pace until he reached the Patoff
house, where he stopped and waited for us to come up.

It was very large, and built of brick, as are most of the houses in St.
Petersburg. In front was the inevitable porter, or servant, of the
proprietor, who keeps guard over the premises and over all who come in
or go out. The one of our party most interested in Nicol Patoff after
myself was Mary, my roommate, who was usually bubbling with enthusiasm,
and who thought it would be great fun if we could get inside a real
Russian house, and see what it was like.

“Aren’t you going to ask that porter if Mr. Patoff lives here? He looks
harmless and sleepy,” she said, while Chance was making various signs
that he expected us to enter.

What I might have done I do not know, if upon the scene a new actor had
not appeared, in the person of the gendarme Michel, who came upon us
rather suddenly, as we stood huddled together on the sidewalk. There was
no mistaking the pleasure on his face when he saw us.

“Good-afternoon!” he said, speaking in English. “Sight-seeing, I
suppose? What place are you bound for now, if I may ask? I hope you find
Chance a good escort. I tell him every morning to find Miss Harding, and
he goes;” and he patted the head of the beautiful dog, who began to leap
upon him, with little cries of delight.

This, then, was the reason why Chance always came to me when he appeared
at the hotel. My handkerchief, which the gendarme still kept, was the
cue which guided him, and I ought to have been flattered, but I was not,
for I always felt as if there was something sinister behind the
officer’s attentions which I could not fathom. It was Mary who replied,
in her breezy way:

“Chance is splendid; he goes with us everywhere, and just now we are
looking at the house where Nicol Patoff used to live, and where,
perhaps, he lives now.”

I tried to catch her eyes, and stop her, but she was turned partly from
me, and went on: “Do you know who lives here?”

“Not Patoff,” the gendarme said, with the same expression I had seen on
his face when I spoke of Nicol on the boat. Then he added, quickly: “Do
_you_, too, know Nicol Patoff?”

“Oh, no,” Mary replied. “I was a little girl when he taught in
Ridgefield. Miss Harding was his favorite pupil, and that is why she
speaks Russian so well. I have heard he was a splendid-looking man, with
an air of mystery about him. Some thought him a nihilist. Do you know
him, and was he a nihilist?”

I gave a gasp as I waited for the answer, which was spoken very
deliberately: “He was a nihilist, and has given me a great deal of
trouble.”

“Are you trying to find him?” was Mary’s next remark. “Why don’t you put
Chance on his track?”

I was very fond of the girl, but I could have throttled her to hear her
speaking thus of Nicol Patoff, and suggesting that Chance be put to find
him.

“Mary!” I exclaimed. “Are you crazy, to suggest so diabolical an act?
Nicol Patoff was a gentleman! What has he done to you that you should
wish to throw him into the hands of his foes, and have him condemned,
unheard, and sentenced either to the fortress or to Siberia, where every
foot of the soil has been wet with the tears of exiles, some guilty, of
course, but more innocent!”

“Madame is very eloquent in her defense of Nicol Patoff, and her tirade
against our government,” the gendarme said, and I answered:

“Eloquent for the right, you mean! Nicol Patoff was my friend, and
incapable of crime, unless it was that of detesting your atrocious
government, which I do most heartily. I am glad I am an American, and
not a Russian, subject to your laws!”

Womanlike, I was half crying, and my voice sounded croaky, and I hated
myself for it, and hated the gendarme, who was certainly laughing at me,
while my companions stood aghast, wondering what would be the result of
my outburst. We had nothing to fear, for however stern and
uncompromising the gendarme might be in the discharge of his duty, he
was very kind to us, and, after I ceased speaking, he said: “If I ever
find Patoff, and I may do so, I will tell him your opinion of him and
our government. It will please him vastly, if all I know of him is
true.”

“What do you know of him?” I demanded. “You have questioned us about
him, and now I ask you, what has he done?”

“Nothing which I can tell you now,” was the good-humored reply. “I can
only tell you what you probably know—that this is the house you are
looking for, but no Patoffs live here now.” He hesitated a moment, then
added: “It belongs to my family—to me! Would you like to go in?”

We had stood upon the sidewalk so long that the few passers-by began to
look at us curiously and with suspicion, as if the presence in our midst
of a gendarme boded evil to some of us, and one or two stopped to see
what would follow. It was to me that Michel had addressed his
invitation, and before I could answer and decline, as I meant to do,
although I wished very much to see Nicol’s old home, he said: “It is
perfectly proper for you to do so. Tourists not infrequently visit
private houses when the owner is gone—for a compensation, of course. In
this case there is no compensation. The owner is here, and invites you
to enter. Will you come?”

“Yes, Miss Lucy, do. It will be something to tell at home,” Mary
entreated, while Chance leaped upon me and then ran ahead, as if he were
adding his invitation to his master’s.

I could not well resist, and gave a rather unwilling assent, wondering
whom we should meet inside—what woman, I meant. This question was soon
settled by the gendarme, who said, as he ushered us into a long
reception room, which, to my Yankee eyes, looked untidy and uncared for:
“You must excuse whatever is amiss, and I am afraid there is a great
deal out of order, according to your code of housekeeping. I am just now
living a bachelor’s life, as my mother has gone into the country for the
summer, and Russian servants are not like the Yankees. I don’t suppose
the house has all been swept since she went away. Now, what would you
like to see most?” he asked, as we stood looking around us rather
awkwardly.

“Oh, everything,” Mary replied; “the bedrooms and the kitchen. I’ve
heard the latter was awful; not yours, especially, but everybody’s.”

She was certainly irrepressible and rude, and I tried to stop her, but
the gendarme, who seemed pleased with her sprightliness, laughed
good-naturedly, and said: “You are right, I think, and a Russian kitchen
is a terror, particularly when the mistress is gone, and Chance and I
keep house. As to bedrooms, my mother and I are civilized enough each to
have one, but in some grand houses the master and mistress ignore such
trivial things as bedrooms, and sleep on couches improvised as beds,
while the servants sleep on the floor, or where they can find a place.”

“Horrible!” was Mary’s exclamation, as she held up her short dress, as
if fearful of contamination.

Evidently the gendarme was proud of his house, leaving the kitchen out
of the question. That we did not see, nor madame’s bedroom, nor his; but
he took us through suites of rooms on the walls of which were some fine
pictures, while the massive furniture had once been very handsome and
costly. But the heavy brocade upholsterings were faded and frayed; the
solid rosewood and mahogany tables and chairs were tarnished and
scratched; there was dust everywhere, and one of the small, silken
couches was evidently Chance’s bed, when he chose to make it so, for he
sprang upon it and lay down, with his tongue lolling and his eyes
watching us intently.

“I think it awful untidy. Where are the servants, I wonder?” Mary said
to me, in a low tone, but not so low that the gendarme did not hear her,
and reply: “I think it is rather untidy, but mother will soon right it
up when she comes; she is a raging housekeeper. As to servants, there
are plenty of them, such as they are. I dare say the most of them are
asleep in the sunshine.”

Up to this time I had said but little. Something was choking me, as I
went through the rooms where Nicol used to live, and I tried to imagine
him there, with his fastidious ideas and his dainty dress, free from
spot or blemish.

“It must have been different then,” I thought, and I said: “Mr. Patoff
told me they sometimes had as many as forty servants in his day.”

“Oh, yes,” the gendarme replied. “No doubt of it. I think we at one time
had sixty, before the emancipation of the serfs, when labor cost
nothing.”

“Sixty!” Mary repeated. “Why, at home if we have one we do well. What
did sixty do?”

“I hardly know,” the gendarme answered her. “I think they fell over each
other, and quarreled, mostly, and only did one thing, and then their
duties were over for that day. We have fewer servants now and better
service.”

Mary arched her eyebrows, as she looked around for signs of service, and
finally wrote with her finger the word “shiftless” in the dust which lay
thickly on the highly polished surface of a handsome inlaid table. If
the gendarme saw it, he made no sign, but took us to the next floor
through other rooms filled with old and expensive furniture, but in none
of which I could have sat down with a homelike feeling. I was beginning
to get tired, and showed it, when he said: “I must take you to my den,
and then I am through.”

He opened a door into a large, airy room looking out upon the Nevsky and
the Neva.

“This is something like it!” Mary exclaimed, pirouetting across the
floor and seating herself in a large easy-chair near the window. “This
is like home,” and she looked around her admiringly.

“I am glad you like it. I come here to rest after a worry with passports
and nihilists,” the gendarme said, with a look which was lost on me.

My attention had been attracted from the first by a full-length portrait
of a young man hanging over the mantel.

“Nicol Patoff!” I exclaimed, clasping my hands with a firm grip, and
feeling the tears spring to my eyes, as my thoughts went back to the old
schoolroom, the lessons learned there, and the handsome young Russian
whom this portrait brought so vividly to my mind.

It must have been taken before he came to America, when he was not more
than twenty, but there was no mistaking the fair, smooth face, the lines
of the mouth just breaking into a laugh, or the expression of the soft,
brown eyes, with that far-away look in them.

“You recognize it?” the gendarme said, and I answered, quickly:
“Recognize it! Of course I do! I should know Nicol wherever I met him,
whether in his old home or in the wilds of Siberia. He was younger when
this was taken than when I knew him. He is an old man now.”

“Yes, very old,” the gendarme replied, sarcastically. “Forty-five, at
least. Old enough to die, if he is not already dead.”

By this time my companions had crowded around the picture, commenting
upon it and wondering where the original was, and how his portrait came
into the possession of the Seguins. It was Mary, as usual, who asked
direct questions.

“Funny his portrait should be here, if he had anywhere to put it. How
came you by it, and where is he?” she asked.

The gendarme did not answer at once, but seemed to be considering what
to say. Then he suddenly grew very communicative.

“As you are so interested in the Patoffs, and some of you knew Nicol,”
he said, “I may tell you that the family was once very wealthy, but
reverses came, and they sold this house to us, with all there was in it.
They were leaving the city for Constantinople, and did not care to take
anything with them. Some time they might return, they said, but they
never have.” He was sitting near an old-fashioned writing desk of
mahogany, and, putting his hand upon it, he continued: “This was Nicol’s
desk, and in it are some souvenirs he must have picked up in America,
and perhaps forgot to take with him, or intended to come back for them.
There is a dollar greenback, a fifty-cent piece, a little silk flag with
stars and stripes, and——!” he hesitated a moment, and then went on: “In
a small, pearl box, and tied with a white ribbon, is a long curl of
hair—a woman’s hair. Please let me open that window. You look faint, and
it is very warm here,” he said, breaking suddenly from his talk of
Nicol’s treasures, and raising a sash behind me, as he saw me gasp for
breath.

The cool air from the river revived me, or I should have fallen, the
atmosphere grew so thick and the room so black as I saw myself a young
girl, under the maple tree, giving a lock of my hair to Nicol Patoff,
who had seemed so eager to get it, and who had cared so little for it as
to leave it with strangers when the house was sold.

“You do look spotted and queer, and it is awful hot in here,” Mary said,
fanning me with her hat; then, turning to the gendarme, she continued:
“A lock of hair, a greenback, a fifty-cent piece and a flag! There is a
romance hidden in this desk. What is the color of the hair?”

She looked at my heavy braids, but her countenance fell when the
gendarme replied: “Black as night!”

I knew he lied, but blessed him for it, feeling sure that he guessed on
whose head the hair once grew, and wished to spare me from Mary’s
badinage.

She was very young and irrepressible, and went on: “Funny he should have
left them, unless he had to run away. Can we see them?”

“Certainly not,” he replied. “It was wrong in me to speak of them,
perhaps, and it would be a greater wrong to show them.”

“I guess you are right,” Mary said, while I made a move toward the door.

The sight of Nicol’s picture, and the mystery attending him, had
affected me strangely, making me faint and sick, and I longed to be in
the fresh air outside.

“You will stay for a cup of tea? Ludovic will prepare it at once, and we
have some rare old china,” the gendarme said, but I declined the tea,
and hurried from the room. As we emerged from the gloomy vestibule into
the summer sunshine, the gendarme said to me, in a tone too low for even
Mary to hear: “You have seen Nicol Patoff’s old home. Could you ever
have lived here with him?”

He had no right to ask me such a question, and I felt my face grow red
and my hair prickle at the roots, as I answered, promptly: “Never with
him, nor anyone else!”

Why I added the last clause I do not know. There had been no reference
to my living there with anyone but Nicol, and that was an impossibility.
The gendarme laughed, and said: “Yankee habits and Russian customs would
not affiliate well, I am sure. It is better for you to be as you are,
and Nicol as he is.”

“Where is he, and of what is he suspected?” I asked, looking the officer
square in his face, while his lids drooped lower over his eyes, and the
ridge on his forehead grew deeper.

“It is too long a story, and madame would believe nothing against Nicol,
if I told her,” he said.

He seemed to take my liking for Nicol for granted, and it made me angry,
but my reply was to thank him for his courtesy in showing us the house,
saying I knew my companions had enjoyed it, and that some of them would
undoubtedly make it a subject for a paper for some of the clubs to which
they belonged.

“Clubs, yes!” he rejoined, with animation. “I hear your country is full
of them. And of societies called for letters of the alphabet, ‘D. A.
R.’s,’ and ‘G. A. R.’s,’ and ‘Y. M. C. A.’s’ and ‘W. C. T. U.’s,’ and
‘Y. P. S. C. E.’s,’ and a host more. I got an American to give me the
list, and what they all meant, and tried to commit it to memory, but
gave it up. I’d like to see an article any of you might write on our
house. I hope you will omit the general untidiness. It is better when
mother is at home,” he said, with a bow, as he bade us good-by, saying
we were welcome to call again whenever we chose. The old porter knew us
now for friends, and would let us in at any time.

“I don’t know why we should ever care to go into that old house again,
smelling of must and rats. Forty servants! And I don’t think the windows
had been washed this summer, or the big salon dusted,” was Mary’s
comment, as we walked rapidly toward our hotel, for it was getting near
dinner time.

During the next week we scoured St. Petersburg as well as eight women
without a guide could scour it, and by some means gained access to
places which our whilom conductor, Henri, who still lounged at the
hotel, told us were impossible to be seen without permits from the
highest authorities. We had no permits, and just walked in, as a matter
of course.

Everything seemed to give way to us, and we went about far more
fearlessly, I think, than the czar, when he occasionally drove into
town, with his armed police beside him. We had no guards—even Chance had
deserted us, and we saw nothing of him or his master after the day we
visited the Patoff house. We passed the place two or three times, and
always stopped a moment to look at it, but there was nothing attractive
in its gloomy, shut-up appearance. The master was evidently absent from
the city, and I was not willing to admit that I missed him; but I did,
and missed Chance more, feeling always a sense of security when he was
with us.

But this did not prevent us from going wherever the fancy took
us—sometimes on the beautiful river, Neva, the glory of the city;
sometimes in _droskies_, which were not so terrible as the first one I
had tried; but oftener on foot, feeling sure that our numbers and
nationality protected us, and gaining courage and daring, until suddenly
confronted with an experience we had not counted upon.




                               CHAPTER V.
                           _THE HIGHWAYMAN._


Of all our party, next to myself, Mary was the fondest of walking, and
went with me oftenest on long excursions. We had driven up and down the
Nevsky two or three times, but had never walked its entire length, as I
proposed doing a few days before our intended departure from the city.
It was one of those bright, sunshiny afternoons, which almost make
amends for the ice and snow in which the city is wrapped a great portion
of the year. There were very few in the street, either in the
fashionable or common part of the Nevsky, and the air was so
invigorating that we felt no fatigue, but walked on and on, past the
Patoff house, which showed some signs of life.

A door and windows were open, and we saw a lackey or two dodging in and
out. Probably the master had returned, and I felt a little thrill of
pleasure at the thought of meeting him again. It was impossible not to
like him for his great friendliness and the many times he had made it
easy for us in a city hedged round with rules and spies and officials
ready to take advantage of us.

For a long time after passing the Patoff house we went on, until at last
we turned into quarters where I had never been. A glance told me that it
was peopled by the poorest class; still, I kept on, noticing how hard
were the faces of the women, and how squalid and dirty were the children
playing by the doors of the houses. I had been anxious to talk with this
class of people, and hear from their own lips a history of their lives
and their much-vaunted adoration of the czar, who could do no wrong!

Here was my opportunity, and I was about to accost a tired-faced woman,
and had bowed to her smilingly, when suddenly I was confronted by a
shabbily dressed young man, whose cringing manner bespoke the
professional beggar. Not knowing that I could understand him, he held
out his hand, and then put it to his mouth, in token of hunger, a trick
I had seen many times in Italy.

“What do you want?” I asked, drawing back from him, as he came so near
to me that I smelled his breath of bad tobacco and vodka.

At the sound of his own language, his face brightened, and he exclaimed:
“God be praised, madame speaks Russian! She is kind, I know, and was
sent to help me, and will give me a few kopecks for my sick wife and two
starving children. I came from Moscow a few weeks ago to get work, but
can find none, with everybody out of the city. Fifty kopecks are all I
ask.”

He was still holding his hand very close to me, and once touched my arm,
while I was thinking what to do, and doubting the propriety of giving
the man the fifty kopecks asked for. It was not a large sum—about
twenty-five cents—for a sick wife and two starving children. In my
weakness—for I am weak where poverty is concerned—I might have yielded
if Mary had not pulled my sleeve, and whispered, frantically: “Come
away, Miss Lucy! The man is an impostor! I believe we are among
thieves!”

He could not have understood her words, but he divined their import, and
instantly his manner changed, from a hungry beggar to that of a resolute
bandit, sure of his prey. Snatching with one hand at the bag at my side,
in which I was supposed to carry money, with the other he clutched at
the ring on my ungloved hand, trying to wrench it from my finger. It was
not a large stone, but a fine one, and its brilliancy in the sunlight
had attracted his notice.

I held to my bag with one hand, but with the other I was powerless, for
he held it as in a vise. I felt there was no use appealing to the women
near us for help. They were looking on stolidly, as if a theft in open
day was nothing new to them. One, however—the tired-faced woman to whom
I had bowed—seemed agitated, and suggested that I call the police.

But there were none in sight. The street seemed deserted. Even the
_butki_, or box, on the far corner of the street, or square, where three
men are always supposed to be stationed, to keep order, seemed also
deserted, and I was left to fight my antagonist alone, with the probable
result of being defeated. Suddenly, like an inspiration, Chance came
into my mind. If he were there, I was safe. I did not know that he was
home, but in my desperation I called, with all my might: “Chance,
Chance, I want you!”

Almost before his name had left my lips, I heard the thud of his feet,
like the hoofbeats of a horse, and knew that he was coming, but not the
Chance I had ever seen before—mild-eyed and gentle as a baby. Every part
of his body was bristling with rage, making him twice as big as usual.
His eyes were red as balls of fire, and his teeth showed white between
his open jaws. If I had not known him, I should have thought him mad,
and, as it was, I felt a little shiver of fear as he came rushing on,
with a low, angry growl, and his head low down.

The bandit’s back was to him, and he did not know the danger threatening
him until Chance came round in front and two big feet struck him in the
stomach, stretching him upon the ground, with Chance standing over him
and looking at me for instructions as to what he should do next. I had
heard some Russian oaths, but never any quite so fierce as those which
came from the lips of the prostrate young man, who had wrenched my bag
from my side, and kept it, with a tight grip.

“Chance,” I said, pointing to the bag, “that is mine. Get it for me!”

He understood, and in a moment the bag was in my hand, and on that of
the bandit was an ugly wound, where Chance’s teeth had been. The dog
still kept his place over the fallen man, growling angrily whenever his
foe attempted to rise.

“Please, lady, call him off!” the man pleaded, his face white and his
teeth chattering with terror.

I was nearly as white as he was, and trembling in every limb, as I stood
looking at him.

“Oh, please let me go before he nabs me!” he continued, as, lifting up
his head, he looked down the long street, where a policeman was just
appearing in response to a tardy summons from the _butki_. “I’ve been in
a dungeon, I’ve had the knout, and they did not make me any better. Let
me go,” he said. “I did wrong, and am sorry!”

The knout and dungeon had an ugly sound. All my womanly pity awoke for
the wretch, who was little more than a boy.

“I’ll give you another chance to do better,” I said, bidding the dog
come to me, which he did rather unwillingly, growling savagely as the
man sprang up, and, picking up his hat, exclaimed: “Thanks, lady! I’ll
not forget it!” and then disappeared into some den or alley.

The women began to gather around me by this time, all talking together,
and evidently so pleased at the escape of the thief that I was almost as
much afraid of them as of him. The tired-faced woman, however, who had
suggested the police, was different, and, when she asked me to sit down,
I assented, for I was very tired, and went toward her door.

“Wait a moment,” she said, as she saw me about to sit upon the doorstep,
which was rather dusty, but which I preferred to a seat inside, because
it was in the open air.

Bringing a broom, she swept the step clean, and, taking off her apron,
folded it and laid it down for a cushion for Mary and me, while she took
a seat inside the door. Mary was nearly in a state of collapse with
fright, and did not refuse a drink of the vodka a woman offered her in a
broken cup. The strong liquor, which nearly strangled her, did her good,
for she sat up in a moment and began to pull her dress away from contact
with those near her.

Chance had stretched himself at my feet, but his head was up and alert,
as if scenting mischief. Evidently he did not like the neighborhood, for
he looked at me occasionally, as if asking why I was here, and why I did
not leave. Several children gathered round him, timidly at first; then,
as they gained courage, putting their little, dirty hands on his shaggy
side, and calling him Chance, and a good dog, to which attention he
responded rather indifferently, with a whack or two of his bushy tail.

“Do they all know him?” I asked, in some surprise, and forgetting that
they had heard me call his name.

“Oh, yes,” the woman answered. “We all know Michel Seguin’s dog—a better
detective, they say, than his master, if he chooses to use him, which he
not often does.”

The policeman now came up, and began to question the crowd as to the
recent disturbance. At sight of him, the children drew back and huddled
closely together, but the women stood their ground, and began to tell
the story, but shielded the thief as much as possible. A man had
snatched at madame’s purse, and she had set the dog on him, was the
amount of information, until a child called out, in a little piping
voice, as she pointed toward me:

“Ask her. She talks our way.”

Scanning me very closely, as if I had been some rare curiosity, the man
said: “You are the American madame who speaks our language so well?”

I did not like his face or his manner. He was brusque and rough, and
different from any gendarme with whom I had come in contact, but I
replied that I was from America, and could speak his language.

“Tell me, then,” he said, “the right of this row. I can make nothing
from the jargon of these cattle, who evidently wish to shield their
friend.”

I told him the story briefly, and described the man as well as I could.

“Carl Zimosky, by Heaven!” he exclaimed, bringing his fist down upon his
side, and addressing himself to the women, one of whom nodded.

Then, turning to me, with an angry frown, he continued: “And _you_ let
him escape! _You_ let Carl Zimosky go, when you might have kept him so
easily! Carl Zimosky is one of the worst felons we have, and is slippery
as an eel—a thief and a pickpocket. A sick wife and two starving
children! He has no wife, nor children. He is not twenty-one. We have
had him up twice.”

“Yes, he told me he had been in a dungeon and under the knout, and they
made him worse,” I said, looking at him very calmly and coolly.

“And perhaps that is the reason you let him go. You thought him a
nihilist, and I’ve been told you sympathize with them. Madame,” he
continued, his voice growing louder and his manner so offensive that
Chance got up, looked at him and growled, shook his sides, looked at me,
and lay down again, nearer to me, with his head stretched forward, as if
listening, while the gendarme went on: “Madame, these things may do in
the United States, but not here in Russia! You may get into trouble, if
you _are_ a woman and an American!”

He fairly swelled with importance as he delivered this threatening
speech, which did not move me, except to make me angry. I was not
afraid. I knew that, at a word from me, Chance would have him by the
throat, and of what might come after that I did not think or care.

“Sir!” I began, rising to my feet, in order to look over the heads of
the women, who at the man’s angry words had gathered in front of me,
like a fence, to keep me from harm. “Sir! do you think I am going to
stay all the afternoon keeping guard over Carl Simpsy, or Simpson, or
whatever his name is, waiting for you, or some other laggard, to come?
Where were you, that you were not attending to your business? I have
seen policemen in all parts of the city except here, where, it seems,
they are needed——”

“And where you ought never to have come,” he interrupted, in a much
lower tone than he had at first assumed. “It is no place for women,
alone, and I don’t believe you’d got away with any money or jewelry you
may have about you now, if it were not for that dog. Where, in Heaven’s
name, did he come from? I thought Seguin was out of town. This Zimosky
is suspected of robbing his house last night, and we are looking for
him.”

“Robbed Michel Seguin’s house!” I exclaimed, a half wish throbbing
through my brain that I had detained the man.

The gendarme must have guessed my thought, for he said, with a sneering
smile: “Madame feels differently now that Seguin is concerned. I have
heard you were very friendly with him.”

I was too angry to answer, and I felt that my face was as red as my
hair. The women began at once to ask questions concerning the robbery,
but the gendarme did not deign to answer them. They were _cattle_, as he
had designated them, and, as just then there came a whistle which he
understood, with a scowl at the women and children and a look I did not
like at myself, he walked away in pursuit of some poor wretch—Carl,
perhaps, I thought, as I sat down again upon the doorstep, faint and
tired from my recent encounter.

Only the woman on whose doorstep and on whose apron I was sitting was
willing to talk. She seemed superior to her neighbors, with a look upon
her face as if nothing mattered to her now. In reply to my questions,
she said that Paul Strigoff, the gendarme who had just left us, was one
of the hardest and cruelest of the lot, and he was more a German than a
Russian. Carl had been in prison, and nearly killed with the knout, but
he had his good parts, and would share his last crust or kopecks with a
friend.

“He is”—and she hesitated a moment; then began, in tolerably fair
English; and, when I looked at her in surprise, she explained that she
had once lived in England for a year, and learned the language. “I was
not always what I am now,” she said. “It is a great fall from the Court
Quay to this place, but I have made the descent, and was so bruised and
stunned that life holds nothing for me now—nothing—and what goes on
around me rather amuses me. I have been a suspect—arrested as such, and
put in prison. Oh, the horror and shame of it, and I as innocent as you!
My husband is in Siberia—sent there rightfully, I suppose, according to
the laws of this land. I have no children, thank God, but”—and red spots
began to come out on her thin face—“it is not known to many here—but
Carl is my nephew. A good boy once as ever the sun shone on. But they
arrested him for something he never heard of, and nearly killed him with
the knout to make him confess what he knew nothing of. When satisfied
that they could get nothing from him, they let him go, and he crept to
me in the night, with his poor back all gashed and bleeding, and every
particle of manhood crushed out of him. There is nothing like the knout
administered wrongfully to take the pride from a man and make him a
fiend. Carl is pretty bad now, and does not care. I am sorry he attacked
you, and wonder that he did. He must have had too much vodka. You should
not have come here, and the sooner you go, the better. Your friend is
greatly upset.”

She looked at Mary, who was very white and very busy trying to keep
herself from the children who were pressing round her, and who had been
joined by other children from some quarter. Among them I recognized my
hat, which I had discarded on the first day of my arrival. The same girl
I had then seen with it on was wearing it, and had twisted a piece of
faded blue tarleton around it in place of the ribbon and flower, which,
I suppose, some other child was wearing. At sight of it, I laughed. The
world seemed so small, with many wires converging to the same point, and
just now to this neighborhood, where I knew I ought not to be. But I
must ask the woman a question before I left, and, turning to her, I
said: “Do you know Michel Seguin?”

“Only as a terror to the nihilists and thieves. I’ve never spoken to
him,” she said. “I hear that, although he is quick to catch ’em, he is
kind after they are caught. Very different from Paul Strigoff, who has
come up from the scum of Moscow, and feels his importance as a gendarme,
while Michel Seguin is a gentleman, and comes of a good family.”

“Do you know where he lives?” I asked her next, and she replied: “Yes;
on the Nevsky. He has money, and his mother is a lady.”

“And did you ever know or hear of the Patoff family, who first owned the
house? There was a Nicol Patoff, a young man. Did you ever hear of him?”

“Patoff?” she replied. “No, I don’t know them. They must have left
before I came to St. Petersburg. The Seguins lived there then.”

“Thanks!” I said; “and now I really must go. Come, Mary.”

I stooped to help her up, and, before I got her to her feet and away
from the woman, who was again offering her vodka, I was conscious that
some new impulse had been given to the crowd, which had pressed
disagreeably near to me as I bent over Mary. The children began to
scatter, and in the distance I saw my hat, worn hindside before, and
bobbing up and down on the frowsy head of the peasant girl. The women,
too, began to move off toward their own homes, while Chance started up,
and, with a joyous bark, ran swiftly up the street, where a tall
gendarme was coming toward us with rapid strides and swinging a little
cane, which I had heard could, on occasion, make itself felt.

“Michel Seguin!” I almost screamed, as I clutched Mary’s arm and drew
her along with me. “Oh, I am so glad,” I said, stretching out my
disengaged hand to Michel, who took it, while with his other hand he
relieved me of Mary, who, at sight of him, began to recover her strength
and courage.

And so, without a word of inquiry or explanation, we walked away from
that quarter to the Nevsky, which had never seemed so bright and
pleasant as it did when we at last sat down upon a bench, with Michel
between us, still holding our hands, as if he had us in custody.

“Now, tell me,” he said, “how came you in that quarter, of all others?
It is no place to walk. What took you there?”

“My miserable curiosity,” I said, with a sob in my voice. “I wanted to
explore new places, and see all sorts and conditions of people.”

“I think you probably saw them,” he answered. “I reached home about
noon. I saw you go by, but was too busy to speak to you. Knowing your
fondness for long walks, I concluded you were taking one, but as time
passed, and you did not return, I sent Chance to find you. But what
happened to upset you so?”

It was Mary who began to tell the story. I could not. The thought of it
made me faint again, and, without knowing it, I leaned rather heavily
against Michel, while, in a voice half choked with nervous tears, Mary
related our experience with the thief, and the part Chance had in it.

The dog seemed to know what she was saying, for he stamped his feet and
shook his head, turned a somersault or two, and finally came and,
putting his nose in his master’s lap, looked earnestly at him for
commendation. “Good Chance,” was all the return he could get, for both
the gendarme’s hands were in use, one holding me, the other holding
Mary, while he listened with rapt attention, and, when she mentioned the
name of the thief, he started and let go my hand.

“Carl Zimosky!” he repeated. “He is the most expert thief we have. I
never knew him openly attack one in daylight before. Such things are not
common. There are too many police around, besides the three in the
_butkis_.”

“Great good they did us!” I exclaimed. “I don’t believe they were on
guard, or else they were asleep, and your fine policeman, Paul Strigoff,
took his time to get to us, and, when he came, he was exceedingly
insolent because I had let the thief go.”

“Paul Strigoff!” and Michel laughed; “and so you fell in with him, too!
You did have an adventure! Paul and Carl! I wish myself you could have
kept the latter till we found whether he had my watch.”

“Your watch!” I repeated, remembering, suddenly, what I had heard of his
house being robbed. “Was your house really entered? Strigoff said so.”

“Yes,” he answered. “When I reached home, I found the servants in a
great commotion. My house had been entered by some one, a quantity of
silver taken, and a gold watch, which I prized very highly,
because—because——” he hesitated, then went on: “It is an American watch,
made in Waltham, and, you know, they are valuable. It was Nicol’s. He
brought it home with him, and it has ‘Ridgefield’ on it, and the date
when he bought it.”

“How came you by it?” I asked, rather sharply, and he replied: “Just as
I came by the house and the other articles. All fair, as I once told
you. The Patoffs were not cheated.”

Here was a new complication, with Nicol in it. I remembered the watch
perfectly. It was bought at a jeweler’s in Ridgefield, who kept only the
best wares. Nicol had seemed rather proud of it and consulted it
frequently if the day was hot, the lessons hard and his pupils stupid
and anxious to be free.

“And you suspect Carl Zimosky?” I asked, in an unsteady voice.

“Yes, we always suspect him. He is what you Americans call a bad
egg—into one scrape as soon as he is out of another.”

“And I let him go!” I said. “He begged so hard and looked so scared; but
I’ll try and get the watch for you if he has it.”

“You!” and he laughed derisively. “Will you turn detective, and go into
the dives after him? He eludes us every time.”

“No,” I answered, thinking of the tired-faced woman, his aunt, whom they
called Ursula. I should work through her, but I did not say so, as I did
not wish to bring her into the trouble if I could help it.

“I do not know for sure that he has the watch, but I am sure you cannot
get it if he has,” the gendarme said.

“Let me try, and don’t go after him until I have given him up,” I said.
“He has been in prison once and under the knout, and his back is all cut
and scarred. It is horrible, and I hate the whole system, and am glad we
are going away in a few days.”

“Going away so soon?” the gendarme asked, and in his voice there was
genuine regret such as we feel when parting from a friend.

“Yes,” I answered, not quite in the tone I had at first assumed.

I could not understand the influence this man had over me, or the sense
of restfulness I felt as I walked beside him on the Nevsky, till we
reached his house, which, at his invitation, we entered, hearing from
the porter and a head servant an account of the robbery, which was so
adroitly done as to leave in their minds no doubt that the thief was
Carl Zimosky.

“But we’ll get him, we’ll get him,” the porter said, with a shake of his
gray head, “and the knout will soon make him give up the plunder, if he
has it.”

I shuddered, but made no remark. I meant to get the watch, if Carl had
it, though how I scarcely knew. It was growing late, and I was too tired
to walk the remaining distance to the hotel. I would take a _drosky_, I
said, and, with Mary, was soon being hurled along the street in an old
vehicle and at a pace which threatened the dislocation of our limbs, if
indeed we were not thrown into the street.

If anyone at the hotel had heard of the robbery at Michel Seguin’s
house, nothing was said of it, and by mutual consent Mary and I kept our
own counsel with regard to our adventure. We had had a long walk and
been in a queer part of the city, we said, when questioned, and that was
all. I was more tired and excited than I had ever been in my life, and I
made my fatigue an excuse for retiring early to my room, where I lay
awake far into the night, devising means for getting Michel’s watch, if
possible, from the hands of Carl Zimosky, if he had it, or through him
from the one who did have it.




                              CHAPTER VI.
                              _THE WATCH._


I changed my mind with regard to leaving St. Petersburg in three days,
and decided to stay a week longer. For this change I made no explanation
except to Mary, whom I took into my confidence, telling her of my
intended visit to Ursula and asking her to go with me. At first she
shrank from the idea in alarm, but finally consented, and on the
afternoon of the second day after our adventure, we started again for
what Mary called the thieves’ quarters. To save time we took a _drosky_
nearly to the end of the Nevsky, and walked the rest of the way. It was
a warm afternoon and the street was swarming with children who, at sight
of us, set up a clamor. “She’s come again—the madame who talks as we
do,” and they began to gather around us; but I waved them off so
imperatively that they did not even touch us with their hands as I went
forward to where Ursula was again sitting in her door mending some
garments which I knew intuitively belonged to her scapegrace nephew. She
looked surprised when she saw us, but arose at once and asked us to come
in instead of sitting upon the steps, as we had done before. Her room
was neat and clean and homelike, although poorly furnished and showing
signs of poverty.

“Please keep them out,” I said, motioning to the children, some of whom
followed us in. “My business with you is private.”

An expression I did not quite like came upon her face as she sent the
children away, and then, speaking in English, said: “What is it? Why
have you come again?”

I told her very briefly that everything pointed to Carl as the thief who
had entered Michel Seguin’s house, and why I was interested to get the
watch, if possible. “Do you think Carl has it?” I asked.

Her needle came unthreaded just then, and after biting the end of her
thread several times and making several jabs at the eye of her needle,
she took up the poor old coat, patched in many places, and replied: “I
don’t think—I never know what he has, nor what he does except as I hear
it. I’ll not deny that the police have been here after him, but they
didn’t get him. He’s cute,” and she smiled in a proud kind of way at the
boy’s cuteness in eluding the vigilance of the gendarmes.

“Do you see him often?” I asked, and she replied: “Yes, and no; if he is
hard pressed he stays where they can’t find him. Late at night he comes
in to see me.”

“Can you communicate with him when you wish to?” I asked next, and she
replied: “Yes, we have ways and means—a kind of underground railroad
such as your people used to have when you had a slavery not half as
crushing as ours.”

“You are a nihilist,” I said, and instantly her face flamed up, then
grew pale, as she replied: “Of course I am. Half of us are nihilists at
heart. Not that we want to kill the czar. That’s murder. We want a freer
government, like yours, where we dare call our souls our own and are not
watched at every turn.”

We were getting away from the object of my visit, and I came back to it
by saying: “Will you see Carl and ask him to bring you the watch? I
don’t care for the silver; it is the watch I want. I let him go when I
might have kept him till the gendarme came. I think there is enough good
in him to do me this favor.”

“He may do it for you. He was very grateful. Paul Strigoff is a devil,”
she said; then she added, suddenly: “You and Michel Seguin are great
friends.”

[Illustration: “MARRY HIM! MARRY A RUSSIAN! NEVER!”]

I did not know whether we were or not, but it was safe to answer in the
affirmative and that he had been very kind to us all since we first met
him.

“He is of a good family and ought to be something better than a hunter
of criminals. People wonder he took it up. Would you marry him?” was her
next question.

“Marry him! Marry a Russian! Never!” I exclaimed, so loud that she
started in her chair. Her spectacles fell off and her needle came
unthreaded again.

“They are not so bad if you get the right one,” she said, adjusting her
glasses and making more jabs at the eye of her needle.

I threaded it for her, and as there was nothing to gain by stopping
longer, I took my leave, after bidding her let me know at once if she
had good news for me.

“To-morrow,” was her reply, and I left her patching the old coat which
made me faint to look at, it spoke so plainly of poverty and the scenes
it must have been in, for I believed it was the one Carl had worn when I
met him, and that the rent which Ursula was mending was made by Chance’s
big paws.

Quite a retinue of children attended us for a ways, and among them my
old hat was conspicuous again, worn this time right side before, with a
piece of an old blue veil twisted round it and round the girl’s face.
That night seemed interminable as I waited for the to-morrow and what it
might bring from Ursula. It brought a note addressed in a fair hand, and
containing only the words: “Come this afternoon at two o’clock, and
alone.”

I did not quite like the word alone, but did not hesitate a moment. But
how should I manage it? What excuse should I make to my friends who were
already looking upon me as something of a crank? At last I decided to
make no excuse except that I was going out on business and alone, with
the exception of Chance, who was already waiting outside the hotel, as
he had waited every morning since my adventure with Carl. Mary suspected
where I was going, but said nothing, and at a little before two I was
driving along the Nevsky till I reached a point where I alighted,
telling the driver I would walk the rest of the way. Chance was in high
spirits, sometimes running far ahead of me and then bounding back to my
side. The moment I turned into the street, or square, where Ursula lived
his whole attitude changed. His fur seemed rough and his head was
lowered to the ground as he started on a racing gallop as if in pursuit
of something. He was usually obedient to my call, and I succeeded in
getting him back and kept my hand upon his neck until I reached Ursula’s
house. There were not as many children in sight as usual. They had gone
on a picnic and the street was very quiet. Ursula was watching for me,
but her countenance fell when she saw Chance pulling to get free.

“I thought you would come alone,” she said. “I am afraid of that dog.”

“He is harmless if there is nothing to be harmed,” I replied, taking the
chair she offered me and still holding Chance, who tugged to get away
from me, and finally did so, beginning to run in circles around the room
and to scratch at a door which, I think, opened into a bedchamber and in
which I heard a rustling sound as of some one moving. “Carl is in
there,” I said to Ursula, who replied, after listening a moment, while
Chance continued banging at the door with his huge paws: “He was there.
He is not now, thank God! He has a way of leaving the place unknown to
anyone but ourselves. And he has taken it. He saw the dog coming with
you and was afraid like myself. I sent for him last night and told him
what you wanted. He had the watch and promised to bring it this
afternoon and give it to you himself. He wanted to thank you personally
for letting him go that day and to tell you he was not all bad and was
going to do better. He brought the watch, but dare not face the dog.”

She arose and went into the bedroom, followed by Chance, who acted as if
he would tear up the floor and ceiling, until I quieted him by the first
blow I had ever given him, and which wrung from him a look of intense
surprise as he crouched at my feet with his nose on the floor as if
scenting something.

“Do you recognize it?” Ursula asked, putting the watch in my hands. “It
has a name and date on the lid.”

I knew it was Nicol’s without the name, and the touch of it was like the
touch of a vanished hand not dead in reality to my knowledge, but dead
to me except so far as memory was concerned, and the sight of it brought
Nicol as vividly to mind as when I was the pupil and he the
teacher—young, handsome and strong in all that makes a man strong
mentally and physically, and I could hear his voice calling me _Lucy_,
as he did once or twice when we were alone, and his soft, brown eyes
looked at me as no other eyes since had ever looked. Where was he now,
and what the mystery surrounding him? And——

[Illustration: “I THOUGHT YOU WOULD COME ALONE. I AM AFRAID OF THAT
DOG.”]

There came over me a flash of heat which made my blood boil, as I
thought: “Could Chance find him from this clew?” Then as quickly I
answered: “No. I will get the truth from Michel Seguin when I give him
back his property.”

As I turned to go I offered Ursula money for Carl. But with a proud
gesture she refused it. “He thought you might do it and said he should
not take it. He was not as mean as that,” she said, giving me a box in
which to put the watch which was ticking as loudly and evenly as it had
done years ago in the schoolhouse in Ridgefield. I wanted to give the
woman something to show my gratitude to her, and offered her the stick
pin which held my scarf. But she declined it; then, with a wistful look
at the knot of red, white and blue ribbon which I always wore, she asked
if I had another like it. I had, and at once gave her the knot, which
she took with thanks.

“It is the badge of a free country,” she said, “where I once thought to
go. It is too late now for me, but if Carl could get there it might make
a good man of him. Here he can do nothing but _hide_—_hide_—till he is
caught again, and then Siberia, or a dungeon!”

I was sorry for the woman, whose dim old eyes were full of tears as she
bade me good-by, saying: “You will not betray my boy by telling where he
was when you got the watch?”

“Never!” I answered, and kissed the tired, white face which I might
never see again.

I did not know what Mrs. Grundy would say when she saw a lone woman stop
at Michel Seguin’s house, nor did I care. I was at a point where Mrs.
Grundy’s opinion did not matter, and I bade the driver of the _drosky_
leave me at Monsieur Seguin’s door, after ascertaining that he was at
home. His face was one of intense surprise when he saw me, and mingling
with the surprise was a look of pleasure as he came forward to meet me.

“What is it? What has happened?” he asked, for I was shaking with
excitement.

“Let me go to your room—Nicol’s room, and I will tell you,” I said.

He led the way to his den, and opening the box, I put the watch upon the
table without a word.

“_What!_” he exclaimed, springing forward and taking it up. “My watch!
Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t find it,” I said. “I got it through Carl. No matter how, nor
when. He brought it to me, but the silver I did not get.”

“I don’t care for the silver,” he said, a little impatiently. “It was
the watch I prized, because——”

He stopped abruptly and seemed to be thinking, while I was nerving
myself for what I meant to do.

“You would make a splendid detective,” he said at last. “How can I thank
you?”

Here was my chance. “You can thank me first,” I replied, “by letting
that boy alone for a while, and if he is arrested again, don’t be harsh
or cruel with him. There is good there which the knout will never
improve.”

“Promised!” he said. “I’ll look after the lad myself, for your sake.”

The tone of his voice said what his half-shut eyes could not express,
and I felt the blood tingling in my veins as I went on hurriedly:

“You can also tell me the mystery surrounding Nicol and why he is in
hiding where even you cannot find him. You are a man and I am a woman—no
longer young, and so I do not mind telling you that I liked Nicol Patoff
very much, and I should be so glad to see him, and—and——”

Here I began to choke; but I swallowed hard, put aside all shame, and
went on: “You have a lock of hair which he left when he went away. You
said it was _black_; I know better; it is _red_, bright red—the color
mine was when a young girl. It is darker now. He asked me for it, and I
gave it to him. I want it back. It is mine, not yours. Will you give it
to me?”

His eyes were wider open now than I had ever seen them, and startled me
with an expression I could not define, but which made me wish I was not
there talking to him.

“As Nicol’s property I must keep it with the watch until such time as he
can claim them openly,” he said at last. “I know he thought more of the
hair than of the watch. I cannot give it up.”

His manner was decided, and I felt my temper rising, but forced it down;
for there was one more favor I would ask, and then I would say good-by
to him forever.

“You have refused to give me the hair, but you have promised to be kind
to Carl for my sake. Will you be equally lenient toward Nicol, should he
be arrested and under your authority? Do you think you could do anything
to help him? They say you are all powerful with your friends. Will you
try to have Nicol’s punishment a little lighter? I don’t know what he
has done, but don’t let them give him the knout, nor the dungeon, nor
Siberia, _nor anything_.”

I was choking now and standing up, with my hands clinched so tightly
that my nails hurt my flesh, while he, too, stood with his eyes closed,
his chin quivering, and his teeth pressed tightly over his under lip.
When he spoke his voice was strained and unnatural, as he said: “Pardon
me for what I am going to say. Do you love Nicol Patoff? Would you marry
him if he stood high in St. Petersburg?”

He had asked me a similar question once before, and, as then, I now
answered quickly: “No, I could not marry a Russian. I hate your
government machinery. I should be a nihilist in a month, and my house
would be a rendezvous for them.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but you have not answered my most important
question: ‘Do you love Nicol Patoff?’ I have no right to ask you, but do
you?”

He seemed terribly in earnest, and I recoiled a step from him as I
answered: “No! I esteemed him as a friend, nothing more; and since I
have known he was in danger I have felt a great interest in him; but
love him—marry him—I couldn’t. I have answered you, and now tell me, can
you shield him if he is found?”

“I think I can,” was his reply.

“And will you?”

“I will.”

“And will you tell him that I have not forgotten him?”

“I will,” were the replies and answers which followed rapidly as we
walked side by side to the street, where I gave him my hand and said:
“We shall certainly leave in two or three days, and I may not see you
again. I must thank you for all the kindness you have shown us, helping
us over rough places and in many ways, but most I thank you for Chance,
who has been invaluable at times.”

He was still holding my hand and looking at me as if there was something
he wished to say and was struggling to keep back. Whatever it was he did
not say it, but, dropping my hand quickly, hailed a _drosky_, into which
he put me, and, with a simple “Good-by,” turned back to his house. I
made no explanation to anyone as to where I had been. I was too tired;
my head ached, and I did not wish for any dinner, I said, and went to
bed early, deciding to leave St. Petersburg as soon as possible. With a
woman’s instinct I felt tolerably sure of the nature of M. Seguin’s
feeling for me, but could not analyze my feelings for him. He both
fascinated and repelled me. I liked him and feared him, for something in
his personality always influenced me more than I cared to be influenced,
and I wished to get away from it.

“We will have just one more day of looking around and then let’s go,” I
said, at breakfast, to my friends, who acquiesced readily, for they
longed for new scenes.

St. Petersburg was monotonous and vexatious. They had shown their
passports and sworn to their nationality and ages and occupations until
they were tired of it, and were quite ready to leave.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                             _ON THE QUAY._


That day we kept together until late in the afternoon, when Mary and I
went for a short walk on the Court Quay. I had seen a few beggars, and
had nearly always given them something, until I believe I was pretty
well known to them as one who could easily be imposed upon, and now as I
saw one coming toward me I began to harden my heart, and involuntarily
put my hand upon the bag Carl had wrenched from me.

But something in the man’s face and attitude struck me as different from
the ordinary beggar; and into the outstretched palm I put a few kopecks,
and was asking where he lived and his name, when a hand was laid roughly
on his shoulder and a harsh voice said: “I can tell you, madame; it
is——”

I did not catch the name. I only knew I was standing face to face with
Paul Strigoff, the gendarme, whom I had met after my encounter with Carl
Zimosky.

There was a taunting sneer on his face as he said to me:

“So madame is playing the charitable? But it is not necessary. She is
mistaken in her man. He is no beggar. We have been looking for him and
have found him at last. His disguise is pretty good, but it did not
deceive _me_.”

He spoke with the utmost pomposity and self-conceit; and I wanted to
knock him down, while I pitied the poor wretch who had fallen into his
clutches and in whose appearance a great change was taking place. His
face grew pale, but took on a very different expression from the one it
had worn when he asked me for alms. Then it had been the face of a
hungry peasant, with little intelligence in it. Now it was that of a man
resolute and defiant, but refined and educated. He had evidently been
playing a hazardous game and had lost. His disguise was detected. He was
a prisoner, with no way of escape, unless——

There was a quick glance toward the Neva, as if help lay in that swift
stream, if he could only reach it. But the gendarme’s grip was firm, and
the man seemed half his size as he cowered in his rags.

Extending his hand to me with the kopecks I had given him, he said, in
fair English:

“Thank you, lady, but take them back; I shall not need them. We have
little use for money where I am going. Please write to No. — Nevsky, and
tell her I have been arrested, and tell Sophie and Ivan——”

He did not finish the sentence, for the gendarme shook him roughly,
commanding him to stop, or speak Russian. As he could not understand a
word of English, he evidently suspected we might be hatching some plot,
and sternly demanded to know what we were saying. I told him all except
that I was to write to No. — Nevsky. It was well to withhold this, I
thought, and there was a gleam of intense satisfaction in the man’s
eyes, which thanked me more than words could have done.

“God bless you!” he said, in much the same tone of old Ursula when she
bade me good-by, and then he was started for the gloomy fortress.

In my excitement I stepped in front of him and, stopping him for an
instant, grasped his hand and said:

“Good-by and God pity you! I shall pray for you every day.”

It was a bold thing to do in the teeth of Paul Strigoff, who scowled at
me threateningly and asked again what I had been saying, and if I knew I
was sympathizing with one of the most notorious nihilists alive.

“He is more dangerous than your thief, Carl Zimosky,” he added.

The prisoner made no sign that he heard or cared, until Carl was
mentioned; then he looked up quickly, with a flash of resentment, it
seemed to me, at being classed with a thief. It was then that I noticed
more particularly his finely-cut features and dark, expressive eyes,
which, in spite of his courage, had in them such a look of terror and
despair as I shall never forget.

I made no reply to the gendarme and walked away, not knowing but I might
be arrested as a suspect and sympathizer with anarchists.

Arrived at our hotel I wrote my promised letter, with no clew to guide
me except the number, “Ivan,” “Sophie” and “her.” The “her” was probably
his wife, and I addressed her as madame and told her the particulars of
the arrest and that the man had evidently wished to send some word to
“Ivan” and “Sophie.” I would not trust my note to the mail, but sent it
by a private messenger from the hotel to the number on the Nevsky, which
I found was in a more fashionable quarter than M. Seguin’s house.

The excitement of the last few days, added to the heat, which was
intense, proved too much for me, and instead of leaving St. Petersburg
the next day, I was in bed with what would have proved a case of nervous
prostration if I had not fought it with all my will power. At first I
rebelled against the detention, for I was anxious to leave St.
Petersburg behind me; but as the days went by I was glad of the illness
which brought me so many unknown friends. These were not tourists—they
were too busy with sight-seeing to do more than ask how I was and pass
on—but the citizens, people whom I did not know, who surprised me by
their frequent inquiries and the profusion of flowers they sent, until
my room was like a great garden, and the doctor ordered some of them to
be taken out, as the perfume was so strong. No name ever came with the
flowers but once, and that touched me closely.

Around a bunch of pinks a paper was twisted, and on it was written:


“Carl is doing better. He has sent the silver back, and seen the
gendarme.

                                                                URSULA.”


I cried when Mary read me the note, which I still have, together with a
few of the faded pinks pressed between the leaves of my Bible. I cried
again when another bouquet came, this time beautiful hothouse roses,
tied with a broad white ribbon, to which was attached a card with the
words: “To our friend, A. N.”

[Illustration: “‘GOD BLESS YOU!’ HE SAID ... AND THEN HE WAS STARTED FOR
THE GLOOMY FORTRESS.”]

“A. N.,” I repeated. “Who is ‘A. N.’? I know no one with those
initials.”

“I have it!” Mary exclaimed, after a moment. “‘A. N.,’ _a nihilist_!
That is what it is, and all these flowers are from the same
source—nihilists, I mean. They have heard a lot about you and wish to
show their gratitude.”

“But I am not a nihilist!” I said.

“No,” Mary replied, “but you have got your name mixed up with them,
defying Paul Strigoff to his face, and letting Carl somebody go, and
calling on an old lady who was once in prison, and a lot more we have
heard, until I believe the hotel people begin to think they are
harboring a suspect and will be glad when we are gone.”

“Not more than I shall be!” I exclaimed, while Mary went on:

“I have not told you that Chance comes every morning and looks at me so
inquiringly that I give him a card, with the words ‘_About the same_,’
‘_Improving_,’ or ‘_Better_’ on it, and he goes off on the run, with the
card held in his mouth. The first time I gave it to him a miserable
censor happened to be outside and demanded to see it. I motioned him to
get it if he could. He tried, but the dog held on till the card was torn
in shreds, and I am not sure that the censor’s hand was not scratched a
little. I wrote another at the desk and held it up to the censor, who of
course could not read it; but he pretended he could, and nodded very
patronizingly, while Chance growled at him and then set off on a gallop
for home. M. Seguin has not been here that I know of, but he has sent
you flowers every day—expensive ones, too, the best he could find—and,
oh! I came near forgetting, a frowsy-headed girl, wearing your old hat,
came bringing a few violets she must have gathered in the country, and
an old _drosky_ driver, looking like a barrel, inquired for ‘little
madame’ at the office, saying he was the first to drive you in the city.
He seemed to think it an honor. I did not tell you all this at the time,
as you were too weak to hear it.”

I turned my face to the wall and cried, until Mary became alarmed and
sent for the doctor. I did not know what I was crying for, but as a
thunder shower clears the sultry atmosphere, tears did me good, and I
was better the next day and the next, and was soon able to start on the
long overland journey to the frontier. Many kind wishes were expressed
by the people in the hotel, and I was the recipient of so many flowers
that I was obliged to leave some of them behind. The old barrel-shaped
man who boasted of having given me my first drive in the city stood
outside, smartened up with a new wadded garment tied around the waist
with a piece of red cord like that with which we sometimes hang
pictures.

“Would little madame do him the honor to let him drive her to the train?
He would promise to go slowly, and not break her bones!”

I could not refuse, and so it came about that in the same old rattletrap
in which I first rode through the streets of St. Petersburg, I was
driven to the station, the old man stopping occasionally to ask if the
little madame was comfortable and was he driving too fast.

“No, no,” I cried, “go on; we may be late.”

“All right!” and he shook the strips of leather which could not have
restrained his horse a moment had he chosen to use his strength.

Near the station there was quite a motley crowd of people, some well
dressed, some otherwise. My hat was bobbing up and down in the midst as
if the wearer were trying to get a sight of me, and I caught a glimpse
of Ursula and, near her, Carl, who boldly waved his hat. A moment after,
my old hat went up in the air, showing two streamers of some soiled
stuff at the back.

What did it mean? Had they come to see me off, and were these the people
who had sent me so many flowers? The possibility brought a big lump into
my throat. Then I wondered if M. Seguin would be there to say good-by,
not caring to confess how disappointed I should be if he were not.

He was there with Chance, who put his big paws on my shoulders, with a
low kind of _woof_, as if he knew I was going and was sorry. In my weak
state tears came easily, and they fell like rain as I put my arms around
the noble brute’s neck and bade him good-by. M. Seguin was there
ostensibly on official business, but he attended to our tickets and
passports and made it very easy for us to leave.

“Do you know you are having a unique send off?” he said. And when I
asked what he meant, he replied:

“Do you notice that group of people in the streets? They are your
friends. I saw the tangle-haired girl to whom you gave your hat among
them, with Ursula and Carl Zimosky. He brought back the silver himself,
knowing the risk he ran. He said he was trying to do better for your
sake, because you kept him from Paul Strigoff. I believe every mother’s
son and daughter there in the street is a nihilist at heart, and they
think you are one with them and are showing their gratitude.”

I could not answer for that lump in my throat, but at the very last I
put a limp, clammy hand into his broad, warm one and tried to thank him
again for all his kindness to us.

“Don’t, please,” he said, very low. “For anything I have done I have
been more than repaid in knowing you—the fearless American woman who
dares say what she thinks. I shall not forget you, and some time you
will come again.”

I shook my head and hurried toward my companions, who were motioning me
to make haste. There was not much need of haste, I thought, as the
trains seldom start on time, but this one did, and in a few minutes we
were on our long journey of five hundred and sixty miles to the
frontier. It was monotonous and wearisome, with nothing to interest us
or to look at except the brown plains and forests of pines and silver
birches, and at rare intervals a village of twenty mud cottages or more,
with a few peasants working in the fields. It was very tiresome, and
when at last it ended and we crossed the frontier into Germany eight
women simultaneously said: “Thank God!” And yet in the heart of one of
the eight there was a lingering regret for all she was leaving; and she
felt, too, a throb of sympathy and gratitude for the strangers in the
street who had waved her a farewell and sent after her, she was sure, a
fervent “God bless you!”




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                          _SOPHIE SCHOLASKIE._


Three years later I was again in Europe, traveling with my nephew and
niece, Katy and Jack, the motherless children of my only sister. We had
seen a great deal, for the young people were full of life and health,
and eager to see everything—not once, but twice and sometimes three
times. I was getting tired and glad of a rest in Paris, where at the
Bellevue I was taking my breakfast one morning in our salon, while Katy
and Jack were looking up some route presumably to Italy, our next
objective point. They were evidently greatly interested and even
excited, but were talking so low that I could not catch a word, as I sat
and watched them with feelings of pride and half envy of their youth and
spirits which could enjoy everything and endure everything.

Katy was a beautiful girl of eighteen, with large blue eyes and a sweet,
flower-like face, and hair something the shade mine had been when young,
but much darker, with glints of reddish gold showing on it in the
sunlight. I was very proud of Katy and of her brother Jack, with his
frank, handsome face and a manliness about him one would hardly expect
in a lad of fifteen. He had constituted himself the leader of our party
and usually had the best route and trains and hotels picked out, and I
felt sure the subject of their discussion now was the journey to Italy.
It was the last of November and the wind was blowing cold and raw
through the boulevards, and the basket of wood Louis brought us gave but
little heat.

I was always cold, and was longing for Naples and Sorrento, and was upon
the point of suggesting that we start at once, when Katy, whose dead
mother looked at me through her blue eyes, and to whom I seldom refused
a request, startled me by saying, a little hesitatingly, as if she did
not quite know how I would take it:

“Jack and I have been looking up the route and how long it will take,
and we want to go to Russia. You remember those people from Boston whom
we met last week at the Louvre. Well, we met them again yesterday, when
you were not with us. They were in Russia last winter, and, say, you
might as well not come to Europe at all as not to go there in the
winter. I don’t care for Rome and the pope and the Vatican and the Forum
and the house where Paul lived. I want to see Russia!”

“See Russia!” I gasped. “Have you any idea how cold it is there, or will
be soon?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, “the Boston people told us ever so much and
loaned us a book. Jack and I read up about it last night after you went
to bed. You wondered why we were up so late. We read till midnight, and,
like the girl who had been in Rome eight days and knew it thoroughly, we
know Russia pretty well—St. Petersburg, I mean. That’s where we want to
go—the place where your hat freezes to your head, your veil to your
face, and if you shut your eyes when they are full of water your lids
freeze together. That’s what some writer says, and I want to know if it
is true, and see St. Isaac’s and the fortress, and the Winter Palace,
and skate on the Neva. It’s such fun, the Hales said. That’s the name of
the Boston family—Hale——”

“And I,” Jack began, coming forward with a map in his hand, “I want to
see the czar and his wife and the grand dukes and all his folks, and the
funny old coachmen, stuffed till they look like barrels, and I want an
adventure with a gendarme and a nihilist, such as you had; and oh! I
want to see Chance, if he is still alive. And I want to see the three
houses so big that it takes you half an hour to walk past them. I don’t
believe it, but I want to see them just the same. Russia will be jollier
than Italy. Will you go? It will cost a lot, I know, but father will
send us the money. I heard him tell you when we left home to let us see
everything, as it was a part of our education, and we might never come
again. Will you go?”

I was too much surprised to give a direct answer.

“I will think about it,” I said. “Go to the Louvre, or where you like,
and when you come back I will tell you.”

“All right,” Jack said, in the tone of one who has won a victory, while
Katy stooped and kissed me, saying:

“Auntie always means ‘yes’ when she says she will think about it; so,
think hard and fast.”

Then they left me, and I was thinking hard—not so much, I am afraid, of
the proposed trip to Russia as of the incidents of my former visit
there, and I was surprised to find how my heart went out to that far-off
city, which I had never expected to see again, and from which I had
heard but once since my return to America three years ago. Not long
after Christmas there had come to me a package containing eight
photographs of Chance, looking just as he had looked when waiting for me
at the hotel. There was also a letter from M. Seguin, which I read with
an eagerness of which I was ashamed. It was written in a cramped back
hand, not very plain, and began:


“DEAR MISS HARDING: I send you eight pictures of Chance—one for each of
the Massachusetts women who were here last summer and made a little
diversion in my life. I hope you will like the picture. I had some
difficulty in making him keep still, until I spoke of you, when he
quieted down at once and assumed the attitude he used to take when
waiting for you. I believe that at the sound of your name he thought he
was waiting again, and that you would soon appear. For three or four
days after you left he went regularly each morning to the hotel, and sat
for an hour or two watching everyone who came out, and when you did not
come he started for the station where he had last seen you and where he
waited until, growing discouraged, he came home and stretched himself
out upon the floor with his head between his paws. Poor, disappointed
Chance! I was sorry for him, for I knew how he felt.

“I see I have mentioned the dog first when I ought to have spoken of
your friend, Nicol Patoff. He remains in _statu quo_, and I have given
him up. I often see the old _drosky_ driver, and two or three times have
taken his rattletrap. He always asks for the little madame whom he drove
first and last in the city, and says you were a ‘frisky little thing’! I
think he meant nervous. Occasionally I see your hat on the head of that
tangle-haired girl. _Zaidee_ is her name. Perhaps you never knew. The
last time I saw her she was sporting a long blue veil picked up in some
quarter. Ursula has gone to Siberia to join her husband, and Carl, her
nephew, has gone with her. He brought back the silver himself, and said
he was going to turn over a new leaf and be a man, and all because you
called off the dog and did not let him fall into the hands of Paul
Strigoff. How they all hate that man! I gave Carl a ruble, more for your
sake than his, although he has not a bad face. I saw them at the station
when they went away. Ursula had a knot of tri-colored ribbon on her
dress, such as you used to wear. I asked her where she got it. She
bridled at once and replied: ‘I didn’t steal it. It was given me by the
best and sweetest woman the Lord ever made.’ I nodded that I fully
agreed with her, as she continued: ‘If you ever see her, tell her I have
never forgotten her kindness to Carl, and I shall pray for her every day
in Siberia.’

“‘What will you take for that knot of ribbon? I’d like to buy it,’ I
said; and she fired up like a volcano, telling me I had not money
enough, nor the czar either, to buy it!

“I have a good deal of respect for Ursula, and the last glimpse I had of
her the tri-colors, red, white and blue, were showing conspicuously on
her black dress. My mother returned home in September, and I am no
longer keeping bachelor’s hall. I have told her of you and your interest
in Nicol Patoff, in whom she is also greatly interested.”


There were a few more commonplace sentences and the letter closed with:
“Your sincere friend, Michel Seguin.”

There was no intimation that he expected an answer to his letter, but
common courtesy required that I should acknowledge the receipt of the
photographs, which I did, directing my letter to “M. Seguin, Nevsky
Prospect, St. Petersburg.” Whether he received my letter or not I did
not know. He did not write again, and with the passing of time my visit
to Russia was beginning to seem like a dream, when I found myself trying
to decide whether to go there again, and wondering why my inclination
leaned so strongly to that ice-bound city, and why the tall figure of a
gendarme always stood in the foreground as an attraction. He might not
be there, and Nicol Patoff had disappeared, or was dead. I could have no
hope of seeing him. Why then was I willing to go? I asked myself, and
answered as quickly: “To see Chance, if he is there still.”

And so, the die was cast; and two weeks later we took the train in Paris
en route for St Petersburg. We were hoping to have our compartment to
ourselves for a while at least, and had each taken possession of a
corner, when at the last moment a tall, fine-looking young lady came
hurrying to the door which was still open, although Jack, who was
nearest to it, had wished to shut it. There was a close, searching
glance at each of us, and then the young lady entered with her cloak and
gripsack, while Jack scowled a little. He always scowled if he did not
like anything, and he evidently did not like the companionship of this
young lady, who took her seat by the window opposite him, after greeting
us with a smile which lighted up her face wonderfully and smoothed the
scowl from Jack’s forehead.

She had put her bag on the seat beside her and then glanced up at the
rack opposite. Jack, who was always a gentleman, rose at once for her.
Of course she was French, he thought, and so did Katy and I, her dress
was in such perfect taste, while there was about her an air altogether
Parisian. Summoning his best French, which was pretty bad, Jack said: “I
will put up your bag, if it is in your way.”

The words were jumbled together in an atrocious manner; but the young
lady understood and thanked him in perfect French and with a smile which
showed her white, even teeth and brought into play a dimple on her
cheek. Then she relaxed into silence, and, leaning back in her corner,
closed her eyes and drew down her fur cap as if she were asleep. But
when we passed the city limits and were speeding through the country
miles from Paris she became very much awake, and her eyes flashed upon
each of us, resting longest and very admiringly upon Katy, who certainly
made a pretty picture in her suit of brown with a scarlet wing in her
hat. I had impressed upon my nephew and niece that they were not to talk
to strangers unless spoken to first, and then to be rather reticent.
This rule Katy carried to an extent which sometimes made her seem
haughty and cold, while Jack was always ready to talk and ask questions
and find out about things, as he expressed it. On this occasion, as the
day wore on, I often saw him casting glances at the young lady who slept
a good deal, or seemed to, and who, when awake, paid no attention to
what we were saying.

“She does not understand us,” I thought; but when at last we began to
speak of Russia she roused up, and I felt sure she understood and was
interested.

Still she remained silent, and we talked on, or Jack did, of St.
Petersburg and the Nevsky and the Neva, and the nihilists, whose
acquaintance he hoped to make, wondering if there was any way by which
he could tell one. Then he spoke of the dog Chance, hoping he was still
alive, and finally of his master, M. Seguin, wondering if we should meet
him.

“You and he were quite friendly, weren’t you, auntie?” he asked, but I
did not reply.

I was fascinated by the expression of the young lady’s face, or rather
of her eyes, which from brown seemed to have turned to black and were
blazing with a fierce, angry light. Did she know Michel Seguin that she
was so excited at the mention of his name, and who was she? My curiosity
was roused, and still I said nothing, except to answer Jack, who finally
asked if I had ever heard what became of the poor wretch who asked alms
of me on the Court Quay and who proved to be a notorious nihilist and
was arrested.

“You wrote a note to his wife, didn’t you?” Jack continued. “Do you
suppose he was sent to Siberia?”

The window on Jack’s side had been shut, but now the young girl opened
it quickly and thrust her head out for air. Then withdrawing it, she
electrified us by saying, in excellent English, although with an accent:

“Excuse me if I keep the window open a moment. I have sudden spells of
being faint, and it seems rather close.”

“Oh,” Jack said. “You speak English! I thought you were French.”

“Oh, no,” and she laughed, showing her white teeth again, “I am not
French. I am a Russian from St. Petersburg.”

“A Russian!” Katy and Jack repeated in a breath.

“I’m so glad,” Jack went on. “We are going to Russia, to St. Petersburg,
and you can tell us a lot.”

She smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm, and smiled more as, forgetting that
he was not to talk to strangers, he continued: “We—that is, Katy and
I—are Katy and Jack Barton. She is Katy, and I am Jack. Mother died when
I was born. We live in Washington, where father, who was a colonel in
the army, has something to do in the Pension Office. Aunt Lucy Harding
is our aunt. She has been in St. Petersburg and speaks the language like
a native. She had lots of mixups with nihilists and things, and a big
dog, Chance.”

He stopped to take breath, while the young lady put her head from the
window again to get the air. She was very white when she sat back in her
corner and closed her eyes, in which I was sure there were tears, for
she held her handkerchief to them for a moment. Then she recovered
herself and smiled very brightly upon the loquacious boy, who rattled
on: “That dog Chance must be a _case_. Auntie has a picture of him. Did
you ever see him?”

“I have heard of him as a remarkable dog, who, once on the scent of a
fugitive, seldom fails to find him; but I don’t think he is often used
for that purpose. Indeed, I know he is not,” she replied, and I was sure
her fine face darkened for a moment as if Chance were not an interesting
topic.

The air was getting chilly and damp, for a rain was coming on, and the
young lady closed the window; and after a moment, during which she
seemed to be thinking, she said, addressing herself to me:

“Your nephew has introduced your party, and as we are bound for the same
destination, I will present myself.”

Then she told us that her name was _Sophie Scholaskie_, that she was
born in St. Petersburg, where her mother, who was a widow, was now
living. Her grandmother lived in London, where Sophie had been at school
two years, and this accounted for her good English. She had a twin
brother—Ivan, who at present was employed at the Bon Marché, in Paris.

“You have been there, of course?” she said.

I had a very vivid remembrance of many hundred francs spent at the Bon
Marché, and said so, while she continued:

“You may have seen him then. He is at a silk counter—an English speaking
clerk as well as Russian. He meets many Americans, and is, I believe,
quite popular with them. We look very much alike. If we exchanged
clothes you could hardly tell one from another, although he is rather
small for a man—five feet seven—and I am big for a woman—too big! We can
wear each other’s clothes and gloves,” and she laughingly held up two
large white hands. “No. 7, and very strong!”

Now that she had commenced to talk she was very communicative, and
seemed anxious to tell us about herself and family. Her grandfather on
her father’s side had been one of the minor nobility before the
emancipation act, by which he lost his serfs and a large proportion of
his land. After that with many others he migrated to St. Petersburg,
where he received an office under the government. His home was on the
Nevsky, where her father and grandfather lived together until——

She stopped a moment and looked out upon the dusky landscape with an
expression I did not like, it was so full of resentment and hatred.
Drawing a long breath, she continued:

“My father, who was one of the best and noblest of men and would scorn
to do a mean act, died—in—Siberia, where he was sent!”

“Oh, jolly!” Jack exclaimed, springing to his feet. “He was a nihilist!
And you are one! I am so glad! I wanted to see you; but did not suppose
they were like you.”

“Sit down, Jack, and be quiet,” I said.

Sophie’s face underwent many colors, but finally subsided into a pallid
hue as she tried to laugh, and said:

“My father was a nihilist, though not the murderous kind. He did not
believe in that. He was not an anarchist, and when the czar was killed
in ‘81 no one regretted it more than he did. I scarcely know of what he
was suspected. It takes so little to put one under a ban, and when the
bloodhounds are on your track, you are doomed. For a time my father
eluded them, but he was caught at last and sent at once to Siberia, with
scarcely a hearing and no chance to defend himself. I believe the
dreadful journey was made as easy for him as possible, and he was not
put to hard labor; indeed, he did not labor at all, for he died within
three months. He was the idol of his father, who died of a broken heart
soon after hearing the sad news that his son was dead. Pride, I think,
had something to do with it, for the Scholaskies are a proud race; and
the dear old man, with his long white hair and majestic appearance and
courtly manners, sank under the blow which had humiliated him so much.
We lost the greater part of our money and our handsome house on the
Nevsky, where Ivan and I were once so happy, with no care or thought for
the morrow. Now we live in an apartment house on another street, and
Ivan and I work for our living. He is a salesman and I am a teacher of
music—German, Russian and English—in Paris, so that we keep our mother
in comfort, if not in the luxury to which she was once accustomed. I
have told you my history in brief, and shall be glad to be of any
assistance to you while you are in the city.”

She seemed tired and heated and took off the fur cap she wore and wiped
the drops of sweat which had gathered so thickly upon her face. She was
handsomer with her cap off, for one could see her white, well-shaped
forehead and mass of soft, brown, wavy hair, which was brought up just
over her ears and twisted in a large, flat knot in her neck.

During her recital, which had taken some time, as she stopped often, as
if talking were painful, Jack had given vent to many exclamations of
anger and disgust, and had once clinched his fists as if ready to fight
some one. Katy sat perfectly still and scarcely gave a sign that she had
heard; but when the story was finished she left her seat by the window
and sat down beside Sophie, whose hand she took in hers, pressing it in
token of her sympathy.

“I am so sorry for you,” she said; “and I don’t know that I want to go
to Russia.”

“I do!” Jack exclaimed. “I want to lick ’em.”

This created a diversion, at which we all laughed, and no one more
heartily than Sophie.

“Better keep quiet, my boy,” she said. “You can do no good. No one can
help us but God, and sometimes it seems as if He had forgotten. But He
will remember; there will be a change, I don’t know how or when, but old
men and women who pretend to read the future see a heavy cloud over
Russia—a cloud red with the blood of her children, yet with a silver
lining which means liberty to the oppressed. May I live to see it!”

Her face glowed with intense excitement as she talked, and the hand
which Katy had taken withdrew itself from her grasp and Sophie’s arm
went across the young girl’s shoulder with so firm a grip that she
winced under the embrace. Releasing herself as soon as possible Katy
went back to her seat in the corner, where she sat very quiet the rest
of the day, while Sophie and Jack had the most of the conversation, Jack
asking questions and Sophie answering them to the best of her ability.

When at last we reached the frontier the first word we heard was
“Passports,” spoken rather peremptorily by a tall, uniformed soldier,
who motioned us into a side room where our baggage was brought with that
of the other passengers. I was glad now for Sophie’s help. My first
entrance into Russia had been by water and with comparatively little
trouble. I had been met by M. Seguin, and I found myself looking round
involuntarily in hopes of seeing him now, although I knew the hope was
futile. The officers were very different in looks and manner from him.
They were rather cross, and there were a good many passengers clamoring
for passports to be returned and their baggage to be examined and
_viséed_. I was tired, like the officials, and impatient at the delay,
as I saw no reason why business should not be dispatched as it is in
America instead of the leisurely way natural to the Russians. Jack was
very much excited, and if he could have spoken the language he would
have given the lazy officials fits, he said. As it was he caught hold of
one who was leisurely inspecting my trunk and said: “Look here, you,
sir; that is my auntie’s and there’s nothing in it, and she wants it
some time to-day. Do you speak English?”

The officer stared blankly at him and shook his head, while Jack, who
felt himself the man of the party, continued: “_Parlez vous Français_,
then, if you don’t speak English?”

There was a second head shake, and Jack went on: “_Sprechen Sie
Deutsch?_”

A third shake of the head, with a laugh which exasperated the boy.

“Confound you!” he said. “What do you speak? I tell you we are in a
hurry to get out of this stuffy hole into the next room, and we are
Americans—Americans!”

He screamed the last two words as if the man were deaf, and somehow they
had their effect, or would have had without my help, for the word
American goes a long way toward insuring respect from a Russian. The
room was crowded with first, second and third-class passengers, and my
head was in a whirl, aching badly, and this had kept me quiet for a time
while the babel went on. Now, however, I rallied, not knowing how much
the officials could understand, or to what lengths Jack might go. He had
been rather free during all our journeyings to inform people that he was
an American, from Washington, where his father, who was a colonel, held
an office; and I was expecting him to give this last piece of
information to the crowd when both Sophie and I went to the rescue. She
had been attending to her own trunk, and I was very sure that more than
one or two rubles had changed hands. Her baggage was examined, or
pretended to be, her trunk _viséed_, and then she turned toward us. What
she said I don’t know, it was spoken so low, but I heard the word
America, and our passports were at once given to us, our trunks examined
in a perfunctory way, and we were free to enter the waiting room. Some
of Sophie’s friends had come to meet her, both men and women, and that
she was held in high favor was shown by their evident delight at meeting
her. I heard Ivan’s name and supposed they were inquiring for him, but
did not hear her reply, as she stood with her back to me. We were to
separate here, as she was to go with her friends, while we were to have
our own private compartment, telegraphed for in advance.

“I shall see you soon again,” Sophie said to us as she bade us good-by
and stood for a moment with her fur cloak wrapped round her and her cap
drawn down upon her face.

There was something about her which puzzled me and made me think it
might be safe not to be too intimate with her. I believed her a nihilist
of a pronounced type, who might unwittingly get us into trouble; but I
did not say so, for Jack and Katy were full of her praises. They
lamented greatly that she was not to be with us in the long, dreary
journey to St. Petersburg, with nothing to look at but snow, snow
everywhere and more coming, first in large, feathery flakes, which
gradually grew smaller until they came sifting down in clouds which the
wind sometimes took up and sent whirling across the bleak plains in a
blizzard. Whenever we stopped and there was time, Sophie came to our
section, bringing with her a world of cheer to the young people, who,
without her calls, would have found the journey depressing. As it was,
it seemed interminable, and we were glad when we at last rolled into the
station at St. Petersburg. I had recovered from my headache and was able
to see to my own baggage without Jack’s loud assurance that we were
Americans and Sophie’s offer of assistance. There seemed to be a good
many of her friends to meet her here as there had been at the frontier,
and she was attended like a princess to the smartly equipped sleigh
waiting for her. For a moment we stood watching her as she moved along
holding up her cloth skirt to avoid the snow and showing her tightly
fitting boots with their French heels.

“Almighty big feet for a girl, but then she is big all over,” was Jack’s
comment as we turned to the sledge which was to take us to our hotel.

It was the same where I had stopped three years before, and as I had
telegraphed for the room I had then occupied I found it ready for me,
with a small one adjoining for Jack, who insisted upon registering, and
made a great flourish of Washington, D. C., U. S. A., as if that would
insure us attention. We did not need it, for the employees were ready to
serve madame, whom they remembered, while Boots, who was still at his
post and not much grown, nearly fell down in his eagerness to show me to
my room, which was warm and comfortable and brightened with a bouquet of
hothouse flowers standing on a little table near a window.

The feeling of homesickness and dread of some calamity I was to meet,
which had been tightening around my heart ever since I reached the
snow-girt city, began to give way.

I was ashamed of myself for having felt disappointed at not seeing M.
Seguin either at the station, or in the street, or at the hotel. He did
not know I was coming, and how could he be there? Besides, why should he
be there, anyhow? I was a mere acquaintance of three years ago. I had
passed out of his life and he out of mine. The memory of those in whom I
had been interested in St. Petersburg had faded. Probably Nicol Patoff
was dead, and if he were not, my heart did not beat as rapidly at
thought of him as it once had done. Of all the crowd who had waved me a
good-by when I left the city there was not one to greet me on my return,
and I had felt a positive ache all the way from the station to the
hotel, and wanted to cry when I entered the old familiar room which
brought back so many memories. But the flowers changed everything.
Somebody had thought of me. Somebody had sent me a welcome. Who was it?
I asked Boots; but he did not know. They had come a few hours before for
the American lady, Madame Garden—that was all he knew, and I was left to
my own conjectures.

Katy and Jack were delighted with the hotel and wanted to go at once
into the street. But I was too tired to go with them. Jack would have
gone alone, armed with Washington and America, and possibly Abraham
Lincoln, as defenses against any danger. But I kept him in, and was glad
when the short wintry afternoon drew to a close and the night came down
upon the great city and its gay, animated streets.




                              CHAPTER IX.
                           _SOPHIE AS GUIDE._


We had been in St. Petersburg nearly a week, and during that time Jack
and Katy had seen a great deal under the guidance of Sophie, who, true
to her promise, came to us the day after our arrival and offered to take
us wherever we wished to go. I had thought I knew St. Petersburg well,
but with its dress of snow and ice, and the thermometer twenty below
zero, it seemed to me a new city, and I was glad of her escort. I had,
however, taken the precaution to ask the landlord confidentially if he
knew the Scholaskies.

“Oh, yes,” he answered. “Madame Scholaskie is well known. Her husband
died in Siberia,” and he gave his shoulders a shrug. “They are fine
people; once among the first—that is, the medium first. I hear
Mademoiselle Sophie is home for a little visit. Splendid-looking girl!”

After this I felt quite at ease when Sophie took the young people out
sight-seeing, while I stayed at home by the fire, for I was cold in the
open air and glad to keep out of it. St. Petersburg was not much like
what it had been in summer when sometimes scarcely a person was to be
seen on its long, wide streets. Now these same streets buzzed with life,
and no one seemed to mind the cold any more than they had the heat. The
czar was at the palace, and the Nevsky and Court Quay were full of gay
equipages, driving at a headlong pace. The tinkle of the bells filled
the frosty air with a kind of monotonous music not altogether
unpleasing. The Neva, which in winter is the great highway of the city,
was frozen solid, and although the Blessing of the Waters had not yet
taken place, it was crowded with the best and worst people in town.
There were spaces for skating, race courses for sledges and artificial
hills down which bold persons could guide their sledges alone to the
imminent peril of their lives. And all this Katy and Jack saw, and much
more, and came home crammed with knowledge and unloaded it to me—for I
was supposed to know nothing whatever of all they told me. Jack had
commenced keeping a journal in which, boylike, he jotted down incidents
as they came to his mind, without much attention to order. This he
frequently gave me to read when I was shut in by the cold, saying it
would amuse me, and it did. This is how he began:

“St. Pe——, Russia!” he began. “Most thundering cold day you ever knew,
and they are all just like it. Wednesday Sophie came for us at eleven
o’clock. That’s early here. The sun doesn’t get up till nine. Nobody
gets up. The gold ball on St. Isaac’s is over three hundred feet from
the ground. It’s an all-fired big building; built on piles driven into
the mud. Had to bring a whole forest of ’em from the country. All the
houses are on wooden legs, and sometimes the legs give out; then they
tip.

“Saw the emperor to-day. Not much to see more than any man. Didn’t look
as if he enjoyed his drive. I believe he was all the time thinking there
might be a bomb somewhere. I wouldn’t be emperor of Russia. No, sir! I’d
rather be Jack Barton, from Washington, D. C., U. S. A. Yes, sir! They
say he has six hundred rooms at his palace in Gatschina and only lives
in six for fear of being killed. Poor emperor! I don’t wonder he looks
sorry and scared. Has to have two hundred cooks to prepare a meal, they
say. What a lot he must eat! and at Tzarsko Selo he has six hundred men
to work his farm. Must take something to pay ’em! I tell you the Nevsky
is a case! and the Neva is bigger, and Sophie is about as big as both of
’em! She knows the city, root and branch, and the people, too, and they
know her, but sometimes she acts queer, as if in a hurry to get away
from them. I saw a gendarme looking at her pretty sharp, and told her
so. She laughed and said: ‘Let him look!’ Well, she is something to look
at; she is so tall and big. I like her, and so does Katy, and she likes
Katy, and once or twice, all on a sudden, she has hugged Katy as if she
wished to eat her, and Katy is awful pretty in her scarlet hood with the
ermine trimming. People look at her hard. Men, too, and then Sophie gets
angry and hurries us along.

“Chance is not at home. Sophie found that out for me. He is in Moscow
with his master. I hope he will come pretty soon. To-morrow we are going
to drive, Sophie and auntie, Katy and I. Auntie don’t go out much; just
sits by the fire and mopes. She isn’t half as up and coming as she used
to be. I wonder what ails her!”

The day after Jack made his last entry we took the drive in a smart
turnout, for we were Sophie’s guests for the time and she did nothing
small. All along the crowded Nevsky we went until we came to the street
where I had my encounter with Carl.

“Would you mind driving down that way a little?” I asked.

Sophie looked her surprise, but was too well-bred to refuse or ask why I
wished to go into so unfashionable a quarter.

“I knew an old lady who lived in that house,” I said, pointing to the
door where Ursula had sat when Carl made his attack on me.

It was closed now, with no sign of life about it, and the untrodden snow
was piled high against it.

“No one lives here. She is in Siberia still. We may as well go back,” I
said.

At the mention of Siberia Sophie became excited at once, asking who
Ursula was and how I came to know her. I told her all I cared to,
keeping back as much as possible the part M. Seguin and Chance had
played in the matter. Evidently she did not care to hear of them, but as
we were coming near the house on our return, I asked if she knew Madame
Seguin.

“Only by reputation,” she answered. “They say she is very
aristocratic—sees few people, but sits in her great house nursing her
pride in what she used to be before they lost so much property when the
serfs were emancipated. We lost, too, but we kept up a brave, cheerful
heart till father was arrested. There is Madame Seguin now, just
returning from her drive,” she continued, nodding toward a handsome
sledge drawn by two spirited horses, with a coachman in livery.

The lady in the sledge was wrapped in the richest of furs and sat up as
erect as a young girl. Only her eyes were visible, and they were beady
and black and not at all like what I could see of Michel’s eyes. She did
not glance toward us, but held her head high as we passed each other.

“They say she does not like her son’s occupation,” Sophie said. “Not
that she is unwilling to have people arrested, but she wants some one to
do it besides her son. No one knows why he took it up. There was no need
of it, as they have money enough, I am told, outside their losses.”

Somehow I did not like to hear Sophie talk of Michel or his family, and
was glad when she changed the conversation by saying, as we approached a
large building:

“This was once our house, where we lived until father was sent away and
grandfather died. We were very happy there.”

At her command the coachman was driving slowly, that we might have a
better look at her old home. It was larger and more pretentious than the
Seguins’, and I could understand what Sophie’s feeling were as she
looked at it and knew it had gone from her forever. Withdrawing her hand
from her muff I saw Katy put it into Sophie’s, and knew the two hands
had met in a warm clasp of sympathy.

After a moment she added with a laugh:

“I believe you Americans have a saying, ‘It is of no use to cry over
spilled milk,’ and I don’t cry now, though I did at first till I was
nearly blind. Mother never cried; she couldn’t, and that made it harder
for her. By the way, I had nearly forgotten my message from her. She
sends her compliments to you and hopes you will waive the ceremony of
her calling, as she seldom goes out, but she will be very glad if you
will take supper with us to-morrow night at six o’clock. We have given
up ceremonious dinners since we lived in apartments, and have, instead,
the old-fashioned supper, with one servant to wait upon us. You will
come?”

“Of course we will!” Jack spoke up, promptly, while I hesitated a
little, not knowing whether to accept or not.

“Yes, we’ll go,” Katy said, nestling closer to Sophie, between whom and
herself a warm friendship had risen.

Sophie’s magnetism had conquered Katy’s shyness, and they were fast
friends, and when she said “We’ll go,” I assented, after asking if we
were to meet any strangers.

“You will meet no one but my mother, who is very anxious to see you,”
Sophie replied, and, with that, we bade her good-by at the door of the
hotel.

That night Jack wrote in his journal:

“Had a drive with Sophie in a dandy turnout. Everybody was out, and
everybody looked at us, especially at Sophie.

“I tell you what, that girl is a brick! And what a lot of people she
bowed to on the Nevsky, and down in that street where we went hunting
for Ursula. Everybody seemed to know her. I’ll bet she’s a real
nihilist, and has a whole crowd of followers. I’m glad that gendarme is
not at home. He might be nabbing her. We are going there to-morrow night
to supper. Auntie does not act as if she wanted to go; says she feels as
if something was going to happen. What rot! I’m afraid she’s getting old
and nervous. I wish something would happen.”




                               CHAPTER X.
                             _ONE EVENING._


Madame Scholaskie’s rooms were on a side street in an apartment house,
which was in striking contrast to the house on the Nevsky, where fifty
or sixty servants had done their mistress’ bidding. There seemed to be
but one here, a woman wrinkled and old, but straight as an arrow, with a
keen look in her eyes as if she were always on the alert and ready for
whatever might come. The Scholaskies’ rooms were on the third floor, and
surprised us with their handsome furnishings, from the golden-framed
_icon_ to the ivy-covered screen which shut off one end of the salon.
Madame, too, was a surprise, as, with her snow-white hair, her piercing,
black eyes, and faded, velvet gown, which told of better days, she came
forward to greet us. If not an aristocrat, as the Russians understand
the term, she was a lady born, and showed it in her manner, her language
and her voice.

Supper was announced soon after our arrival, and, if there were not many
courses, it had been daintily cooked, and was served by old Drusa with
the deftness of a younger person. Everything was perfect, from the linen
to the silver and china.

When supper was over, and we returned to the drawing room, where we had
tea, madame took from her pocket a paper, yellow and worn, and, holding
it toward me, said:

“You sent me this three years ago.”

I recognized it as the note I had written for the beggar, and answered
in the affirmative.

“But how do you know I am the one who sent it?” I asked.

“Your nephew let it out in the train, and Sophie told me. She
telegraphed me that you were coming, and I sent some flowers for you to
the hotel. I hope you received them? They are sometimes careless in such
matters.”

“I never knew who sent them, and I thank you so much,” I said.

After a moment, madame continued:

“I run no risk in telling you that the man you befriended was my
husband, and a nihilist, who had long eluded detection. He was fond of
disguises. I think it is in the family,” and her eyes rested for a
moment on Sophie, who stood with her back to her mother. “That of a
beggar was his favorite, and had done him good service many times, but
failed him at the last. He was arrested and tried, and sent to Siberia,
where he died within three months. His father, who lived with us, did
not long survive him, and we were left alone. He had spent a great deal
of money for the cause he believed to be right. Our house on the Nevsky
was heavily mortgaged. We lost it, and came here. It is a special
Providence which has thrown you in my way, to thank you for your
kindness to him. I try to be cheerful, but I know we are living over a
volcano, which may engulf us at any time.”

“But what harm can come to you, living here alone?” I asked.

Before she could reply, Sophie said:

“None whatever. She is nervous, and has been so ever since they took my
father away. It has a different effect on me. It makes me—— But why talk
about it? Do you all play cards?”

She turned to Jack, who, knowing the Russian habit, answered:

“Yes; but not for money, as you do.”

“I know. You play for fun. Then let it be fun; Drusa, bring the table!”

[Illustration: “DRUSA HAD OPENED THE DOOR AND A TALL GENDARME ENTERED
THE ROOM.”]

Madame would not play, and I took her place, with Katy for my partner,
and Jack and Sophie for our opponents. Sophie was an expert player, and
chafed a little under Jack’s blunders. But, on the whole, we were
getting on very well, and Sophie was dealing for the third hand, when
old Drusa came in, unannounced, twisting her apron in her hands, and
standing with her back to the door, as if to keep some one out.

“What is it, Drusa?” madame asked, and her voice shook a little.

“There is an officer here, asking to see you,” Drusa replied, in a
whisper, which, nevertheless, seemed to me to fill the room from corner
to corner with its dread meaning.

For an instant madame’s face blanched to the color of a corpse, and
there was a look of anguish in her eyes, as she glanced at her daughter.

“An officer to see me! What does he want?” she whispered, for I was sure
she could not speak aloud.

Sophie was perfectly calm, except for the hard expression on her face
and the defiant look in her eyes.

“Don’t whisper,” she said, loud enough to be heard by anyone outside the
door, if he were listening. “We have nothing to fear from a hundred
officers. Show him in!”

“Oh, Sophie!” her mother gasped, but she was too late.

Drusa had opened the door, and a tall gendarme entered the room, briskly
at first, with an air of assurance, but stopping short when his eyes
fell on me.

“Michel Seguin!” I exclaimed, in what seemed to me a whisper, but he
heard me, and the expression of his face changed to one of perplexity,
as if his next step was hard to take.

“Miss Harding!” he replied, with more surprise than pleasure in his
voice. “I heard you were in the city, but did not expect to meet you
here. How came you here to-night, of all places?”

He had given me his hand, and was standing close to Jack, who looked at
him in wonder, not understanding what it all meant.

“And why shouldn’t she be here, may I ask?” Sophie proudly demanded.
“What is there here to contaminate her, that you lay such emphasis on
it?”

The officer did not answer her. He was evidently nerving himself to do
his duty, and turning to madame, who sat like one dead, he said:

“I did not know you had company; I would have waited, in that case, for
what I come to do will be exceedingly unpleasant to Miss Harding. I am
sent here to arrest your son, Ivan Scholaskie, for aiding and abetting
in a plot which we have been trying to unearth for some time.”

Again that corpselike pallor spread over madame’s face, and, drawing
herself up, with a regal air, she replied:

“When my son last wrote me, he was in Paris. You will have to seek him
there.”

“He might have been in Paris when he last wrote you, but at twelve
o’clock last night and the night before he was seen coming from a
suspected quarter, and he entered this house. It is my duty to search
for him, although, I assure you, I am sorry to give you trouble, and
before your friends, too.”

He looked at me in an apologetic kind of way, as if he wished himself
anywhere but there. I was horrified, and trembled like a leaf; while
Katy and Jack, although they could not understand what was said, knew
something was wrong, and looked anxiously at me. I explained, in a few
words, whereat Jack eyed the gendarme scowlingly, clinching his fist
once, as if ready to fight, if necessary. Sophie alone was calm,
although her face was pale and there was a bluish look around her lips.
She had turned up the ace of spades, and was adjusting her cards, as if
nothing unusual were happening.

“Let him search! You can’t prevent it,” she said to her mother. “But, as
I have a good hand and want to play it, there’s no reason why we should
not go on with our game, unless you wish to look under the table first!”

This to the gendarme, as, with her large, white hand she swept aside the
folds of her dress, disclosing nothing worse than four pairs of feet
huddled together in a small space, for the table was not a large one.
Sophie’s eyes blazed with scorn as they rested on the gendarme, who must
have been impressed with her beauty. She had never looked handsomer than
she did that night, in her dress of crimson satin and velvet, which
fitted her perfectly. It was trimmed with knots of old lace here and
there. A small diamond pin was the only ornament she wore. Her ears had
never been pierced, and there were no rings on her fingers, at which I
wondered a little, for her hands, though large, were white and
well-shaped, and showed no signs of work.

Regarding her fixedly for a moment, while a peculiar smile flitted
across his face, the gendarme said:

“Allow me, mademoiselle, to say that Paris agrees with you. I have never
seen you looking better. You must have gained a good many pounds in that
gay city. The last time I had the pleasure of meeting you, you were not
as stout as you are now.”

It was a strange speech, and I rather resented it. Sophie did not deign
to reply, but sat with her skirts drawn back, that he might see under
the table.

“I do not think he is there,” he continued; “and, I assure you, I have
no special desire to arrest him, but I must do my duty. Your servant,
perhaps, will take me through the rooms?”

“Certainly,” Sophie replied, mockingly. “I’d do it myself, but, you see,
I am busy. Drusa,” and she turned to the old woman, who all the time had
been standing by the door, with her jaw dropped and her eyes distended.
“Drusa, show this man wherever there is a chance for anyone to be
hiding; but, first, tell me, were you awake at midnight last night?”

“Yes, mademoiselle, wide awake. I mostly am.”

“Did you hear anyone enter the house?”

“No, mademoiselle; I heard footsteps go by; that might have been the man
they tracked and thought was Mr. Ivan.”

“That will do,” Sophie said, motioning Drusa to conduct the gendarme
into the adjoining rooms. “It’s your lead, I believe, and spades are
trumps,” she continued, turning to me. I was shaking so I could scarcely
hold my cards.

“Did you find him?” she asked, mockingly, when the gendarme returned
from a search I knew had been of the most formal kind.

“Not this time, but later on,” he replied, with a look which made her
face nearly the color of her dress.

At this point there came a scratching and pounding at the outer door,
such as I had heard in old Ursula’s room.

“It is Chance,” I said, involuntarily, while Jack sprang up, nearly
upsetting the table in his haste.

“Chance!” he repeated. “I must see him.”

I bade him sit down and be quiet, for it seemed to me that Chance’s
advent into that room would be fraught with evil.

“You did a manly thing to bring your dog to hunt my brother! I would not
have believed it of you!” Sophie said; and the officer replied: “I did
not bring him, nor know that he followed me.”

“Then you will not let him in. I am afraid of dogs,” Sophie continued,
her face now white with terror, as the scratching and whining went on,
and in her eyes there was a piteous appeal.

“No, I will not let him,” said the gendarme. “I think he would knock
Miss Harding down in his delight at seeing her again.”

He looked at me, but I could not reply, except with an inclination of my
head. I had never been so unstrung and nervous in my life.

“Oh, I wish I could see Chance, just for a minute! Can’t I go out?” Jack
pleaded; but I shook my head.

Then the gendarme said to him, speaking in English for the first time:

“I will send him to the hotel to-morrow, or perhaps come with him and
call.”

“That is better,” I said.

Jack, finding that M. Seguin spoke English, started up, exclaiming:

“Look here, you, sir! Auntie has told me you are looking for Miss
Scholaskie’s brother. I tell you he is in Paris, at the Bon Marché. It
is a shame to frighten us so.”

“When did you last see him at the Bon Marché?” Michel asked.

This was a puzzler. Jack had never seen him, but had taken Sophie’s word
for it. He could not tell a lie, and he finally stammered: “He was there
ten days ago, when his sister left Paris. She came in the train with us.
That’s the way we know her.”

“Your argument is very conclusive,” Michel said; “but I still think he
is in this city.”

Again Sophie’s eyes blazed with something more than anger, and there was
a quaver of fear in her voice, as she said:

“Please let me know when you find him.”

“I certainly will,” was his reply, as he bowed politely and left the
room.

Outside, we heard him whistle to Chance, and the two went rapidly down
the walk. We sat silent for a moment. Jack was the first to speak.

“By George!” he exclaimed. “I shall get mixed up in a nihilist scrape,
after all, I do believe—and that is what I wanted.”

“Would you like to be one of the chief actors?” Sophie asked.

“No, sir!” said Jack, emphatically; “and I wonder you could keep so
cool, with that man hunting for your brother.”

“I knew he would not find him,” she said; “I know him, and I once knelt
at his feet, asking permission to see my father before he started for
Siberia, but was denied. Still, he is kind, in his way, they say, and he
was kind to father.”

She tried to smile, but it was forced, as were all her actions after
that. Katy said nothing. She was very pale, and so absent-minded that
she at last threw down her cards, saying she was tired, and wanted to go
home.

As she stood in the dressing room, with her scarlet hood tied under her
chin, Sophie stooped over her, and said:

“May I kiss you once, as a dear, little girl from over the sea, where I
wish to Heaven I had been born?”

I thought Katy hesitated a moment; then she lifted her face for the
kisses Sophie gave her—passionate kisses, such as women seldom give to
each other. Very little was said by either of us on our way home, or
after our return to the hotel. We were puzzled and troubled, and half
wished we had never seen Sophie Scholaskie.

In his journal that night Jack wrote: “Well, sir, I am getting what I
wanted—a sprat with a gendarme.” Then followed a short account of the
“sprat,” and Jack continued: “I was awful mad, but I rather liked the
looks of Mr. Seguin. I wonder if Ivan was in the house? I kind of
believe he was, don’t you?”




                              CHAPTER XI.
                           _A RUSSIAN FETE._


The next morning about ten o’clock Chance appeared, with his master, who
had hard work to keep him from knocking me down. When he first saw me,
he sprang upon me with both his paws; then ran round the room in circles
and back again to me, licking my hands and face until M. Seguin called
him off. Jack now took his attention, for dogs like boys, and the two
were rolling over the floor, sometimes with Jack’s arms around the dog,
and sometimes with Chance’s big paws encircling Jack. The noise they
made enabled M. Seguin to say a few words to me of the occurrence of the
previous night.

“I was so sure of him,” he said, “but I would not have gone had I known
you were there. I only returned yesterday from Moscow, and heard at once
that Ivan was in the city, and also that you were here. Zaidee told me
that.”

“Zaidee!” I repeated, inquiringly.

“The girl to whom you gave your hat,” he explained. “I believe I have
really done one good deed in my life. She stopped me one day and asked
for you. Something in her face appealed to me. I knew she was from the
lowest slums—a thief, most likely, and a nihilist, so far as she knows
what that means. But I took a fancy to her, and she is now my mother’s
waiting maid, becapped and white-aproned, and all that sort of thing—and
bright as a guinea. She finds out everything that is going on, and I
believe she knew Ivan was in town, but she would not tell me that. She’d
warn him, if she could. I think she wants to come herself and thank you
for the hat. She has it still among her treasures.”

Jack and Chance were tired out by this time—or the dog was—and, taking
advantage of the lull, M. Seguin addressed the three of us, Katy, Jack
and myself, saying his mother would like to see us at dinner that
evening at seven o’clock.

“She has sent her card, and hopes you will take it for a call. She goes
out very little, except to drive. She is quite old—seventy-five. I hope
you will come.”

Katy and Jack looked their eagerness, and I felt constrained to accept,
feeling a little anxious to see the inside of Nicol’s house again.

“Thanks. And now I must be off, as I am very busy.”

“Hunting for Ivan?” Jack asked, with the recklessness of a boy.

“No,” Michel replied. “I can find him when I want him. Good-by.”

What did he mean? Did he really know where Ivan was? I hoped not, for my
sympathy was with the woman whose face had worn such a look of despair
when the gendarme appeared.

Katy was very silent all day, and very nervous, and once I saw tears in
her eyes, as she stood looking out upon the snow-clad streets.

“Do you think Siberia much colder than it is here?” she asked, turning
from the window, with a shiver.

I guessed then that she was thinking of Ivan, and his possible fate, if
he were in the city. It was time now to dress for the grand dinner,
which, I felt sure, would be grand, if there were only three guests
present. Nor was I mistaken. At half-past six the two black horses and
handsome sleigh in which we had seen madame came for us, and we were
soon in the reception room of the Seguin house, which had undergone a
great transformation since I was there three years before. Everything
was in perfect order, showing the presence of a mistress, who met us at
the door of the drawing room, stately and grand, in velvet and satin and
lace and diamonds, and whose manner was that of a queen receiving her
subjects, as she gave us the tips of her fingers. I felt that she was
examining me critically with her sharp, black eyes. But I did not care.
I knew I was a very presentable, and even handsome, woman. My dress was
in perfect taste, and fitted me as only a French _modiste_ could fit,
and I felt fully madame’s equal in everything. My assurance must have
impressed her, for she unbent a little. She was not rude; she was simply
cold and distant and patronizing in her manner. I felt that in some way
she did not approve of me, although she made an effort to be gracious.
When dinner was announced, M. Seguin took me to the handsomely appointed
table, with its profusion of flowers, its solid silver service and cut
glass, with many courses, elaborately served by a waiter who knew his
business perfectly. Close behind madame’s chair Zaidee stood—but it was
a transformed Zaidee, whom I would never have recognized. Baths and
clean clothes and comb and brush had done wonders for her, and, as she
smiled a greeting to me, I said, involuntarily: “How do you do, Zaidee?
I am glad to see you here.”

It was bad taste, of course, according to madame’s standard of
etiquette, and her black eyes flashed a look of surprise and rebuke,
while in her mind she put it down as a piece of American democracy for
which she had no use. Zaidee knew enough not to answer me, but her
bright eyes, which saw everything, twinkled, as she straightened herself
behind her mistress’ chair, where she stood like an automaton through
the dinner.

Why she stood there I did not know, unless it was to be within call if
madame needed her for anything. Once, when madame was about to take
sherry, she touched her arm very lightly, and the glass was put down.

Seeing that I noticed the act, madame said:

“I am apt to forget that sherry gives me a headache, and Zaidee helps me
to remember. She is quite invaluable. I often wonder where Michel found
her. He says ‘in the street,’ and she says ‘nowhere,’”

She evidently did not know about my old hat, or the flowers the girl had
sent me. Neither did she or Michel know that the girl could speak a
little English, and understood more; and it was not for me to enlighten
them. Afterward I heard that more than once the sherry or champagne had
made such havoc with madame’s head and feet that Zaidee had led her from
the table to her room, where she had gone off into a heavy sleep, which
lasted for hours. Zaidee kept guard over her like a watchdog, making
excuse, if anyone called, that madame was suffering from one of her
nervous headaches, and must not be disturbed.

She seemed invaluable to madame, who liked just such homage as the girl
paid her. She was an out-and-out aristocrat, believing fully in absolute
imperialism, and that every nihilist or anarchist who was caught
received his just desert.

“Siberia or the knout for the whole of ’em!” she said, with a great deal
of bitterness, when speaking of them; and I wondered how her son could
be as kind as he was. She was very proud of him, but very sorry he had
taken up a profession she felt was beneath him.

“Why did he do it?” I asked; and again the black eyes flashed upon me a
look which made me feel that I had been impertinent.

“Ask him,” was her reply.

This was after dinner, when we were sitting in the drawing room by the
fire, and Michel was smoking in the dining room by himself. As madame
could speak English fairly well, she did so most of the time, for the
sake of the children, to whom she seemed more favorably disposed than
toward me. But Jack fell very low in her opinion as the conversation
went on, and she spoke of Monte Carlo, where she hoped to go very soon,
saying she usually went there every winter.

Jack, who had been strictly brought up to look upon gambling as wicked
and low, said to her:

“You never play, of course?”

“Why not?” she asked, with a snap in her eyes and voice. “Why shouldn’t
I play? Why do I go there except to play?”

Jack was not to be put down where his principles were concerned, and he
answered, fearlessly, but politely:

“I did not suppose nice people like you played there. I have been taught
that it was wrong, just like any gambling.”

“Puritan, as well as American,” madame said, with a look which ought to
have silenced the boy; but he stood his ground, and answered:

“I am not a Puritan; I am an Episcopalian, and father is a vestryman.”

Michel had come in time to hear the last remark, and he burst into a
hearty laugh, in which even madame joined, although she scarcely saw the
point. Puritans and Episcopalians and vestrymen were the same to her.
They were all Americans, whom she disliked and looked down upon. It was
impossible to be very social with her, and, if it had ever occurred to
me to ask her about Nicol Patoff, I should have abandoned the idea. But
the house seemed full of him, and I could not help feeling that it was
this way it had looked when he lived there. We did not go into Nicol’s
den, where the portrait was; the door was shut, and I dared not take the
liberty of asking to have it opened. Michel was a very different-looking
man at home in evening dress from what he was on the street as a
gendarme. Now he was the host, and a delightful one, as he talked mostly
to Jack, asking him of life in Washington, and seeming greatly amused at
the boy’s enthusiasm and patriotism, which would not admit that there
was any land so fair as his own country.

“That’s right, my boy; stand up for your own. I half wish I were a
citizen of the United States, and sometimes think I may yet go to them
to live.”

He looked first at me, and then at his mother, whose eyes flashed with
scorn, as she said:

“Are you crazy, to talk such rubbish?”

“Not at all, mother, dear,” he replied, laying his great hand on the
small one resting on the arm of her chair, and caressing it until the
frown disappeared from her face. “I have had serious thoughts of
emigrating to America, and, but for you, I think I should.”

“Thank God for me, then! America, indeed!” she said, and her voice
indicated her opinion of our country.

Just then Zaidee came in with a card, which she handed to Michel, and
then courtesying to me, left the room.

“I am sorry,” Michel said, after reading the card, “but I am needed, and
must go.”

“Is it that Scholaskie affair again?” madame asked, while my heart began
to beat violently, and Katy turned pale.

“It is not. I am through with that,” Michel replied, with a look at me
which was meant to reassure me.

After he was gone, madame said, more to herself than to us: “That young
Scholaskie is giving the police a world of trouble. Michel was sure of
him last night, but jailed. I hope he will be found, and the nest broken
up.”

“What has he done?” I asked, and she replied, with a haughty toss of her
head: “I am sure, I don’t know. I never ask what they have done.
Plotted, of course, and stirred up bitter feelings against their
superiors. The Scholaskies are a bad lot. The father was sent to
Siberia, and the son will probably follow. I hear the daughter is at
home, driving around in fine equipages, with a host of friends—all
anarchists, I dare say, if the truth was known. I wish they were all——”

She did not finish the sentence, for just then Zaidee came in again on
some whispered errand, and Chance bounded in after her, but was at once
ordered out by my lady, who did not think a dog’s place was in the
drawing room.

“I am told,” she said, “that, when I was gone, Michel had him at the
table, and even let him sleep on one of the silken lounges in the
daytime. The whole house seemed like a dog kennel when I came home, but
we are having different arrangements now, and Chance must keep his
place.”

Poor Chance! He sneaked into the hall and lay down on a mat, with his
head between his paws and a cowed look in his brown eyes. Katy, Jack and
I all stooped to caress him, as we came from the drawing room, for we
left soon after Michel’s departure, and madame did not urge us to stay,
or ask us to come again. She had done her duty to her son’s plebeian
friends, and I had no doubt that, as the carriage which was to take us
to the hotel rolled from the door, she said, or thought, “Thank Heaven,
that is over!” just as we did.




                              CHAPTER XII.
                             _ON THE NEVA._


The next day Jack went out alone, hoping to meet Chance. On his return,
he told us he had missed the dog, but had called on Sophie, who was
suffering from a cold, and had not left the house since we had taken
supper with her.

“She seemed awfully nervous,” he added. “I guess it was the search for
Ivan that has upset her, though she didn’t speak of it. Her mother was
sick in bed, and the house blue generally.”

He had asked Sophie to go with us that evening to the Neva. It was to be
a kind of gala night, with fireworks and more bands of music than usual,
and it was rumored that some of the court dignitaries were to be
present, and Jack was very anxious to go. Sophie had hesitated at first,
he said, saying she was tired of everything, and was going back to Paris
as soon as her mother was better. At last, however, she was persuaded,
and agreed to join us at a certain hour and place she named. Jack was in
high spirits, but Katy was very quiet, just as she had been since the
evening at Madame Scholaskie’s. She would like to see the fine sight,
she said, but she was sorry Jack had persuaded Sophie, against her will,
to join us. Two or three times she seemed on the point of telling me
something, or asking something.

Twice she got as far as to begin: “Say, auntie——” and when I answered,
“Yes. What is it?” she replied: “Oh, nothing. I only had a queer
thought.”

What the thought was she did not tell me then, and by the time we were
ready for the expedition she was as bright as usual, and had never
looked lovelier. There was an eagerness in her manner which I had seldom
seen. She could scarcely wait for us to start, and was more impatient
than Jack, who had been counting the hours. Outside the hotel we found
Chance, shaking his head, with a note in his mouth for me.

“Don’t go to the Neva to-night,” it read; “it is too cold. Wait till
some other time!”

I was perplexed and mystified, and wondered how M. Seguin knew we were
going upon the river.

“I know,” Jack said. “I met that girl Zaidee, who stood behind madame’s
chair during the dinner. She can speak some English, and I talked with
her, and asked if she was ever on the river at night. She nearly turned
a somersault in the street trying to express her delight.”

We laughed, and Jack continued:

“Ye-us; be-u-tiful! be-u-tiful!” she said, and then I told her we were
going to-night with Miss Sophie.

“‘Oh!’ she almost screeched, and nearly turned another somersault, and
ran toward home. She told him, of course, and he must meddle and
dictate! Come on! I’m going, and so is Chance; it will be fun to see him
run up and down.”

Here Katy interposed, suggesting that we take M. Seguin’s advice and
stay at home. “He had some reason besides the cold,” she said. But Jack
was determined, and began to call back the dog, who had started for
home.

“Jack,” Katy said, and I never saw her so firm, “if Chance comes, I
shall stay at home. Miss Sophie”—and her voice shook—“does not like him,
nor anything pertaining to the Seguins. She was white as a corpse when
Chance was at the door clamoring to get in. She is afraid of dogs.”

“That’s so!” Jack said. “She was like a piece of chalk. Chancey, you
will have to go home, but you must send him,” he said, turning to me.
“He won’t budge for me.”

The dog had crouched at my feet, and was looking up earnestly at me as I
stroked his head and bade him go home. He did not want to go, but I
persisted until he started off very slowly, looking back occasionally,
to see if he might not be recalled.

“If we had known,” I often said to myself afterward—“if we had only
known, the events of that dreadful night might have been prevented.”

But we didn’t know, and we went forward blindly, our spirits rising as
we joined the throng, all seemingly hurrying in the same direction—to
the Neva.

Only those who have seen the Neva in the height of its glory can imagine
the beauty of that night, when the frozen river was full of gayly
costumed people, some skating, some driving, some gliding swiftly down
the steep toboggans, others sitting in the little booths, looking on.
Over all was the full moon, which, with the many lanterns and torches,
made it nearly as light as day. We had seen nothing like it since we had
been in the city, and Jack was wild with delight, as we hurried on to
where Sophie was waiting for us at the foot of some stairs leading down
to the river.

At first we did not see her, as she stood a little back in the shadow;
but, at the sound of our voices, she came forward, wrapped in furs, with
her cap drawn so closely over her face that only a very small part of it
was visible. I noticed, too, that she had on eyeglasses, which I had
seen her wear once or twice in the street, and which I thought very
becoming to her. By way of explanation, she said to me that her eyes
were so weak from the effects of her cold that she was wearing the
glasses as a protection from the wind and the glare of light on the
river. I remembered afterward, when many things came to me, that there
were no signs of her cold in her voice, which was natural, but very low,
as we walked side by side to one of the shelters, where we took a seat.

Her mother was a good deal upset, she said, with the visit of the
gendarme looking for Ivan, while she herself was nervous to an extent
she did not understand.

“That it should have happened before you humiliated us greatly,” she
said. “You saw my father arrested; you saw them searching for Ivan. Fate
seems to have drawn us together in a strange manner. You may see me
arrested before you leave this accursed country.”

She laughed, but there was bitterness in the laugh, and her voice had a
hard ring in it I had never heard before. I wanted to ask her if she
knew of what her brother was suspected, and if she had any reason to
think he was in the city; but a feeling of delicacy restrained me.

[Illustration: “AND WITH HER A BIG DOG, JUMPING AND LEAPING.”]

I spoke of the dinner with Madame Seguin, and she said:

“Yes, I know; and you ought to feel honored. Madame does not often
entertain. She is proud and hard—harder than her son, whose vocation
does not suit her.”

“Do you know why he took it up?” I asked, and she replied:

“Only by hearsay, which is not always reliable. I have heard that he was
once a nihilist, or a sympathizer with them, and sought after by the
police. To save himself, he left the ranks and became what he is. Just
what he believes I do not know. He stands high with his employers as a
faithful and competent officer. I think, too, that he means to be kind
to the poor wretches who are so unfortunate as to be caught by him.”

I don’t know why I did it, but I told of the note sent me by Chance,
asking me not to go out that night, it was so cold. With no apparent
reason that I could see, Sophie was disturbed or annoyed.

“No colder to-night than to-morrow night,” she said. “How did he know of
your intention, and did he know I was to be with you?”

I told her of Jack’s interview with Zaidee, and I presumed he had said
Sophie was to accompany us.

“Zaidee!” she repeated. “She hears everything and knows everything! She
is madame’s right hand, picked from the street, as you may have heard.
She is the brightest girl I have ever seen, with as many sides to her as
the occasion seems to require, but at heart I believe she is an
anarchist. She was born in a hotbed of them. Madame makes much of
her—takes her to Monte Carlo, where she stands or sits by her mistress,
watching the play, which she frequently directs, telling madame where to
put her money and taking charge of it after it is gained. Sometimes
madame plays recklessly, and loses, when Zaidee scolds her sharply; then
she plays recklessly again, and wins, and Zaidee makes her quit and come
home before she loses it all. All this, of course, is gossip; but,
somehow, we have a good deal of it with regard to families like the
Seguins, once in the swim, now hovering around the edge. Not Michel. I
do not think he cares a sou for society. His mother does, but she is too
old to get a foothold again, and does not like it.”

During this conversation Jack and Katy had been taking a spin on the
skating track, and some gendarmes had passed us, looking a little
curiously at us, as we sat by ourselves. One of these was Paul Strigoff.

“I detest him!” Sophie said. “He is cruel and feelingless,” and it
seemed to me that she drew back into the shadow until the officers had
gone by.

At this point Katy and Jack came back, flushed with the exercises, which
Jack was eager to try again. But Katy was tired, and sat down between
myself and Sophie, who took her hand, rubbing it and asking if she were
cold.

“Oh, no; it was delightful,” Katy said. “I am only tired,” and I fancied
that she leaned a little on Sophie, or that Sophie drew her to herself.

“I think it is time we went home,” Sophie said, at last. “There will be
no more dukes or duchesses here to-night. You have seen all the notables
you will see, and it must be nearly eleven. I told mother I would not
stay late. She is very nervous if I am out of her sight.”

Jack protested that it was not late, and the sight too fine to lose.
Sophie was firm.

“I think _I_ must go,” she said, and was about to rise, when our
attention was arrested by the sight of a girl, bareheaded, with her
black hair streaming in the wind, as she came bounding across the ice,
and with her a big dog, jumping and leaping, sometimes behind her,
sometimes in front, but never very far from her. It was Zaidee, who came
to my side, and took me by the arm.

“Zaidee!” I said, trying to shake her off. “What is it? Why are you
here?”

She was breathing so heavily that at first she could not speak, and,
when at last she did, it was in long-drawn gasps.

“I’ve come,” she began, “to—tell—you—tell her—tell him”—and she pointed
to Sophie—“tell him—to—go—_now_! They are after him! Too late! They’ve
got him!” she wailed, and dropped at my side, exhausted.

Sophie had understood, and I shall never forget the expression of her
face when, from some unseen quarter, a man appeared in front of us, and,
laying his hand on her shoulder, said: “Ivan Scholaskie, I have found
you at last!”

She was still holding Katy’s hand, and clung to it as if in this frail
girl there was some hope of help. She had thrown back the collar of her
coat, revealing her face more fully, and, rising to her feet, stood up
erect, and taller than I had ever seen her. She had played a desperate
game, and lost, and was now every inch a man in word and gesture.

“You have done a fine thing, Paul Strigoff! I congratulate you!” she
said, with bitter scorn; “but I am sorry it should have occurred before
these friends of mine,” and she turned toward me. I felt my strength
leaving me for a moment, and I leaned on Zaidee for support.

Jack did not understand the gendarme’s words, but he did the action,
and, with all his impulsive, American blood, sprang to the rescue.

“Let her go, I tell you! You don’t arrest girls, do you? Shame on you!
Let her go! We know her well. She is our friend. She came with us from
Paris.”

He held on to the officer’s arm with all his might, while Chance, who
knew something was wrong, and that the feeling was against the gendarme,
growled ominously, ready to spring, if told to do so. I think the
gendarme was amused, or he would have walked off at once with his
prisoner. As it was, he waited a few moments, while Sophie said to Jack:
“No use, my boy! The game is up! I am not Sophie Scholaskie. I am Ivan,
her brother!”

Then Katy, who still held Sophie’s hand, stood up, and, though she could
not speak the gendarme’s language, nothing could have been more eloquent
than her upturned face, on which the moonlight fell, bringing out all
its outlines of beauty, while her blue eyes were full of tears and
entreaty, as she looked steadily at the gendarme. She knew he could not
understand her, but her lips framed the words, “Be merciful!”

She could not speak loud, and was obliged to whisper; but I heard it
distinctly, and so did Sophie, who smiled upon the excited girl pleading
for her. I was on my feet by this time, and felt Zaidee’s strong arm
around me as I stood. I recognized the man whom I had encountered twice
before, and I knew he recognized me.

There was a sneer on his face, as he said:

“Madame has brought with her two fine advocates for her friends. I wish
I could do their bidding, but I cannot. The law must take its course,
and Ivan Scholaskie has baffled us a long time.”

“Of what is he accused?” I asked; and Paul replied:

“A nihilist, steeped to the dregs, and plotting for the assassination of
the present czar, just as the last one was assassinated.”

“Paul Strigoff,” and Sophie’s voice rang out with all the force of a
strong, insulted man, “it is a lie! I am not a murderer! I know of no
plot against the czar. If I did, I should try to stop it, even by giving
information. I sympathize with the nihilists, but I did not come from
Paris to meet them. I came to see my mother, and very foolishly went
twice to one of the old haunts, in my proper guise as a man.”

This last she said to me, and continued:

“Tell my mother, please. Comfort her, if you can, and don’t feel too
anxious about me. The fortress cannot hold me, nor Siberia keep me
always. I shall escape—not at once, perhaps, but later on. They can
prove nothing against me except sympathy. And now, one word of warning:
Leave St. Petersburg! This is the second time you have been mixed up
with the Scholaskies. A third time might be fatal. We are dangerous
acquaintances. I am glad I have met you. I shall never forget it.
Something tells me I shall see you again. Good-by!”

She still held Katy’s hand, and now she stooped and kissed her, just as
she had done once before. It was a long, passionate kiss, which told me
the truth, and made me shudder a little.

“Forgive me!” she said; “it will be something to remember in the days of
banishment and loneliness to come.”

Katy did not resent it, and it seemed as if her quivering lips wished to
return it; but they didn’t. Meanwhile, Chance had pushed himself up
close to Sophie, who recoiled from him in terror.

“Did you set the dog on me?” she asked the officer, while I answered,
quickly:

“No; he came with Zaidee, and she came to warn you. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes; I do now,” Sophie said; and, taking her hand from Katy, she
reached it out to the peasant girl, down whose face tears were falling,
and almost freezing as they fell.

“Thank you, Zaidee,” she said. “How did you know I was to be arrested?”

“Oh, I knows, and hears, and acts,” was Zaidee’s reply, while Sophie
continued:

“Did M. Seguin know you were coming?”

Zaidee shook her head. “I tells no secrets,” she said. “Only monsieur
did not want any of you to come to-night. He sent Chance to tell you.”

She looked at me, and I now understood the purport of the note, as did
Sophie.

“Thank him for me,” she said to Zaidee; and then, as people were
beginning to gather near us, and whisper her identity, and the officer
was growing impatient, and muttering that she had talked quite long
enough with those Americans, she said to him: “I am ready, but don’t
escort me as a prisoner. I shall go quietly. I know there is no escape.”

She looked at us, with the most pitiful smile I ever saw on a human
face; then walked away, with a firm step, by the officer’s side, while
Chance, who had sniffed mischief in the atmosphere, set up a most
unearthly howl, which went echoing across the river and was heard above
the noise of a band not far away. It was Chance’s farewell, and Zaidee
put her hand over his mouth, to keep it from being repeated.

“How did Paul know just where to find us?” I said to Zaidee.

She shrugged her shoulders, and replied:

“Somebody knew he was coming with you; not Monsieur Seguin; he had
nothing to do with it. But his mother—eh! eh!” and she grated her
little, sharp teeth. “They knew she was to be with the three
Americans—madame, a young lady and a boy—and the young lady would
probably wear a scarlet cloak and hood.”

“Oh, auntie, it was my cloak which betrayed her, and I’ll never wear it
again!” Katy exclaimed; and, laying her head in my lap, she sobbed
bitterly.

Jack was growing cold, and standing first on one foot, then on the
other, while Zaidee’s teeth were chattering, and she had taken off her
apron and tied it around her head and ears. Chance was getting almost
beyond control, with his low yelps of disapprobation. Many curious eyes
were upon us, and I felt that we must leave.

“I will go with you to the hotel, and help lead her,” Zaidee said; and
it was her strong arm which kept Katy up and moving until we reached the
hotel, where she went into violent hysterics for half an hour, during
which I found Zaidee of great service.

It was late before Zaidee left us, saying: “Old madame will look at the
clock, and blow; but I’m used to it, and I’m not afraid. She can’t do
without me. I’ll tell you if I hear things about him. Good-by!”




                             CHAPTER XIII.
                            _WHAT FOLLOWED._


The next day the hotel, which was full of guests of various
nationalities, was humming with excitement. A man dressed in woman’s
clothes had been arrested on the ice the previous night, and was lodged
in the fortress, waiting examination. This was the first piece of gossip
which came to my ears as I sat, with Jack, taking my breakfast at a
small table a little apart from the others. Katy had a violent headache,
and could not come down, and I was glad, as she thus escaped the
scrutiny of the many eyes turned toward us as the talk flowed on in low
tones, but not so low that I did not catch much of it.

The man arrested was Ivan Scholaskie, masquerading as his sister, and a
noted nihilist and head of every plot which had been hatched in Russia
for the last twenty years, one would suppose, to hear the remarks made
in Russian, German and Italian, all of which I understood, but was glad
Jack did not, especially when, in lowered tones and gestures, we were
indicated as the Americans who had been with Ivan—three of them, they
said, and one a young lady, who had fainted and been carried off the
ice. Hurrying through my breakfast, I went to Katy, whose face was very
white and whose eyes were red with weeping.

“We must do something to save him”, she said, while Jack reëchoed her
words.

He was in a very defiant mood, and ready to fight the entire Russian
Government, if necessary. But what could we do? I thought of M. Seguin,
whose influence was great. But he had once searched for Ivan himself.
There could be no help from that quarter, and I sat down by Katy, trying
to soothe her, and ascertain why she was so unstrung, and whether it
were possible that in her heart there had been born a feeling for Ivan
different from what she had felt for Sophie. But she was noncommittal on
that point.

“She never seemed quite like a woman,” she said, “and the night we were
at her mother’s and the officer was looking for Ivan, something told me
he was sitting by me, and I nearly fell off my chair. Then I rallied,
and tried to think I was mistaken; but, when she kissed me in the
dressing room, I was sure she was a man. No girl ever kissed me like
that. Oh—oh!” and she burst into a paroxysm of tears, while Jack walked
the room, raging like a young lion, and declaring he’d do something!

There was nothing we could do, except to see the poor mother, and this
fell to me. She had heard of the arrest, and was very glad to see me.

“The girl Zaidee came here on her way home,” she said, “knowing I would
be very anxious when Sophie did not come. She gave me her account;
perhaps yours is different.”

I told her all I could recall, and tried to comfort her. But she shook
her head sadly.

“There is no bright spot,” she said, “and I must bear it. They have
wanted Ivan for a long time. He is shrewd and eloquent, and makes
stirring speeches. I don’t know of anything worse. But, when once they
suspect a person, there is little hope, for every act, every movement,
is exaggerated. You are kind to come here, but you must not stay. I,
too, am a suspect, though Heaven only knows why! When Ivan’s father was
banished, he took an oath that he would do what he could to help the
nihilists. He was only twenty-one—a rash boy, with his father’s love for
secrecy and adventure and hate of the government. He is short for a man,
with a fair, smooth face, on which he could never make a beard grow. He
was in England at school two years, with his sister Sophie, and
conceived the idea there of personating her, which he did to perfection,
and he has often eluded the police in that guise. He has been in Paris
two years, at the Bon Marché. Sophie is in Paris, too. I wanted to see
him, and he wanted to see me. He is a great mother’s boy, and he came,
choosing a woman’s dress partly for safety and partly because the
excitement pleased him. His own hair is light and rather thin. The hair
you saw was a wig, made in Paris, and so natural that it could not be
detected. He is very popular, and has many friends. Some met him at the
frontier, others at the station here, and they have called on him in
greater crowds than I liked. I was always dreading some evil, and now it
has come. If he had kept in Sophie’s clothes, the evil might have been
averted, but he would go to their meetings in his own dress, and this is
the result. The night you were here, and Michel Seguin came, I felt my
life strings snap, for I was nearly sure he knew it was Ivan, and
refrained from arresting him for your sake. He can be very stern on
occasion, but is also kind. He was kind to my husband, and will be to
Ivan, if he is sent to Siberia, as is probable. I shall follow him in
time, and die there. When I can, I will write you, if you will leave me
your address.”

I gave it to her, and asked if there was anything more I could do.

“Yes,” she said; “bring me your niece. I can tell you in confidence,
Ivan was very fond of her. From the moment he saw her, she took so
strong a hold of him that he could think of little else. ‘If I were an
American, I’d try to win her,’ he often said; and, as it was, he thought
of going to America, and becoming one of its citizens, hoping this might
help his cause. Poor Ivan! My dear boy! All his hopes blasted! Nothing
but Siberia now!”

She didn’t cry—she couldn’t—but her face quivered, and her red eyes had
in them a look I did not like. The next day I took Katy to see her, and
found her with the same drawn expression on her face; but it relaxed at
sight of Katy, and it seemed to me there was a faint moisture in her
tired, sunken eyes. Katy saw it, and with her soft hand she closed the
lids gently, and saying to the poor woman: “Try to cry; it will do you
good.”

I watched the process anxiously, and was delighted, at last, to see a
great tear force its way under the lids and roll down her cheek. It was
succeeded by another and another, until they fell like rain, amid moans
and gasps, as if crying gave her pain.

“I believe you have saved my life,” she said, when the paroxysm had
subsided. “I had not cried before since they took my husband away, and
there was a pressure like fire in my head and eyes.”

She did seem better, and at last fell asleep, with Katy smoothing her
white hair and forehead.

That night M. Seguin called, seeming at first under some restraint, as
if he had lost favor with us. He did not mention Ivan until I asked
where he was, and what would probably be his fate.

“Siberia, undoubtedly; but not for a long time, as they can find nothing
criminal against him,” he said. “He is an agitator—a stirrer-up. He kept
the thing simmering wherever he went. A very fine fellow, but a
dangerous man, with his principles and pleasing personality. We had to
arrest him to keep him out of mischief. I am sorry that you were present
at the arrest.”

I think he said all this on Katy’s account, but she made no comment.
There were two red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes were unnaturally
bright, as she listened to him.

“Since you have been so intimate with Ivan, and came from Paris with
him, you will probably be questioned as to what you know of his
movements,” Michel said to us.

“Oh, no!” Katy gasped, and the red on her cheeks faded to a deadly
pallor. “I can’t be questioned. I have done enough. My scarlet cloak
betrayed him.”

Michel looked pityingly at her, as he tried to reassure her by saying
the examination would be a mere formality and she had nothing to dread.
He did not stay long after this, but before he went he told us his
mother was soon going to Monte Carlo, and would take Zaidee with her.
“She is very fond of Monte Carlo, and very successful, as a rule—or
Zaidee is. I am told she frequently tells my mother where to put her
money, and mother listens to her as she never listens to anyone else.
You did a good thing when you gave your hat to that girl! She has it
yet, and wears it sometimes, I believe; at least, I occasionally see her
with a most wonderful headgear.”

After he was gone Katy began to cry. She dreaded the ordeal that lay
before her, should we be questioned with regard to our acquaintance with
Ivan. Jack rather anticipated it.

“All you have to do is to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth,” he said, adding, with a boy’s bravado, “but I shall do
more. I shall tell ’em what I think of ’em. I’ve wanted a chance at
’em.”

The next day he had his chance, and we were questioned separately and
individually with regard to our connection with the Scholaskies, and, as
each told the same story, without any variation, we were believed, and
not molested as partisans. I heard that Jack called the officials fools,
and said some very uncomplimentary things of the Russian Government, and
when the officers laughed, and called him a silly boy to fall in love
with a man, he called them liars, and, when one of them threatened him
for contempt, he told them to do their worst, if they wanted his father
about their ears, with the U. S. A. and a war ship and the President,
and a lot more.

M. Seguin was present, acting as interpreter, and softening a good deal
that Jack said, but the officers knew he was a reckless boy, and were
more amused than angry. Poor little Katy was white as a sheet at first,
but, gathering courage as the examination proceeded, told what she knew
in a straightforward way, and then, with streaming eyes, pleaded for
Ivan, that his punishment might be of the mildest form. She was not
taunted with being in love, as Jack had been, but was treated with a
kindness and deference one would hardly expect from those grim Russians.
Try as we might, we could hear nothing definite of Ivan, until Zaidee
brought us the news that he was to go to Siberia for three or four
years, and his mother would follow him as soon as she was able.

“I’d go, too, and see to ’em, if I didn’t have to look after old Madame
Seguin, and keep her from drinking too much,” she said, with a queer
grimace. “She is very fond of wine, and would get as drunk as a fool if
I did not stop her. I touch her arm, and she knows what I mean. That’s
why I stand behind her, and, when I think she has had enough, I go for
her. At Monte Carlo she gets so excited that she don’t know anything,
and I have to tell her to put up the money she has won, and when to put
it down. She’s a queer one.”

For Michel she had only words of praise. “A splendid man that! No one
need be afraid of him, except they are bad,” she said, forgetting the
time when, a poor street waif, she used to run at the sight of him.

We tried to see Ivan, but that was impossible. We could only send him a
message and a good-by through Michel Seguin, who promised to do for him
all he consistently could do.

“Perhaps he may write to you,” he said, looking at Katy, who had been
like a wilted flower ever since the arrest, caring for nothing, except
to leave the city as soon as possible. She went once alone to call on
Madame Scholaskie, and when she returned she seemed much happier. Madame
had promised to write, if Ivan could not, and sundry messages, I was
sure, were given to his mother for him.

Two days later we left St. Petersburg, with only M. Seguin at the
station to say good-by. He was there officially, and was looking tired
and worn, I thought, and sorry that we were leaving. As I stood by him
for a moment, when no one was near, I said: “Do you think Nicol Patoff
is in Siberia?”

“I know he isn’t,” he replied, and I continued: “It is very strange that
he should disappear so absolutely and for so long a time.”

“Yes, very strange!” he said; and I went on: “When you do hear from him,
whether for good or bad, will you let me know?”

“Certainly,” he said; and added: “You have not forgotten him, I see.”

“No,” I answered. “I shall never forget him. If I have said less of him
during this visit to your city, it is because so many exciting things
have taken place. You remember the messages I gave you for him?”

“Yes!”

“You will give them to him?”

“Yes; and shall I tell him that, if he were a free man among men, you
might possibly listen to his suit, if he cared to press it?”

“No—oh, no!” I said, quickly, feeling as I never had before that Nicol’s
place had been taken by the man before me, and between whom and myself
there could never be anything but friendship.

“I am sorry for Nicol,” he said; “and now you must go; but you will come
again?”

I nodded negatively, as I gave him my hand, which he held till the last
moment; and I felt his warm clasp long after our train had left the city
and we were plunging into the snow and ice which lined our way to the
frontier. As we crossed it and shook off the Russian soil or snow from
our feet, I said, “Thank God!” with more fervency than I had done before
when I left the country behind me.

In his journal, at our first stopping place, Jack wrote: “Thank the
Lord, we are out of Russia, and can _sneeze_, if we want to. I have had
a jolly time, too. An adventure with a real nihilist, and seen him
arrested. I always said she had big feet and hands. But she was game,
and I liked her. I don’t understand Katy, unless she was in love with
him. She says she suspected it was Ivan, and not Sophie, that night at
Mme. Scholaskie’s. Well, I had a squabble with some gendarmes, and told
’em what I thought of ’em, and I guess I just missed Siberia. I ought to
be satisfied with my Russian trip, and I am, and don’t care to repeat
it; but what a lot I shall have to tell when I get home!”




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                               _LETTERS._


From St. Petersburg we went to Italy for the rest of the winter; and
April found us again in Paris, at our old quarters, the Bellevue. As
soon as we were settled, we looked up Sophie Scholaskie, whom we found
up three long flights of stairs, in a very pretty little apartment,
where she lived alone, with a woman to come morning and night to see to
her rooms. She was a very handsome young woman, and so much like Ivan
that I did not wonder he could pass for her so easily. She was delighted
to see us, especially Katy, in whom she seemed to feel she had a
particular right of ownership, and whom she scrutinized very closely all
the time we were with her, and kissed at parting, saying, “For Ivan’s
sake!”

She talked a great deal, but in a pleasant, ladylike way, asking many
questions about her mother and Ivan. She had tried to keep him from
going to St. Petersburg, she said, knowing how hot-headed he was when
among his own friends. But nothing could deter him, and Siberia was the
result. He had been there some time. Indeed, she believed he had started
on his northern journey the day we left the city. He had been treated
with a good deal of kindness, thanks to Michel Seguin, who had used his
influence all along the line. Did we know Michel?

The color in my face was a sufficient reply, and she went on: “Of course
you do. I remember hearing of the American lady whom he would marry, if
she were willing and it were not for his termagant old mother.”

“No!” I exclaimed. “M. Seguin neither wants me nor I him. We are
friends; that’s all, and his mother need have no fear of me.”

Sophie laughed, and replied: “It would be good, pious work to live with
her, I think. She is here now, at the Grand Hotel, with her maid,
spending what she won at Monte Carlo. Perhaps you’d like to call upon
her? This is her day.”

“Never!” I answered, quickly, with a vivid remembrance of her manner
toward me the night I dined with her.

I had had enough of Madame Seguin, but did not express myself to Sophie,
who spoke next of her grandmother, who lived in London.

“I think old ladies all get queer,” she said, “and grandma is the
queerest of all, but I want you to call upon her. In fact, she expects
you. She is half English, you know. Her mother was a Londoner, but her
father was a Russian. She may amuse you.”

I was not in a very good mood to be amused, but I took Madame Reynaud’s
address, and promised to call, if I had time, and the next day we left
Paris. There was some misunderstanding with regard to our passage, which
we had thought secured, and we were obliged to stay in London several
days.

As time hung rather heavily upon our hands, I suggested one afternoon
that we call on Madame Reynaud, and see what she was like. We found her
in a fine apartment on Piccadilly, near Hyde Park, and attended by a
butler, cook and maid. She was a little, wizened-up, old woman, painted
and powdered, with many rings on her shriveled hands and large
solitaires in her ears. She received us with a great deal of ceremony,
and ordered tea at once. She had heard of us from her daughter and from
Sophie, whom she supposed we had seen at her treadmill work, she said.
Then began a tirade against Sophie for earning her own living, “teaching
every kind of brat, when she might live with me, and be something
besides a breadwinner. I see a good deal of society, for there is blue
blood in my veins, English as well as Russian, and I am as proud of the
one as of the other.”

I thought I should greatly prefer Sophie’s life to one with that
blue-blooded woman. She took up Ivan next, but not until she had nearly
thrown Katy into hysterics by saying, in a very brusque way: “And this
is the little girl Ivan fancied when masquerading as Sophie? And did you
fancy him?”

“Madame,” Katy replied, with great dignity, “I liked your grandson, as
Sophie, very much. I have never known him as Ivan.”

“Well put—well put!” and madame laughed, with a kind of cackle, which I
detested.

“You’d better never know him as Ivan,” she continued. “I’ve warned him
what he’d come to, and he has come to it. I have no patience with a
nihilist, or anarchist, or striker of any kind. They deserve Siberia, or
something worse, and I’m glad Ivan has his deserts at last—masquerading
in petticoats! Yes, he has his deserts. It’s the Scholaskie blood, not
mine—not the Rubenstein on the Russian side, nor the Burnells on the
English. I’m proud of both. And my daughter is going to join her
scapegrace son? Well, let her; her husband died there. He played the
rôle of a beggar, and was caught; Ivan played the fine lady, and was
caught—served ’em right—served ’em right! I would not turn my hand to
save him. Have some more tea?”

She spoke to me, but I declined. She suggested that I should drive with
her in the park, but I was anxious to get away from the dreadful old
woman. As we were leaving, she put her hand on Katy’s shoulder, and
said: “You are a bonnie little lassie, as the Scotch say, and, if Ivan
were not such a fool, and you were not an American, I think it would do,
and I should know where to leave my diamonds. I lie awake nights
thinking about it. There is no one but Ivan’s wife and Sophie, and
diamonds would be out of place on her, as a music teacher. They are
worth having, eh?”

She touched the large pendants in her ears, and held up both her hands,
on which seven rings were sparkling. Katy made no reply; she was as
anxious to leave the house as I was, and we both breathed more freely
when out in the open air in the bustle of Piccadilly.

A few days later we sailed for home, and, as my brother’s house in
Washington was rented for the year, Jack and Katy came with me to
Ridgefield, where Jack found ample scope for his talent in narrating to
the boys of the place his adventures in Russia. Katy was very reticent.
Something had come over her spirits, and for hours she would sit silent,
with a look on her face as if her thoughts were far away. Once I spoke
of Ivan, when there came a look of intense pain on her face, and she
said: “Don’t, auntie. I can’t bear it. To think we are so happy here,
and so free, and he is a prisoner in Siberia, doing I don’t know
what—working in a chain gang, maybe.”

I disabused her mind of that idea, and a few days later there came to me
a letter, worn and soiled, as if it had been long on the way and had
passed through many hands. It was from Ivan, who was in Southern
Siberia, and his mother was with him. He was happier, he wrote, than he
had thought it possible for him to be as an exile and prisoner. He had
met his fate, and it was not as bad as he had expected. Southern Siberia
was not like the dreary north. He was a prisoner, it was true, and under
surveillance, but he scarcely felt it, as he had nothing to conceal, and
since his mother joined him he was tolerably content. He had heard of
Jack’s daring defense and Katy’s earnest appeal for him, and thanked
them for it.

Then he spoke of Katy particularly, saying:


“Under my woman’s dress a man’s heart was beating, and I was not
insensible to the loveliness of your niece. She attracted me the moment
I saw her in the train, and the attraction grew until I think I was as
much in love with her as a man ever is with a pure, innocent girl, and
my love was intensified from the fact that I had to conceal its nature.
It was not Sophie who kissed her, but Ivan, the man who longed to take
her in his arms, and who sees her now shrinking from me as if she half
divined the truth. Did she, I wonder, and is there in her heart anything
which responds to my love? I am a Russian, but I can live in America,
and conform to American customs. I am a prisoner, but that does not
count. There are many men here who stood higher in the social world than
I did. Four years—the term for which I am banished—pass quickly, and,
when I am free, I shall come to America, if Katy gives me the least
encouragement to do so. She may not care to write to me, as other eyes
than mine would see her letter, but tell her to write to mother a
friendly letter, making no mention of what I have written. I shall take
it as an answer in the affirmative, and nothing in Siberia can trouble
me again. By the way, you have some old friends here—Ursula and her
nephew, Carl, who, I imagine, is naturally a hard ticket. But he is
doing his best as a farmer, and will be quite a respected citizen in
time. Mother joins me in love to you all, and says tell you that old
Drusa is with us, and we are not very unhappy. She knows what I have
written, and will look anxiously for Katy’s letter. God bless you all!

                                                        IVAN SCHOLASKIE.

“I heard, from Sophie, that you called on my grandmother in London, and
that she gave you her opinion of myself quite freely. She is a holy
terror!”


This letter Katy read several times, but it was some days before I spoke
of it to her, and asked if she intended writing to Madame Scholaskie.
For some moments she made no reply, and when, at last, she did, her
voice was very low and her face flushed, as if she were ashamed.

“To write to madame will be encouraging Ivan, and I don’t know as I
ought to do that, I have such peculiar feelings with regard to him. I
loved Sophie as I have never loved any other girl, and yet there was
always something queer about it; and, when I knew she was Ivan, I
recoiled from her for a while. I have never known Ivan as a man; never
seen him in a man’s clothes. If I had, I should know better what to do.
I must think.”

She took a week to think, and then one day surprised me with a letter
she had written to Madame Scholaskie. It was very short, very
commonplace, I thought, and had in it no mention of Ivan, except at the
last, when she wrote:


“Please remember us all to your son. We are glad he finds Siberia
endurable.”


I thought it very cold, but it was a letter, and would answer Ivan’s
question. For three days it lay upon the library table, directed and
stamped, and then one morning I missed it as I came to breakfast after
the postman’s call, and Katy said to me: “I have committed myself. The
letter has gone, but may never reach its destination.”

Weeks passed, and months, and no answer came to Katy’s letter. Her face
wore a look of disappointment, but she never mentioned Russia
voluntarily. Jack, on the contrary, was never tired of airing his
exploits, and telling of Ivan’s arrest in a woman’s clothes, and what he
said to the gendarme in Ivan’s defense; and, when these topics failed,
Chance was a fertile theme. Unknown to any of us, he wrote to M. Seguin,
and received an answer, written, I think, as much for my benefit as for
Jack’s. There was a long account of Chance and his doings, which pleased
Jack.


“You will, of course, show this letter to your aunt,” Michel wrote, “and
tell her she is not forgotten, and that I have only to mention her name
to Chance, telling him to find her, when he springs up, racing all over
the house, and, if the door is open, rushing into the street, in his mad
search for her; and, when he fails, he comes back and puts his head in
my lap, with a sorry, human look in his eyes, as if asking where she is,
and why she does not come. I ask that, too, sometimes. I am very lonely
now, as mother is in Monte Carlo, with Zaidee, who is growing to be a
tall girl, quite unlike the frowzy head to whom your aunt gave her hat.
That hat is still in existence, hanging in Zaidee’s room, in place of an
_icon_, I verily believe. The girl says she does not believe in _icons_.
She believes in the religion of the United States, and when I asked her
which one, telling her there were many creeds and isms there, she
promptly answered: ‘Miss Harding’s religion, of course.’

[Illustration: “SHE WAS A LITTLE, WIZENED-UP OLD WOMAN, PAINTED AND
POWDERED.”]

“I have heard of Ivan—that he is doing well and feeling well. His sister
has been to St. Petersburg to dispose of the furniture of the house.
Some of it she sold, some was rented with the house, and some she
stored, in case her mother should return, which is doubtful, as she is
very feeble. Tell your aunt that I bought the square table at which she
was playing cards when I came looking for Ivan. I hardly know why I
bought it, when our house is full of tables, but I did, and it has a
place in what I call my den. Tell her, too, that I am writing on Nicol
Patoff’s desk, and that I know no more of him now than when she was
here. Your sister was a beautiful little girl. Give her my love, if she
cares to take it from an old man like me. And give it to your auntie,
too. I always think of her as a girl, she looks so young. Tell her that
the old _drosky_ man, who, the winter she was here, was keeping his
bones warm in his mud hut on the plains, has come back, with a new
establishment and new horse, and loudly laments that he did not have the
pleasure of driving little madame. He thinks he lost a great deal—not so
much in kopecks as in honor. He took Zaidee out one day, rather against
his will, as he remembered the touzle-haired girl who had your aunt’s
hat, and hardly thought it fit that she should ride in his new _drosky_,
even if she is transformed into a fine-looking girl, with a tongue in
her head, he said, and a devil in her eyes! He nearly upset her, he
drove so fast, and she was glad to escape with whole bones. Zaidee is
what you call a _case_—a rank nihilist at heart, I believe, but she
covers it so well that mother does not suspect. If she did, she would
not tolerate the girl a moment. She is death on anarchy of any kind.”


There was more in the same strain, and Jack did not think much of the
letter as a whole. It was more for me, he said, than for himself, and
I’d better answer it. But I didn’t, and time went on, and Russia seemed
to me far in the past, and as something I should never see again, when,
in the summer two years after our winter’s experience, I was there
again, the companion, or guest, of a lady who took me with her because I
could speak the difficult language. There was no Sophie Scholaskie with
us this time—no M. Seguin at the frontier. Instead, there were plenty of
officials, rather brusque and rough, as they examined our baggage and
passports and scrutinized me curiously, as if they had seen me before,
and wondered why I was there so often. I wondered, too, before the long,
dreary journey came to an end, and St. Petersburg, with its gilded dome
and spires and palaces, loomed into sight. Then I began to feel at home,
for I knew nearly every foot of the great city, and I recognized some of
the officials whom I had seen before. The hotel did not suit my friend,
who wished for a more quiet place, and, after a few inquiries, we found
it by a strange chance in the very house where the Scholaskies had
lived, and where M. Seguin had come searching for Ivan.




                              CHAPTER XV.
                             _MRS. BROWNE._


It was a boarding house, kept by a Mrs. Browne, an English woman, who
had seen better days, as she constantly reminded her boarders, whom she
preferred to call guests. She was particular to impress upon her guests
that she spelled her name with a final “e.” That was more aristocratic!
Many of her boarders were away, and for this reason, perhaps, I was
offered as a sitting room the one where madame had received us and we
had played whist with Sophie. I could almost have sworn that some of the
furniture was the same, especially the chair in which madame had sat,
clutching the arms so tightly, with a look of terror on her face which I
could see so plainly, and a kind of creepy feeling came over me, as if
the place were haunted.

“Yes, this is very nice,” I said; “but have you no other rooms I can
look at?”

Mrs. Browne was a woman with a square jaw, and it fell at once, as she
repeated, “Other rooms? Yes; but the likes of you don’t want them. Ain’t
you an American, and don’t they always want the best? What ails the
room? It has been occupied by nobility!”

I saw that she must be conciliated, and hastened to assure her that the
room was all that could be desired by nobility or Americans.

“In Heaven’s name! what’s the matter, then?” she asked; and I replied
that to me it seemed haunted by the people whom I once knew.

Her shriek might have been heard on the Nevsky, as she fell against an
old serving woman, who was just entering the room, and kept her mistress
from falling.

“Haunted? Explain! What do you mean? What do you know of the people who
once lived here? I was told by the proprietor, of whom I rented it a
year ago, that it was perfectly respectable every way. There isn’t a
more first-class house in St. Petersburg. Do you think I would have
anything that was not first-class—I, who wasn’t brought up to keep
boarders?”

“Of course not,” I said, taking a chair and removing my hat, for the day
was very warm.

The woman’s manner was so offensive that I resolved to tell her the
truth about her first-class house, and was rather anxious to see the
effect, especially as her first question to us, after learning that we
were Americans, was to ask if we sympathized with the anarchists, of
whom America was full, and who were always killing a President or
somebody, just like the nihilists. She detested them, she said, and
would not have one in her house, if she knew it. She did have one, as
she found after he had left, and she burned sulphur candles in his room
for two days, to remove the taint. Her servants were all loyal to the
government, such as it was. She thought it might be improved, but it was
the duty of its citizens to stand by it. All this she had said, and
more, and I was wondering if she knew that nihilists had occupied her
house, and were now in Siberia.

“Did you ever hear of the Scholaskies?” I asked, when I could get in a
word.

“Scholaskies?” she repeated. “The name sounds familiar. Alex!” and she
turned to the old woman, against whom she was still propped, and who
seemed to be her prime factor. “Alex,” she screamed, saying,
apologetically to us, “She is deaf as a post,” “Alex, did you ever hear
of the Scholaskies?”

The old woman shook her head, and Mrs. Browne continued, in Russian,
which she had no idea I understood: “This American woman speaks as if
the Scholaskies had something to do with this house—this room. Think
hard!”

The old woman looked at my friend, Mrs. Whitney, and myself curiously,
as if we were some rare specimens, while she seemed to be thinking, and
her tan-colored face wrinkled up into folds; then she shook her head
again, and Mrs. Browne said to me: “Alex never heard of them; but, then,
she has only been a year here from Moscow, have you, Alex?”

Alex didn’t answer, and the question was screamed into her ear.

“Faith of my fathers!” she exclaimed, backing away from her mistress.
“Madame needn’t yell like that. Take my good ear,” and she turned her
right toward Mrs. Browne, “and I hear fairly well. I don’t know the
Scholaskies. Shall I dust now? I see some on the furniture.”

Mrs. Browne nodded, and the old woman began her dusting, moving very
slowly, and not letting a particle escape her, I was sure. Addressing us
again, but watching her servant narrowly, to see that she was doing her
duty, Mrs. Browne continued:

“These Scholaskies could not be disreputable, or Alex would have heard
of them. She knows everything, deaf as she is. She was highly
recommended by a titled English family, who had her for a short time,
but long enough to know her value. She is old, to be sure, though not as
old as she looks, I imagine. I have never asked her age. She was worked
to death as a serf on a farm when young—was abused, I believe, though
she never talks about it. She does not talk much, anyway, and is true as
steel to her friends, poor thing! She has had so few. I asked her once
if she had seen a great deal of trouble, and she replied, ‘I have been
in hell; don’t ask me any more.’ Dreadful, wasn’t it? I dare say they
beat her on the farm. They used to, before the emancipation, you know.”

I began to think I should never get the Scholaskies in, if Mrs. Browne
kept on with her eulogy of Alex, when there came a little break, as Mrs.
Browne went forward to show Alex a spot of dust she had missed.

“I know the Scholaskies,” I said. “They once lived here. They were
nihilists, all of them—father, mother, son and daughter!”

As Alex was not near enough to lean upon, Mrs. Browne fell back into her
chair, with a scream which Alex’s good ear must have heard, for she came
at once to her mistress, asking what she could do for her, and fanning
her with the feather duster she had been using, the effect of which was
to make the lady sneeze vigorously.

“Go ‘way—go ‘way!” she said, pushing Alex aside; then, turning to me,
she continued: “You must excuse me, I have such delicate nerves. It is
in our family. But tell me what you know of the Scholaskies.”

I told her of meeting Sophie on the train; of all she was to us as a
friend; of the evening when, with my nephew and niece, I sat in that
room, playing whist, and a gendarme came in——

“In here? In this room?” and there was a gurgling sound in her throat,
as she called for Alex, whose good ear was at the end of the room, and
did not hear. “Go on,” she said, at last. “I shall throw up the lease.
Gendarmes and nihilists both in this room!”

I went on and told her the whole story, in which she at last became
greatly interested, especially in the arrest on the Neva.

“Dreadful! Horrible!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you die with fright and
shame?”

“Oh, no,” I replied. “I was shocked and astonished, but not ashamed. I
would have saved Ivan, if I could.”

“You would!” she exclaimed. “Are you a nihilist, or an anarchist?”

“Neither,” I answered her. “Ivan was my friend, and I was sorry for
him—a young man in his prime, to be banished from all that made life
worth living for. But suppose we come to business about the rooms? I’ve
told you why they seemed haunted, but sitting here as long as I have,
that feeling has vanished, and I rather think I’d like them, for the
sake of old times, if my friend is agreeable,” and I turned to Mrs.
Whitney, a frail little body, who had been an amused listener to the
conversation, and who left everything to me.

She was quite willing, she said, but what was it about giving up the
lease because the house had been contaminated by nihilists? She would
not like to get settled and then have to move.

Mrs. Browne was taken by surprise. She had made a good bargain with the
landlord. The house was well situated for boarders. Those she had had in
the last winter were to return the coming winter. She could not afford
to throw up the lease, as half her rent was paid in advance. This she
explained, and added: “I’m in a tight place.”

I think it is in my nature to give advice, whether asked for or not, and
I said to her: “If you burned sulphur candles two days for one nihilist,
burn them eight days for four—Monsieur and Madame Scholaskie, Ivan and
Sophie. That, surely, would clear the atmosphere.”

I felt nearly certain that I heard a chuckle from Alex, who was wiping a
window, but, as her bad ear was toward me, I might have been mistaken.
For a moment Mrs. Browne’s gray eyes shone angrily; then she laughed,
and said: “It is so long since those people were here that I think I’ll
risk the house without the candles. Will you take the rooms?”

She was coming to business, which was settled at once, although I
thought her price rather exorbitant, but Mrs. Whitney paid the bills
without a murmur. Indeed, I don’t know that I should have dared protest,
under any circumstances. I was somewhat cowed by Mrs. Browne, with her
blue blood and the “e” at the end of her name. She was a wiry little
woman, with a tongue; and, after we had agreed upon the rooms—to her
evident satisfaction and surprise that we had not tried to beat her
down—she began very volubly to descant upon the great privileges we
enjoyed as her guests—the best the market could produce, the cleanest
house and most attentive servants, especially Alex, whose virtues she
began again to extol. Incidentally, she called our attention to the fact
that Alex never went out but once a week, and not always that.

[Illustration: “FANNING HER WITH THE FEATHER DUSTER SHE HAD BEEN USING,
THE EFFECT OF WHICH WAS TO MAKE THE LADY SNEEZE VIGOROUSLY.”]

“To-night happens to be her evening out,” she said. “Where she goes I
don’t know. She is never late, and when she comes in she takes off her
shoes, so as not to make a noise. She will not disturb you. Come, Alex,
you have dusted this room enough.”

With a bow, she left us, followed by Alex, who was a little lame, and
limped as she walked.

“Broke her leg at hard work, and it was not set right,” Mrs. Browne
explained, as she saw us looking after her. “Poor thing, she has been
through fire and water, but is strong as an ox. Can pick me up as if I
were a little child. Good-morning!”

I was glad when she was gone, with her enumeration of Alex’s virtues. I
had taken a prejudice against the old woman, and believed she could hear
more than she pretended. That afternoon we moved into our new quarters,
and took our first dinner with Mrs. Browne. Everything was homelike,
well cooked and well served. The linen was spotless, the china pretty,
and the silver real—as Mrs. Browne took pains to inform us, saying she
would have no shams about her house, if she knew it.

That night was warm and bright, with a full moon, but I could not sleep
for the thoughts crowding so fast upon my brain. Where were Madame
Scholaskie and Ivan? And where was Michel Seguin, and should I see him
again? I would not ask Mrs. Browne if she knew anything of him. I would
wait and let him find me. Attracted by the beauty of the night, I arose
at last and went to a window, where I stood looking out, when, just as a
clock struck twelve, I saw Alex stealing softly up to the house, and
taking off her shoes, as her mistress had said.

“She is not a very early bird, with all her virtues,” I thought; but I
heard no sound as she entered the house; and, going to bed, I fell
asleep at last, and dreamed of M. Seguin and his dog.




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                           _MADAME’S DEATH._


The next day I went for a drive with Mrs. Whitney along the Court Quay
and the Nevsky Prospect, and past the Seguin house, which had an air of
being shut up. The old porter was, however, at his post, and in the
third story a window was open, and a bird cage standing in it, with a
bird straining his little throat with his song, while near him was a
vase of flowers.

“Somebody is home,” I thought. “Zaidee, probably, and that is her room.
If so, she will find me.”

Then I wondered if Chance was there, and, like a foolish young
schoolgirl, I called his name twice as we passed the house. There was an
answering roar from some quarter—a rush of feet and a tussle with the
porter, whose voice was very high, mingled with another, which I
recognized as Zaidee’s, and then, when we were some distance from the
house, the dog broke away and came rushing after us, with barks of
delight. He had recognized my voice, and was in hot pursuit. I knew it
would not do for him to overtake us, as I didn’t know what he might do
in his excitement, and Mrs. Whitney was afraid of dogs.

“Drive fast, and don’t let him overtake us,” I said to the coachman, who
had turned his head, and needed no second bidding to hurry, so that it
was now a race between the horse and the dog, and the horse beat, for it
seemed to dawn on Chance that he was doing a ridiculous thing, and he
began to slacken his speed, while Zaidee came running, bareheaded and
bare-armed, along the Nevsky till she reached the animal, and, seizing
him by the mane, led him back to the house.

I knew then that Zaidee would find us very soon; nor was I mistaken, for
that evening, as it began to grow dark, Mrs. Browne appeared at my door,
saying there was a young person who wished to see me.

“I think she is some lady’s maid, or upper servant,” she said. “I
thought she might have some message, and asked her, but she said no; she
came to see Miss Harding—that you were her friend. She is in the
kitchen. Will you see her there?”

“It’s Zaidee,” I said. “I’m sure it’s Zaidee. Bring her in here.”

“Here in your sitting room?” Mrs. Browne asked, with a look of surprise;
and I knew that, with her blue blood and the “e” at the end of her name,
she did not approve of what she probably attributed to American
democracy. “Well, if you say so,” she said, and in a moment Zaidee came
in, taller than when I last saw her, and improved in every way.

There was still a pleasant air about her, but there was also an air as
if she had lived with cultivated people, and profited by it. She was in
mourning for some friend, and my heart gave a great thump with fear of
what she might tell me. In her hand were the flowers I had seen, in a
window of the Seguin house.

“I brought these to you,” she said, putting them into a vase which stood
on a small table in the center of the room.

She was very quick and handy in what she did, and, I could understand
why Madame Seguin liked her so much. I was about to ask her some
questions, after thanking her for the flowers, when there came upon the
door the same pounding and scratching and whining I had heard twice
before.

“Chance!” I exclaimed. “He came with you. Let him in. I must see him!”

I thought Zaidee looked frightened, as she cast hurried glances around
the room.

“Chance! The wretch!” she said. “I didn’t know he followed me. I must
send him home.”

“No; let him in,” I insisted.

Mrs. Browne now appeared, armed with a cane and looking very scared.

“There’s a brute of a dog as big as a cow pounding at the door enough to
tear it down. Did you bring him? If so, send him home at once. I will
not have him here,” she said to Zaidee.

“But, Mrs. Browne,” I interposed, “he is an old friend of mine, and
harmless as a kitten. He has come to see me.”

The pounding and pawing was very loud by this time. Chance was in
earnest. He had heard my voice, and he meant to come in. Opening the
door just a crack, Mrs. Browne stood behind it, out of harm’s way,
while, with a bound, Chance was in the room, making the circuit of it
first, and with his bushy tail knocking over a chair and upsetting the
little table, which went down with a crash, taking with it the vase of
flowers, which rolled on the carpet, while the water followed in little
puddles.

Having paid his respects to the room, Chance turned to me, and, putting
both paws on my shoulders, looked me steadily in the face a moment, then
dropped his head on my neck, with a satisfied bark. Mrs. Browne was in
the midst of the débris, with her cane upraised to strike the dog; but,
when she saw him with his paws around my neck, her jaw dropped, and her
cane dropped with it.

“Well, if that don’t beat anything!” she said. “Ain’t you afraid of
him?”

“Afraid! No,” I answered, putting his paws from me, but keeping my hand
on his mane, as I thought I saw in him signs of another circuit around
the room.

“Where’s Alex? She must clear up this litter,” Mrs. Browne said, and
Zaidee answered, quickly: “Don’t call her, nor anyone. I can do it.”

But Mrs. Browne was bent upon having Alex, and went in quest of her,
while Zaidee stopped in her work of picking up the flowers and bits of
the vase and laid her hand very firmly on Chance’s collar. Why, I did
not then know. He was quiet enough with me, but Zaidee held him with a
strong grip until Mrs. Browne came back with another maid, whom she
ordered to wipe up the water and remove the table, a leg of which had
fallen out. I had a suspicion that it was just ready to fall, for it had
swayed a little when I placed it in the center of the room for the lamp,
which, fortunately, had not been put upon it.

“Alex has gone to bed, with a bad headache, and I told her to stay
there, poor thing,” Mrs. Browne said, and instantly Zaidee’s hand
relaxed its hold on Chance’s collar, and she seemed relieved as she
dropped into a chair.

“Whose brute is this?” Mrs. Browne inquired; and Zaidee replied:
“Monsieur Seguin’s. You’ve heard of the Seguins, on the Nevsky?”

Mrs. Browne shook her head. The Seguins were as strange to her as the
Scholaskies.

“Are they nihilists?” she asked, sharply; and I replied: “No, indeed!
Madame Seguin is as bitter against them as you are, and her son is a
gendarme.”

“Oh!” she said. “And he owns this beast? Seems to me I have heard of
him. He can track anybody, if he has once known them and smelled their
clothes or hands? He seems very fond of you.”

“Yes,” I answered; “I believe he’d do anything I told him to do, even
fly at you!”

“Oh, good Lord!” and she threw up both her hands, and, picking up her
cane, left, as I hoped she would, for I wished to be alone with Zaidee.

Mrs. Whitney, who was not strong, and very nervous, had gone to her room
at the first sound of Chance at the door, and so I had the girl to
myself as soon as the maid had wiped the floor and left the room, with a
look at Zaidee which made me think they were not strangers.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, when we were alone.

“Alex told me. I met her last night,” was her answer.

“Do you know Alex?” I asked, in some surprise.

“Slightly,” replied Zaidee. “Everybody does who ever saw her once, she
looks so queer; but she is a good old woman. And then, you know, you
called Chance when you were opposite our house. I saw you, and we had a
great tussle with the dog—the porter and I—to keep him in. The porter
fell down, and swore so hard and I laughed so that Chance got away and
followed you. I did not mean to have him come with me to-night, and
didn’t know he had till I heard him at the door. He is hard to manage
when his master is away. He is in Moscow, and the house is like a tomb
without him.”

I was conscious of a feeling of happiness in knowing that Zaidee’s black
was not worn for Michel, and my next question was for Madame Seguin.

“Dead and buried,” was the response, while Zaidee tried to look sorry.

“Dead!” I repeated. “When did she die?”

“Last winter, at Monte Carlo. We went there early in November,” Zaidee
said, beginning her story, and surprising me with the good language she
used.

Madame had certainly taken a great deal of pains to teach her, and
Zaidee had been quick to learn.

“Madame was in her usual good spirits,” she said, “and in a hurry to get
to Monte Carlo. She played every night, in the same place, at the same
table, and lost at first; then she began to win, and played so high that
I was frightened, and tried to stop her.

“‘Let me be,’ she said. ‘My good angel is helping me,’ and I guess he
was, or something else, she had such luck, and won more than she had
ever done before. Then she began to lose, and, when I asked where the
good angel was now, she answered, ‘Gone to heaven, and the devil has
taken his place; but I’ll outwit him yet.’

“I believe the devil was there, for she lost every franc she had gained,
and I led her from the room a ruined woman. She was sick three days;
then she rallied, and, in spite of all I could say, she went back to the
Casino.

“She had grown so old in the few days; her face was like a corpse, and
she was bent over and sat huddled up, wrapped in furs like a mummy, and
said she was going to break the bank or die. It was awful to see her, so
white and trembly, her head shaking and her hands like claws as she put
down her money, small sums at first; then, as she won, more and more and
more, winning all the time, till people stopped to look at the old
Russian woman breaking the bank.

“I don’t know but she would have done it if she hadn’t got dizzy with
the awful big lot she made at her last venture. The croupier looked
surprised, as if he wondered how long he could hold out. But madame’s
time had come. She’d made her last play, and fell back against me, with
a cry, ‘Zaidee! Zaidee! I can’t breathe!’

“We got her into the open air, and up to the hotel and in bed, with
hot-water bags around her, for she was cold and stiff as a stone, and
clinched tight in her hand was some gold she was going to put on the
table when the spell took her. I pried it out, and she snarled at me
like a dog, and talked all night of breaking the bank. She was much
better the next day, and made me figure up how much she had made, and
she looked so queer, sitting up in bed, shaking all over, with her teeth
out and her nightcap on, chuckling when I told her the amount.

“‘You have been a good girl,’ she said to me. ‘You’ve helped me win many
times, when I would have put my pile somewhere else. I’m going to make
you a present, and then make my will.’

“She gave me—how much do you guess?”

“A hundred rubles?” I ventured, in reply.

“A hundred!” Zaidee exclaimed. “A thousand! And she counted it all out
and handed it to me. Then she said, ‘That is your _dot_ when you marry.’
Then she asked for pen and paper, and made her will. Everything here
belongs to her son. She’d nothing to will but the money she had won at
Monte Carlo, and this, after a few rubles to each of the servants, she
gave to monsieur, on condition that he did not marry _that woman_. ‘He
will know what woman,’ she said. ‘I’ve kept him from her a good while,’
If he married her, the money was to go to some charities.”

As Zaidee said “that woman,” she gave me a knowing look, and I felt a
chill run down my back, for I was sure I knew who was meant by “that
woman!” and that she had thrust out her hand to strike me from her
grave. She need not have worried, I thought. He does not want that
woman, and she does not want him.

“She was to have her will executed the next day,” Zaidee continued, “but
she grew worse that night, and raved about monsieur, and breaking the
bank, which she meant to do the next day, but just before morning she
died. The bank had broken her. I did not think it worth while for
monsieur to come all that distance for her, and I took her home alone. I
sewed my money into my petticoat, for fear of losing it. They put madame
in a lead coffin, and we started. I had always gone second-class in the
train as her maid, but, with a thousand rubles in my skirt, I could
afford something better. I came first-class, and she as baggage—and
liked it!

“They gave her a big funeral, with piles of flowers, and nobody cried
but Chance, who was shut up in his kennel, to keep him out of the way.
They gave the money to monsieur, and I handed him the will, which she
had given me to keep till it was signed and witnessed.

“I saw him read it, with a queer look on his face, and then he threw it
into the fire, and watched it burn to ashes. It was no good, of course,
anyway, and the money was his. I am quite sure he has given every ruble
of it in charity, and he seems like a different man. Everything is
different, house and all.”

“Who keeps it?” I asked.

“We all keep it,” said Zaidee; “but I do the most of the ordering. He
wished me to wear black, because his mother liked me so much, and he
gave me my clothes, and we get on fine, with no dread of anybody. I told
him about the money madame gave me, and he takes care of it, and sees to
the interest. I feel quite rich!”

“Do you ever hear from Carl?” I asked.

I saw a flush on her face, as she answered: “He wrote to me once. He is
on a farm, and doing well, and is respected, he says. He wants me to
write to him. Do you think it would do?”

I knew what she meant, and, contrasting the tall, well-dressed,
well-mannered girl with the young man whom I only remembered as trying
to snatch my bag from me, I didn’t know whether it would “do” or not.

“Do you care for him?” I asked; and she replied: “Not much. I used to
like him when I was a little girl, and he was always kind—ready to
divide his last crust. Many a time I have warned him when the police
were coming, and once I hid him from them, and _lied_. How I did lie for
him! We were both brought up in dirty mud puddles. Mine were dirtier
than his, but I think some of the mud has been rubbed off me; don’t
you?”

“Yes, a great deal,” I answered, thinking of the tangle-haired girl I
had first seen on the Nevsky, barefooted, and bare-legged. “You are
greatly improved,” I said; “and possibly Carl is the same. Write for him
to come to St. Petersburg. You can soon tell if it will ‘do.’”

She shook her head. “Carl mustn’t come here,” she said. “The old places
and friends might tempt him. He has a kind of itching at the end of his
fingers. I have thought I’d like a trip to Siberia, and see how the land
lies. I have money, you know.”

She spoke with the air of a millionaire, and I think her thousand rubles
made her feel like one.

“That is better,” I said; and, as I saw her making a move to go, I
detained her, and, speaking very low, said: “Zaidee, you know
everything. Have you ever heard of the Scholaskies since Ivan was sent
to Siberia?”

Zaidee’s face grew pale for a moment, and her eyes were unnaturally
bright, as she looked at me and then at the door opening into the hall.
It was shut, but under it was a wide crack, where it had shrunk,
admitting light from the hall, and across that bar of light it seemed to
me a shadow fell. Zaidee saw it, and, to my surprise, asked if I spoke
French.

“I picked up quite a little in Monte Carlo. It came easy. I speak it
some, and understand it better. If madame is willing, we will try that
language. Mrs. Browne does not understand it, and can listen all night.
It is like her, I know.”

She nodded toward the door, where the shadow had moved. Some one _was_
there, and I said: “I understand you. Go on.”

She spoke very low, and in very bad French, but I comprehended, and my
blood curdled as I listened.

“Madame Scholaskie had died within a few months after reaching Siberia,”
she said. “Sophie—the real Sophie—was with her when she died, and then
went back to Paris, leaving Ivan alone, and after a while he escaped,
and he is in the city, and has been over a year, and has cheated the
police every time, so they didn’t dream he was here till lately, when
they learned it somehow, and I believe that is why they have sent for M.
Seguin to come home. They have faith that he can find anybody. But he’ll
not find Ivan! No, _ma’am_!”

She spoke in a low whisper, with her head bent toward me, and a strange
light in her black eyes.

“Zaidee,” I said, “do you know where Ivan is?”

She did not answer me, only her eyes grew larger and brighter and more
defiant.

“Have you seen him?” was my next question.

“Yes, at some of our meetings; he speaks, and we believe all he says. He
has a wonderful way with him. You ought to hear him. He’d make you
believe your black gown was white. That’s why they are afraid of him and
want to get him again.”

“Zaidee,” I said, “what do they want—the nihilists, the agitators?”

“A different government,” she answered, promptly. “One more like yours,
and the English. One in which we have a voice. We have no wish to shed
blood, nor harm the czar—the weak, timid man, ruled by the grand dukes.
We want some rights to make us free and intelligent and educated, like
the poor in your country. Instead of that, we are almost as much slaves
as we were before the emancipation. You ought to see the poverty and
misery on the farms in the country. We are held down with an iron hand;
but it must open—it will open—and Russia be free!”

She was very eloquent, and showed the effect of the meetings she had
attended, and where Ivan probably charmed the people with his eloquence.

“Where do you meet?” I asked.

She was silent a moment. Then she laughed till the tears ran down her
cheeks.

“I must tell you,” she said. “It is too good to keep. Every one of
monsieur’s servants believes as I do, and we met once in madame’s
drawing room, when monsieur was in Moscow, and there was nothing to be
feared from him. I think it was too bad, and wonder madame did not
appear to us, she hated us so. The room was packed, and Ivan spoke, and
such a speech! But he advised us never to meet there again. We should
respect the dead, he said, and it was a wrong to Monsieur Seguin. I
think we are ashamed of it, but it seemed a big joke at the time. We
shut Chance in his kennel, so he wouldn’t see any of them, and recognize
them again, especially Ivan.”

“When was this?” I asked, with some sternness in my tone.

“Last night,” she answered, after a little hesitancy, and suddenly I
remembered how late old Alex was out.

“Was Alex there?” I asked. “Is she one of you?”

Zaidee’s face was a study for a moment; then she said:

“Yes, Alex was there—that queer-looking old woman! It makes me laugh to
think of her. But I have talked too much,” she continued. “Mrs. Browne
would not keep Alex an hour if she knew she sometimes came to our
meetings, but I can trust you; and now I must go.”

She put her hand on Chance, who had been sleeping at my feet, and went
noiselessly to the door, opening it so swiftly that Chance nearly fell
over good Mrs. Browne, who was in a crouching position, and had not time
to straighten.

“Oh, my conscience!” she exclaimed, picking herself up. “You here yet? I
was just coming to see if the ladies wanted anything before shutting up
the house.”

Zaidee said nothing, except “Good-night,” as she left the house, with
her hand on Chance’s collar, for he showed signs of not being very
happy, and growled a little at Mrs. Browne. I knew the woman had been
listening, and knew, too, that she could not have understood Zaidee’s
French, which was spoken very low and sometimes in a whisper. Ivan was
safe, so far as she was concerned.

“I hope that girl is not a plotter,” she said, as she brought me the
fresh water I asked for.

“She is in Monsieur Seguin’s employ, and he is a gendarme. That ought to
vouch for her,” I answered, feeling myself a plotter and hypocrite and
everything bad as I went to bed, but not to sleep.

Ivan escaped, and in the city, and making speeches in Madame Seguin’s
drawing room! It made my head whirl, and I wondered how it would end. He
would be captured, of course, and sent back, or to the fortress, or the
knout. I shuddered and grew sick as I thought of it. Where was he, and
what was there about this girl Zaidee that she should know so much and
be in the thick of everything, as she seemed to be?

I laughed to myself as I thought of a nihilist meeting in Madame
Seguin’s drawing room, but resolved to speak seriously to Zaidee on the
subject the next time I saw her. She was carrying matters with too high
a hand in her master’s house, and reminded me of the lines about putting
a beggar on horseback.

I could understand now, I thought, why Ivan had never answered Katy’s
letter. He had left Siberia, perhaps, before it reached there, or he had
been too busy taking care of himself to think of writing. He had escaped
detection for more than a year, and I began at last to have some faith
in Zaidee’s assurance that he would never be caught. I hoped not. I
could not think of him hiding here and there, with this cloud on his
young life, unless he escaped to America, and I was not quite sure
whether I wanted him there or not. I had never known him as a man. It
was Sophie—a handsome young girl, with a pleasing personality and
gracious address—who always came before me, and it was her voice that
was sounding in my ears when I at last fell into a troubled sleep just
as daylight was beginning to show in my room.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                             _ALEX SPEAKS._


I had my breakfast in my room the next morning, for my head ached and I
was still in a bewildered state of mind with what Zaidee had told me. It
was Alex who brought my breakfast, stumbling as she came in, for she was
not very steady on her feet.

“Corns, a whole bushel,” she said, when I pointed to her feet swathed in
big cloth shoes.

I had conceived a prejudice against her, for no reason unless it were
that Mrs. Browne lauded her so high and she was so uncouth in her
appearance. She had evidently been overworked when young, for her back
was bent as backs are not usually bent at her age, which, I guessed, was
between fifty and sixty.

She was stiff and slow in her motions, as if moving her arms and feet
was difficult. Her hair was gray, and twisted into a knot at the back of
her head. Across her forehead it was cut square, and worn low, and was
rather bushy in its style, as if it might curl with coaxing. Over her
head and tied under her chin was a silk handkerchief, with the side
pulled up over her good ear. Her dress was black and short, and was
protected by a wide, gingham apron.

Everything about her was faultlessly clean, and, as she put my breakfast
tray upon the table, I noticed that her hands, though large, were not as
rough and knotty as one might have expected in a common peasant. Her
eyes I could not see distinctly, because of the bluish spectacles she
wore, fastened with a string over her ears; but it struck me that they
were very bright and piercing; they certainly looked very sharp at me as
she stood a moment awaiting orders. I thought she wished me to speak to
her, and I said, at last:

“Is your head better? Mrs. Browne said it was aching last night.”

“Much better, thank you,” she replied.

Apparently she heard me, although I didn’t raise my voice very loud. Her
good ear was toward me, it is true, and my voice was of that quality
which is readily heard. She stepped outside a moment, and returned with
two dusters—feather and silk—her weapons of warfare, I called them—and
attacked a chair near me, while I studied her curiously from her swathed
feet to her head tied up in a handkerchief. I laughed mentally as I
thought of her in Madame Seguin’s drawing room among the brocade-covered
sofas and chairs. How much did she hear of Ivan’s speech? I longed to
question her, but did not know how to begin.

At last a happy thought came to me, and I said: “Zaidee was here last
night. You know Zaidee?”

“Yes, I know her,” she answered.

“She told me of a meeting in Madame Seguin’s drawing room,” I continued.
“You were there.”

I could see the old woman’s eyes flash under her spectacles as she stood
with her feather duster uplifted, and said: “Zaidee is a tattler; she
talks too much.”

“But I am safe; she knows that,” I answered; “and so would you, if you
knew me better.”

She went on with her dusting, and I continued: “I believe Madame Seguin
would turn in her coffin if she knew of the meeting. I wonder she didn’t
appear to you. It was wrong in Zaidee to allow such a thing.”

“I know it,” the old woman said. “We all knew it, but she insisted.
She’s a child of the Old Nick, I do believe, but smart as a whip.”

“She said you had a very fine speaker. Did you like him?” was my next
question.

Alex did not reply for a moment, but rubbed a table leg with her silk
duster, as if she would take off all the varnish, if possible. Then she
said:

“I didn’t think much of him. I wouldn’t go across the street to hear him
again. I tell you what,” and she straightened up and turned toward me.
“We want something besides talk, talk of what a government should be. We
want the government itself. We want to act—rise in a body and march upon
the grandees, and make them give us our rights! That’s what we want, and
mean to have!”

She was flourishing her feathers in one hand and her silk duster in the
other, and looked as if she were ready to lead a mob at any time against
the Winter Palace and Hermitage and Gatschina and Tsarselo, if
necessary.

Just then Mrs. Browne appeared, to see what kept Alex so long, and
instantly the feathers moved rapidly across a window stool and mirror,
and then the old woman declared the room done, and asked what next she
should “fly at.”

I did not see Alex again that day, and for the next few days I was busy
taking my friend to different parts of the city. I knew that Alex had
her night out, and came in late, with her shoes off. She had been to a
nihilist _séance_, of course; but where? And was Ivan there? And why
didn’t Zaidee appear, and report, if she knew anything?

I was getting so nervous that at last I resolved to question Alex, at
any risk, and ascertain what she knew. My opportunity came with the
dusting process, which took place every day at nearly the same hour.

She was a little more bent than usual that morning; had a “catch in the
back,” she said, and, contrary to her usual manner, she grumbled some
about hard work and poor pay.

To these complaints I made no reply, but let her talk on, or, rather,
mutter to herself, until she was very near me, when I asked: “What do
you know of Ivan Scholaskie? Where is he?”

The catch in her back must have left her suddenly, for she straightened
herself to her usual position, and answered: “Madame is Ivan’s friend?”

“Yes,” I said; “I knew him as Sophie, his sister. I was present when he
was arrested. I know that he is in the city, or was, and is hiding from
the police. I am greatly interested in him. Where is he?”

“Safe, quite safe. Madame need have no fear,” she replied. “Zaidee told
you he was here?” she continued. “Zaidee talks too much.”

“Yes,” I assented; “but where is Zaidee? I thought she might bring me
some news of Ivan.”

“She is busy cleaning up,” Alex said. “The house is a sight, and
Monsieur Seguin is expected home. That dog had the run of
everything—sleeping where he liked, but mostly on a silk lounge, where
he has left his mark. We have had another meeting there.”

“You have!” I exclaimed, with a feeling of resentment that the mistress’
memory should be thus outraged. “Zaidee should not have allowed it.”

“She didn’t want to,” Alex said; “but the pressure was great, and she
had to yield. And such a rabble as came! Even I was ashamed, and made a
speech against it.”

“You did?” I said, smiling, as I fancied that old woman standing on a
chair, as she said she had done, to harangue the crowd, threatening to
report them to the master in some way, if the thing was repeated.

“Some of them hissed me,” she said, “and charged me with being a half
and half—one half for the aristocrats and one half for my party. I tell
you, nihilism is a hard road to travel!”

“Was Ivan there?” I asked. And she replied: “Yes; he was the big card,
and he didn’t like it, and said so, and they hissed _him_. They are like
shuttlecocks, some of them, shouting for the czar to-day and ready to
kill him to-morrow, if the right leader could be found. It’s a volcano
with a thin crust we are on.”

I looked at the woman in surprise at her language and manner. They did
not agree with her appearance.

“Alex,” I said, “you have not always been what you are now?”

“Maybe not; but it is the present which tells,” she replied; and as just
then Mrs. Browne’s voice came along the corridor, like a foghorn,
calling for Alex, the old woman gathered up her dusters and left me in a
maze of perplexity.

Nearly a week passed, and was spent by Mrs. Whitney and myself in
sight-seeing. Alex had another night out, but did not stay late, and it
seemed to me she was a little absent-minded the next morning when she
came to do her work.

“Have you seen Ivan?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she replied. “Don’t worry about him. He is safe; but the police
think they are on the track of a gang of nihilists, and are busy
searching for them like needles in a haymow. They can save themselves
the trouble. There are more nihilists in the city than they dream of.
They are everywhere, in every rank, and ready to shield each other.”

That night Zaidee came for a short time. She could talk of nothing but
the renovation of the house for the master, who had returned the night
before.

“You ought to see the drawing room,” she said; “swept and cleaned, with
fresh curtains and flowers; no signs of the meeting, when old Alex
talked to us standing in a chair, with her shoes off. Did she tell you?
I nearly split my sides laughing, and so did some of the others. Chance
was with us, barking his approval when we cheered, and sitting on the
silk couch the rest of the time. Monsieur does not suspect it yet, and
praises me for a good housekeeper. I feel pretty mean and ashamed.
But”—and her voice dropped—“they are hot after Ivan, and have put
monsieur on the scent. I have an idea they will search this house. I
came to tell you, and Alex, if I can see her. That dragon, Mrs. Browne,
watches me pretty closely.”

At that moment Mrs. Browne appeared, a dark frown on her face when she
saw Zaidee.

“Oh, you here yet?” she said, and, taking a seat, began to talk with me
as unconcernedly as if Zaidee were not in the room.

After this Zaidee left, first asking Mrs. Browne very meekly if Alex
were home, and if she could see her. Nothing could have been more
forbidding than the sound of Mrs. Browne’s voice as she replied that she
presumed Alex had gone to bed; she “kept good hours, as all domestics
should.”

Zaidee bowed, and said good-night, with a courtesy to Mrs. Browne.
Whether she saw Alex or not, I did not know. I think she did, and it was
later than usual when the old woman came to do my work the next morning,
armed this time with water for the hearth, as well as her dusters.

Mrs. Whitney was sitting with me, and this, I think, repressed Alex,
although the moment she entered the room I felt a thrill of expectancy,
as if something out of the common order was going to happen.

Putting down her pail of water, she turned toward me, and was about to
speak, when Mrs. Browne rushed in, her face flushed, her eyes
protruding, and the false piece she wore on the front of her head all
awry, as if she had put her hand suddenly to her hair and pushed it
aside.

“What do you think?” she began, dropping into a chair, and wiping her
face with her apron, “that a peace-abiding woman should be so disgraced
and insulted! The police, or one of them—that high-up one, Seguin—is
here in my kitchen, questioning the servants as to whether they had seen
Ivan Scholaskie about the premises!

“Ivan Scholaskie, indeed! How would they know him, or harbor him, when
they are true as steel to the czar? I told the fellow so, and he
laughed, and said: ‘Maybe, but I’d like to see them. There may be some
acquaintances among them, or possibly they have means of secreting a
comrade. Can I see their rooms?’ I was so mad! And I wish I had never
rented this Scholaskie house. I believe it reeks with the very
atmosphere of them. Ivan here, indeed! Where is he?”

I could not enlighten her, and she went on: “I called the servants
together, and told him to ask them what he pleased.”

“‘Are these all you have in your employ?’ he asked, and I told him all,
except old Alex, who was in Miss Harding’s room. I’d call her.

“‘No,’ he said. ‘It does not matter. I must go to Miss Harding’s room;
to all the rooms, in fact.’

“Then I gave him a piece of my mind; insulting _me_, an English woman!
And I come to warn you not to be scared. He really acts like a
gentleman, and as if he hated his work. I must go now and tell the other
guests. Alex, be cool, if he questions you, and be sure and clean that
mantel and hearth as they ought to be cleaned, and have not been in a
week.”

She hurried away, and as Mrs. Whitney, at the first mention of police,
had fled to her room, I was alone with old Alex, who turned her face
toward me with a reassuring smile, and then went on with her work.

“Alex,” I said, “if he asks you if you have seen Ivan, what will you
tell him?”

“A lie, of course,” was the prompt reply. “We all have to do that, and
ask forgiveness afterward.”

Just then Michel appeared, his face lighting up as he saw me, and
extended his hand.

“I knew you were here,” he said. “Zaidee told me, and that is why I came
on the unpleasant duty of inquiring, instead of sending Paul Strigoff,
who is most anxious to try his luck again with Ivan. I am glad to see
you, and to find you as young as you were five years ago, when we met in
the Gulf of Finland.”

He was still holding my hand, and his whole manner toward me was
different from what it ever had been. There was no apparent repression
about him now, as if keeping something back. He was genuinely glad to
see me, and showed it in his voice and manner, as he asked after Katy
and Jack, and laughed as he recalled the fearless boy, who was going to
set the United States Government against Russia if the officials did not
let Ivan go.

“And the young girl?” he said. “She was very lovely, and must be
lovelier now than she was then. I wish this scamp Ivan, who escaped from
Siberia—Heaven only knows how!—and has kept himself from the law for
more than a year, I wish, I say, that he was in America, where such as
he belongs, and where he could make something of himself better than
hiding like a rat in a hole, or in many holes. He has a rare faculty of
attracting people to him. Not a nihilist in the city would betray him.
Zaidee did let out something accidentally, which made me think she knew
where he was, but, when I asked her, she replied: ‘No, sir! I’d be
broiled on a gridiron before I’d tell where he was, if I knew—and so
would the rest of us!’ From the word ‘us,’ I knew she was one of them,
as I had suspected. You know, perhaps, why I am here?”

“Yes; you are looking for Ivan,” I replied. “And I am glad you came,
instead of that terrible Strigoff.”

“Do you know where Ivan is?” he asked, abruptly. And I answered,
quickly: “No. I do not know; and, if I did—I am somewhat like Zaidee—I
should not tell!”

He bowed, and went on: “I suppose I ought to search your rooms; but, if
you say he is not here, I will take your word, and question this old
woman a little. What is her name?”

“Alex,” I replied, feeling my blood grow cold as I wondered how Alex
would pass the ordeal.

But there was no need for fear in that direction. She was polishing the
hearth, and had given no sign that she heard a word we had said.

“Alex,” the officer said to her, but she did not turn her head.

“She is deaf,” I said. “You must speak very loud. Her right ear she
calls her good one.”

“Alex!” he screamed.

“Heavens and earth! What is it?” she exclaimed, turning her head a
little.

“Stand up! I want to speak to you,” he said.

She stumbled to her feet like one very lame, and in so doing partly
upset her pail of suds, while little streams of water went slowly over
her clean hearth.

“Do you know Ivan Scholaskie?” was the first question, while Alex
clutched the piece of soap in her hand, and looked ruefully at the water
on the hearth, as she answered: “Yes, sir.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“If I did, I would not tell,” was the reply, and it seemed to me the old
woman’s bent form straightened a good deal, and her head was held high,
nor did it droop in the least at the next question, which made me choke
with alarm.

“Were you at my house while I was gone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you there twice?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was Ivan there?”

“Yes, sir.’”

“Did he make a speech?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A good one?”

“Fair.”

“About assassinating the czar and the grand dukes, and the nobility
generally?”

Alex’s soapy hand was raised so high that the suds trickled from her
wrist to her elbow, as, in a loud, indignant voice, she exclaimed:
“_It’s a lie!_ The czar was not mentioned, nor his precious uncles. He
told us the kind of government we ought to have to make us an educated,
free people, daring to call our souls our own. He is not an anarchist!”

“And you met in my drawing room?”

“Yes,” and Alex laughed at the remembrance of it. “I knew it wasn’t
right, and I made a speech against it——”

“And stood up on one of my satin-covered chairs, and left the print of
your feet on it!” was the gendarme’s next remark, at which Alex laughed
again, but answered, promptly: “I had to stand on something to look over
their heads, and I took off my shoes.”

“But left the outline of your feet, the same. That is the way I tracked
the affair,” M. Seguin said, and this time more sternly than he had
before spoken.

“I am sorry about the chair,” Alex said; “and, as soon as I can save
enough, I’ll pay for it.”

A wave of the hand was Michel’s reply.

“Anything more, sir?” Alex asked.

“Not this time,” was the answer; and then Michel turned to me, and said:
“You knew Ivan as Sophie, and liked him. Everybody likes him, and that
is where he is dangerous. I believe this old woman—Alex is her name?
Yes, Alex—knows where he is. Tell her to urge him, from you, to get out
of the country and go to America. That may sound strangely from me, a
gendarme, but I have no wish to arrest him. Still, I must do it, later,
if we find him.”

He spoke the last words very loud, so that Alex could hear them. A low
grunt showed that she did.

“I must go, now, and quiet that landlady, who is nearly insane because I
am here,” Seguin said to me, offering his hand, and saying good-by, with
a promise to see me again, and, perhaps, give me good news of Nicol
Patoff.




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                                _IVAN._


So much had happened that Nicol Patoff was scarcely more than a pleasant
memory, and now, as I thought of him, it was not exactly as I had done
years before. He had gone out of my life, and another had taken his
place, and my cheeks burned with both regret and shame, that I could not
feel happier to hear news of him. But any delight I might have felt was
swallowed up by what happened as M. Seguin left the room.

Alex had finished her hearth, and, with a politeness I had often noticed
in her, opened the door for him, and bowed him out, bending very low,
and straightening so quickly that her crooked back began to move down
toward her waist, leaving a flat surface where the ridge had been.

She knew it as soon as I did, and put up her hands to readjust herself,
but she was too late, and she stood staring at me, while I sat for a
moment unable to speak or move.

Everything connected with Alex flashed like a revelation into my mind,
and, when I could articulate, I whispered: “Ivan!”

“Yes,” he said, removing his spectacles, and showing me Sophie’s eyes,
which I remembered so well. “Ivan, in another guise, which has worked
well, and I must continue to assume the character of Alex till I get
away to America, as I mean to.”

“How?” I asked; and he replied: “Through you. I was almost in despair
when you came, and so tired of these petticoats and the wadding on my
back, to make me look bent and old, and the gray wig, and Mrs. Browne’s
praise of me as a faithful servant. I have been faithful to her, and
shall be till I get away. I am going with you, as your serving woman, I
mean. You will get me across the frontier; after that it will be easy.”

I listened, with my heart thumping so loud that I could hear it, and
with my whole strength recoiling from the task assigned.

“How did you escape from Siberia?” I asked, feeling I must say
something.

“Oh, easy,” he answered. “Sometimes I was one thing, sometimes another,
but mostly a woman. I succeed best in that guise, and, as old Alex, I am
safe. I must go now to my room and fix my back. I will see you again,
and arrange. I heard you say you were to leave in a week.”

This was true, and I wished it were the next day, so anxious was I to
escape from the mysteries and masquerades and plots of which I seemed a
part, and of which I should be a part, if I tried to smuggle Ivan across
the frontier as my maid. I couldn’t do it, I said, when next Ivan came
to my room. But he was so hopeful and anxious for freedom—and here was
his chance—that I began to consider the matter, aided and abetted by
Zaidee, who, as she knew everything, knew of Ivan’s plan, and was eager
to have it carried out.

“I’d go, too,” she said, “as your friend’s maid, if I wasn’t going to
Siberia to see Carl, and see if it will do. I don’t much believe it
will, and, in that case, I shall find my way to America. A lot of us
want to go, Ivan has said so much of it in his speeches.”

I listened in dismay to this prospect of a colony of nihilists swooping
down upon quiet Ridgefield some day, and began to wish I had never seen
Russia.

“How did M. Seguin know of your meetings?” I asked; and she replied:
“You see, Ivan took off his shoes, and the rags twisted round them for
corns. He has no more corns than I have. His feet are beautiful. He had
to get in a chair to be heard, there was such a jam, and his socks must
have been damp, for there are the prints of two feet plain as day on the
cushion. I tried to get them off, but couldn’t, and monsieur went for me
so fierce I had to tell him. Wasn’t he mad, though? His eyes actually
opened wide. He tried to make me tell where Ivan was, but I wouldn’t. I
told him it was Alex who stood in the chair, scolding us for having a
meeting there. ‘Good for her!’ he said, and, when I told him you were at
Mrs. Browne’s, he quieted down like a lamb. He is going to Paris soon,
to see about his eyes. I believe he will go on the same train with you,
and I shall be off for Siberia. I must go now. I hear the dragon coming.
She hates me.”

My brain was in such a whirl that I cannot narrate correctly all that
occurred that week, my last in St. Petersburg.

What with sight-seeing and Alex and Zaidee and Mrs. Browne, I had a hard
time. At first madame was furious at the thought of losing Alex. What
did I want of that old woman, and what would my friends say when they
saw her? She didn’t think much of people who would coax one’s servants
away; no, she didn’t; and her face wore a most vinegary expression,
until Alex broke two dishes and spilled a pail of milk over the floor,
and took twice the usual time to do my room and Mrs. Whitney’s.

After that the popularity of Alex waned a little. She was old and
careless and slow, and grew worse all the time, and I was welcome to
her, Mrs. Browne said, and that made matters easier.

Quite to my surprise, Monsieur Seguin approved of the plan, and seemed
quite elated over the prospect. He came but once to see me, and was then
in a hurry. He was going to Paris, he said, to see a famous oculist with
regard to his eyes, and he was planning to leave on the same train with
myself. I was afraid my delight showed in my eyes, and, to cover it, I
said: “What of Nicol? Can I see him before I go?”

“Perhaps,” he answered. “Leave it to me. I will tell you everything in
time.”

I did not see him again till I met him at the station. Zaidee came to
say good-by, bringing Chance with her. I felt it was my final farewell
to him, for I should never visit St. Petersburg again, and I was weak
enough to cry as I put my arms around him and held him close for a
moment. Mrs. Browne had allowed him to come into my room, and I made the
most of my time, and petted and caressed him and talked to him until it
was time for him to go. Then I said good-by to him and Zaidee, the girl
promising to write from Siberia, and tell me if it would or would not
“do.”

“I have your hat yet,” were her last words, as she left the house,
pulling Chance with her.

He didn’t want to go, and only my peremptory command started him at
last. When he was gone, and I heard the thud of his feet on the walk, I
sat down and cried again, partly for Chance, partly for Nicol, whom I
had no hope now of seeing, and partly because I was nervous and sick at
heart with excitement and fear lest Ivan would get me into trouble. He
had no fear, and sometimes whistled softly to himself as he made his few
preparations, tying up his belongings in two handkerchiefs. He was out
nearly all night before we started, but he seemed fresh as ever in the
morning, and I think he wanted to tell Mrs. Browne who he was when, in
response to his good-by, she replied she had no good-bys for ingrates!

I got him away safely to the station, where, to my delight, M. Seguin
was waiting for us.




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                            _NICOL PATOFF._


I had half hoped Nicol might be with Michel, but he was alone, and came
eagerly forward to meet us, seeing to our tickets and passports and
comfort generally, and taking particular care of the supposed Alex, at
whom the officials looked suspiciously.

“Madame’s maid,” he explained, and then they looked more surprised, as
if questioning my taste; but my “serving woman” was not molested, and my
heart beat more freely when at last the train moved off, and we were
leaving St Petersburg. Altogether, it was a big farce, and a risky one,
for the police were eagle-eyed, and I was glad when we crossed the
frontier and were on German soil. With Mrs. Whitney present, I could not
question Michel of Nicol until we stood for a moment alone on the
platform; then I said to him: “What of Nicol? Where is he? I hoped I
might see him.”

“Wait till we get to Paris, and you shall hear the whole story. Be
content to know that he is safe and well,” he replied.

After this there was nothing to do but wait until Paris was reached,
where I went to the Bellevue, after depositing Ivan with his sister,
where he was to stay until we decided in what guise he was to cross the
ocean, as he was resolved to go with us, if he went as steerage. The
second evening after our arrival Mrs. Whitney, who retired early, had
gone to her room, when Michel, who was stopping at the Grand, was
announced. He had seen a famous oculist, and been assured there was help
for his eyes, and was very cheerful and happy.

“I have seen Ivan, too,” he said, “and he has come out quite a swell
from his tailor’s hands. He couldn’t wait to throw off that disguise,
which had made him feel so humiliated. I assure you, there is no
danger,” he continued, as he saw the pallor on my face.

“Ivan!” I exclaimed. “How did you know it was he?”

“I knew it all the time!” and he laughed immoderately. “The Scholaskies
have given the police a world of trouble, especially Ivan, who, I
believe, could deceive his own mother. As Sophie, he was magnificent;
but I knew it was Ivan that night I came and found you there. I was sure
of it, but I could not arrest him in your presence. I think that boy
would have torn my eyes out, and you would never have forgiven me, so I
left it for Paul Strigoff, and tried, even then, to prevent it, for that
night, at least. You remember the note I sent you, asking you not to go
on the ice?”

I bowed, and he went on: “I wished to spare you, if possible, but
failed. Ivan was arrested and sent to Siberia, and escaped, no one knows
how but himself. As old Alex, he passed a year in St. Petersburg, and no
one suspected him until I got a clew, no matter how, and went to Mrs.
Browne’s. The moment I saw him I guessed I had my man, and, the more I
saw of him, the more certain I became. But I would not arrest him before
you. I would wait, I said, and, when I heard he was going to America, I
made up my mind to let the poor fellow go, and I kept Paul Strigoff from
the scent, and I’ve got him across the frontier and into Paris, where he
is safe. You should have seen his face when he first saw me at his
sister’s, and a few minutes after. when I told him the truth. I think he
would have gone on his knees to me, if I had let him. As it was, he
cried. It is dreadful to see a strong man cry, and he is a manly fellow,
and has endured so much, that the reaction brought the tears in showers,
while his sister kept company with him. He will come and see you
to-morrow night. Don’t cry. I have seen tears enough,” he continued, as
I began to sob hysterically.

“Let me cry!” I said. “You have been so kind to me, since the first time
I saw you, that I cannot help it; but there is one favor more I must
ask. What of Nicol?”

He did not speak for a minute; then, taking my hand in his, he said,
very low: “Lucy! Lucy!”

I nearly fainted, in my surprise. The name, and the voice in which it
was spoken, carried me back to a time when Nicol had said “Lucy” just as
this man said it. Incident after incident crowded upon me, until the
chain was complete, and I said: “_You are Nicol Patoff!_”

“Of course. Who should I be?” he answered, laughingly. “I am the
so-called Nicol Patoff, once your teacher and always your lover.”

“Oh, what is it? How is it?” I asked, looking to see if I could
recognize any likeness to Nicol. I should have known his eyes, but they
were half closed, and his beard covered so much of his face that he was
nearly as well disguised as Ivan had been as Alex.

“It is a long story, but I will make it as brief as possible,” he said,
still holding my hand. “The Patoffs once lived in our house, and they
had a son, Nicol, a friend of mine, through whom I imbibed nihilistic
sympathies. I attended their meetings. I became convinced that they were
right in many respects, but did not join them, thanks to my mother, who
heard of my intention, and kept me locked up till my zeal abated
somewhat. The Patoffs went to Constantinople, where Nicol died, and I
became a little tired of the nihilist tyranny—and it is a terrible
tyranny.

“I was suspected of being in a plot of which I never heard. But it made
no difference. I was a suspect, and I conceived the idea of going to
America until the storm blew over. Why I took Nicol’s name I hardly
know, unless it was to escape being followed, if the officials got on my
track. I think they were more severe then than they are now. Nicol was
still alive, but dying from consumption. I wrote him I was going to take
his name, and why, and he replied, ‘All right. Use me any way you like.
I shall soon be gone.’

“The next day he died, and I started for America, and finally drifted to
Ridgefield, and turned teacher of languages—the only thing for which I
was fitted. You were my favorite pupil from the first, and I came to
love you as men like me love but once. I could not tell you of my love.
You were too young, and that cloud of nihilism was over me. You have
seen my mother, but you do not know half how strong a character she was.
She had influence, and finally arranged that, if I renounced my
connection entirely with the nihilists, I could return in safety. I did
so, but carried a thought of you with me always.

“I am a restless character. If I could not be a nihilist—and I confess
to you that my sympathy has, in a way, always been on that side—I would
be a gendarme, and that would insure me against suspicion of any kind,
and after my return I was looked at askance by my old friends who had
known of my principles before I left the country. As a gendarme I was
safe, but always felt myself a coward and hypocrite.

“My mother was furious, and was never reconciled to my position. But I
know I have done some good to the poor, cowering wretches who have been
arrested and sent to Siberia, where, if I had kept on my way, I might
have gone.

“I could not marry while my mother lived. She would have made both
myself and my wife unhappy. So I gave up thoughts of matrimony, but not
thoughts of you.

“Years passed on, and I stood high in my calling as a detective. The day
you came on the boat the authorities were expecting a famous anarchist,
and I was sent to arrest him. He was not there, but you were, and I knew
you in a moment, although you could not recognize me.

“When you confronted me with Nicol Patoff, my heart gave a bound, for I
had not heard the name in years, and no one except my mother knew I had
ever taken that name. I could not explain to you on the boat, and a
sudden temptation came over me to mystify you, as I did, without
dreaming you would take matters with so high a hand. I would explain
later, I thought, but I began to enjoy the mystery, and I liked to hear
what you had to say of Nicol Patoff, and your eager defense when you
thought him in danger.”

“But you deceived me shamefully!” I said, indignantly; and he replied:
“I know I did, and felt like a monster and liar, and still I never
really lied but once, and then to save you, I told that Massachusetts
friend of yours, whose tongue was like a mill wheel, that the lock of
hair I had was black instead of red. You remember it?”

I bowed, and he went on: “I have no good excuse which you can fully
understand. Several times I was on the point of declaring myself, but
you always upset my plans. You told me you did not love Nicol, and that
you could never live with him, or anyone else, in his house, or in
Russia. If you did not care for him enough to live with him, I had no
reason to think you would care for me.

“And, then, my mother was an obstacle in the way. She would never have
received you, or treated you well. She disliked Americans on general
principles. But she is dead, and I am free, so far as she is concerned.
Providence has thrown you in my way three times. I believe there is luck
in the third time, and I ask you now to be my wife.”

At first I could not speak. I did not like the thought of having been
deceived so long, and of having expended so much sympathy on something
which did not exist, and I said so, pretty hotly. He laughed, and,
laying his hand on my head, said: “Your hair hasn’t lost all its red
yet, has it?”

“No, and never will, where deceit is concerned. It was a wicked, foolish
farce, and I don’t like it,” I said.

“Neither do I,” he answered, with his hand still on my hair. “It was
unworthy of me, but I rather enjoyed it, after all, for I liked to hear
you talk of Nicol, knowing I was he. And now, can you forgive the past,
and think of me as you used to do? I will try to make you very happy—not
in Russia,” he said, quickly, as he saw me about to speak. “Whether you
marry me or not, I shall leave the country and go to America. Many
predict trouble for Russia in the future. There is unrest everywhere,
and treachery. You don’t know whom to trust. Every servant of mine is a
nihilist, and Zaidee the worst of all. But mother never suspected it. If
she had, she would have flayed them alive, if she could. I am tired of
it, and shall go to a free country, where, as Carl Zimosky once said,
one can sneeze without being made to tell why he did so. And, if I come
to Ridgefield some day, will you be my wife?”

Every word he said was telling upon me, for there was a wonderful
magnetism about him, and I felt much as I did when he came to me under
the maple tree to say good-by. That was years ago, when I was young, and
it seemed ridiculous that people of our age should be making love, and I
said so.

“Why not?” he answered. “I am fifty, and you are forty, and look thirty.
You see, I have kept your age, and I know no reason why middle-aged
people should not be in love as well as young ones, especially when the
germs have been maturing for years, as mine have for you. Can I come to
Ridgefield? Will you be my wife?”

He was very persistent, and repeated his question till I answered: “You
can come to Ridgefield, and I will think of it, and, like Zaidee, see if
it will do.”

“Then you are mine,” he said, kissing my hands passionately. “I’ll not
kiss your face,” he added, “till some of my beard is off, and I am more
like the Nicol you knew.”

It was late when he left, and two or three times he turned back from the
door to kiss my hands and say good-night.

The next evening the cards of Mr. and Miss Scholaskie were brought to
me, and, after a few moments, a young man, faultlessly attired, was
offering me his hand and asking if I knew him. I should never have
recognized him as the girl I had seen arrested, or the old woman who had
cleaned my hearth and dusted my chairs. He was in high spirits, and said
he shouted aloud when he dropped off Alex’s disguise and felt he was a
man again.

“Free, free,” he kept repeating, until I asked if there were no danger
of his being inquired for.

Then, for a moment, a shadow darkened his face; but he soon brightened,
and replied: “I think not, and so does Seguin. He is a brick, as you
Americans say. He is going to America later on, he said.”

I felt my cheeks burn, and wondered if he knew what had passed between
Michel and myself. If he did, he gave no sign, but asked how soon we
expected to sail, and if it was from Havre. I told him, and he
continued: “I shall secure my passage to-morrow. Then I shall run over
to London to say good-by to my grandmother. You have seen the old lady,
and can judge the time I’ll have with her. She will dislike my going to
America to become a citizen nearly as much as she disliked my being a
nihilist. _Mais n’importe._ I am going, just the same.”

I did not see him again until his passage was taken and he had been to
see his grandmother.

“Pretty fine old lady, after all,” he said, in speaking of her. “Her
bark is worse than her bite. She called me a fool several times, and
said it was the Scholaskie blood that ailed me, and that, if I went to
America, the first she would hear, I would be leading an anarchist mob
in Chicago, and get shot—and serve me right, too! When I was ready to
leave, she cried a little, and told me I was not to mind all she had
said, and asked how much money I had. I told her, and she declared none
of her kin should ever go to America with so little, and, going to her
desk, she wrote a check for a thousand pounds! Think of it! ‘Alex’ with
a thousand pounds! I hugged the old lady, who pushed me off, and said:
‘No slobbering over me. I’m not made that way.’ Then, as I stood in the
hall she took both my hands and said: ‘Ivan, you are a bad boy, and your
father was bad before you, or you and he might be living in your old
home on the Nevsky, instead of one dead in Siberia, the other an escaped
prisoner going to America—after a girl, I know,’ she continued. ‘I’ve
seen her—a pretty little thing, but an American. If you marry to suit me
I shall give your wife my diamonds, and they are worth something, let me
tell you. Pin, earrings, pendant and all these.’ She held up her hands
and I counted six rings. I made her let me kiss her and told her I
should probably marry to suit myself if I could. Then I left, but she
stood in the doorway and watched me till I turned a street corner. What
do you think of that for a grandmother?”

He was wild with delight over his thousand pounds, and full of
speculation as to what he should do with it when he reached New York.

One week from that day we sailed from Havre, and Ivan was with us, happy
as a schoolboy on a vacation. The horrors of Siberia, the hiding and
dodging and masquerading—old Alex with her humpback and gray hair, and
the many other disguises he had assumed on his escape from Siberia were
behind him. Before him was a free country, and a pair of blue eyes was
beckoning him across the water. Michel went with us to Havre. I had only
seen him three times since our first interview, and then some one was
always present. He seemed nearly as happy as Ivan. There was hope for
his eyes, and he was sure of me, he said, when we stood on the ship
together for a few minutes a little apart from the crowd and with our
backs to it.

“Don’t be too sure. I have not promised,” I said, while he laughed, and
when the call came for “All ashore who are going ashore,” he stooped and
kissed me, saying: “Beard or no beard, this once; yes, twice,” and I
felt his lips on both my cheeks.

“God bless you,” he said, and hurried away, while I watched him with a
sense of loneliness I could not repress.

He was one to lean upon and trust to the death, and I missed him so
much. Ivan was very kind, but he was young and full of his freedom and
Katy, of whom he talked very freely.

Except for his face and smile he did not seem like the Sophie I had
known. He was a man, with a man’s ways and voice and manners and talk,
and I could scarcely make him seem real. What would Katy think of him? I
had told him of the letters she wrote and which he never answered. There
was a great joy in his eyes as he exclaimed: “She did write, then? I am
so glad. I looked for it days and days, or mother did. It must have come
after mother died and I was on my way to St. Petersburg, skulking like a
dog in the daytime and moving on at night. I tell you I could write a
book of my adventures, and perhaps I shall.”

I had written to Katy of Alex’s transformation and telling her that Ivan
was in Paris, but not that he was coming with us. I wished to surprise
her. With Jack she came to meet us and looked wonderingly at the young
man helping Mrs. Whitney and myself off the ship and carrying our bags
and wraps. Evidently she did not know him, but Jack did, and with a
bound he was at Ivan’s side, exclaiming “_Sophie, Alex, Ivan!_ Which are
you now? The biggest joke I ever heard of! Auntie’s waiting maid! Hello,
Katy! Where are you? This is Ivan, his own self, in coat and trousers,
instead of dresses.”

This broke the ice, but Katy was rather stiff as she went forward to
meet him, and she remained so during our drive to the hotel and the
lunch we had there. But when she and Jack were ready to leave for their
train she gave him a smile which atoned for all her coldness, and said:
“Father will be glad to see you in Washington whenever you choose to
come.”

“Father! Thunder, Katy! Why don’t you say _we_ shall be glad? You know
we shall,” Jack exclaimed.

“_We_, then,” Katy answered, with a second smile which took Ivan with
them across the ferry to their train, and we did not see him again, as
before his return we had left for Ridgefield.




                              CHAPTER XX.
                           _MRS. SCHOLASKIE._


Just how Ivan’s wooing of Katy sped I had no means of knowing except
through Jack, who wrote:

“Ivan has been here and gone. I tell you he is the right kind. I took
him everywhere and introduced him to everybody, and told them he was an
escaped nihilist, and had been disguised as a lady in satins and silks,
and as an old woman with a hump on her back and a gray wig. That made
him a lion at once and folks stared at him till he got tired and said:
‘Please drop Alex and Sophie and the escaped nihilist. It sounds too
much like “escaped convict.” I am an American citizen, or going to be as
soon as I can be naturalized.’ So I dropped ’em. What a handsome fellow
he is, with manners which take you right off your feet! Where did he get
’em? I wonder. Father likes him. Katy was stiff as a ramrod at first,
but she—I did not mean to listen, but I got in a trap where I could not
help myself and heard something about a letter she wrote and he never
got. After that they made up. Oh, my! I just doubled up to hear the
silly talk—and—kisses! Yes, sir! kisses! loud as firecrackers! and Katy
such a modest little girl. I wouldn’t have believed it of her!”

After Ivan’s return to New York he made the acquaintance of some
influential Russians through whom he secured a tolerably lucrative
position and was able to keep his grandmother’s gift intact. He came
once to Ridgefield during the summer, and I was struck anew with his
appearance as a polished gentleman, with the qualities of a splendid
man, and when he said “Katy has promised to be my wife,” I congratulated
him most sincerely and felt that Katy had chosen well. Sometime in
October there was a quiet wedding at my brother’s. Among the wedding
presents was a box within a box sent by Ivan’s grandmother and
containing all her diamonds except one ring and a small stick pin. She
wrote:


“I am getting too old to wear them. My neck is too wrinkled and my hands
too full of veins. They will look better on your bride. Give her my love
and an old, cranky woman’s blessing. I’m not pleased with the match.
Don’t think I am. You ought to have married in your own sphere and not
have turned clerk, or something. What have you done with the money I
gave you? There is more where that came from. God bless you and your
wife.

                                                      YOUR GRANDMOTHER.”


The diamonds were a fortune in themselves, and Katy said she should
never wear them, but the next winter, when Ivan and Katy spent several
weeks in Washington, I read notes of the beautiful Mrs. Scholaskie and
her exquisite diamonds, “heirlooms of her husband’s family,” and
concluded Katy had changed her mind.

                  *       *       *       *       *

It is nearly two years since I came from Europe, and a warm May sunshine
has tempted me to the seat under the maple tree where Nicol bade me
good-by. He is here beside me reading the morning news of the troubles
in poor distracted Russia over which war clouds are hanging so darkly.
He came last fall—a new Michel, with his eyes wide open and full of the
tender, loving light I remembered so well in Nicol’s soft brown eyes.
Much of his beard was gone and he looked younger than when he wore the
uniform of a gendarme. That life he had left behind him with his old
home, which, as he could not sell it to advantage, he had shut up.

“Maybe she will come here with me some time,” he thought. I never shall.
He did not ask me _if_ I would marry him, but _when_, and was so
persistent and masterful that we were married at Christmas time and went
to Washington for a part of the winter.

My father is old, and as he has a good deal of property both in town and
in the country, where he has a large farm, he has asked Michel to stay
with him and look after his business; so, for the present, we are
settled in Ridgefield.

And now, as we sit in the sunshine, Chance lies stretched on the ground
between us, his tongue out and breathing as hard as if he had been
running miles instead of chasing a neighbor’s cat across the garden to
the barn. After we were married Michel wrote for him to be sent by
express, with injunctions that he should be well cared for. We both went
to New York to meet him as he came from the ship, rather gaunt and
sorry-looking and tugging hard at the chain by which he was held. At
sight of us he gave a cry between a bark and a howl, and wrenching
himself from the man who was holding him, he sprang upon us, putting one
paw on my shoulder and one on Michel’s, and looking at us reproachfully,
as if asking why he had been made a prisoner. And behind him came
Zaidee, to our great surprise.

“You didn’t expect me, I know,” she said, half crying and half laughing;
“but I had to come. I went to Siberia and saw Carl, and it wouldn’t do!
I tried hard to have it, but no use. I do not think he would steal a
penny now, but somehow it wouldn’t do! He said I was ‘airy,’ living so
long with old madame. Maybe I am, but I couldn’t stay with him and came
back to St. Petersburg and hired out to Mrs. Browne to do the work Alex
did. I tried hard to suit, but nothing I did was ever quite as well as
Alex did it. I wanted to tell her who Alex was, especially when she
wondered if they had ever found that fellow the gendarme came hunting
for in her house; but I didn’t. I was that lonesome with the old house
shut up and M. Seguin away that I couldn’t stand it, and when I heard
you and monsieur were married and had sent for Chance, I said: ‘I’ll go,
too, with the dog,’ thinking I might see if they used him well. I came
second-class, but they wouldn’t let me see the dog. I knew about where
he was, and once I went as close to him as I could and called ‘Chance!
Chance!’ at the top of my voice. You never heard such a roar as went
through the ship, scaring the passengers, who thought some wild beast
was let loose. I was told to mind my business, and I did. The creature
looks half starved, but here we are, all of us, and I am so glad. I must
go now and look after my baggage.”

She went back to her poor little hair trunk, which was gone through from
top to bottom, where lay my hat nearly rimless and crushed out of all
shape. She kept it, she said, because but for it she would still have
been in the slums, or in Siberia.

She took it for granted she was to live with us, and a more faithful
servant I have never had. She is nearly as much interested in the war as
Michel. He says very little, except that he is glad he is not in St.
Petersburg.

Zaidee is more pronounced. She does not think much of the government,
she says, but it makes her mad to have great giants of Russians whipped
by little bits of Japs, and madder still to have the people burst up
right after the czar has told them they might pray to any god they
pleased. Zaidee’s ideas are rather crude, but, on the whole, pretty
sound. Ivan is very decided and makes no secret of his sympathy with the
Japs, and but for Katy he might perhaps join the army.

But Katy’s quiet, gentle influence helps to keep his hot blood down, and
now that there is in the household a little Sophie, who came on Easter,
he does not talk as much of the war as he did, and is settling down into
a very domestic husband and father.

And so, after a series of rather stormy scenes in a far-off land, the
curtain drops on the homes of four happy people; two of them middle-aged
but loving each other with all the fervor of youth, and two young, with
the world before them—a world Ivan with his restlessness says he means
to see as soon as Jack is out of school and can go with him. When he
heard this Jack threw up his cap and hurrahed for his Russian
brother-in-law, and might have hurrahed for Russia generally if Ivan had
not stopped him.


                                THE END.

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                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 Page           Changed from                      Changed to

   48 through suits of rooms on the    through suites of rooms on the
      walls of which were some         walls of which were some

 ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
 ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.





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