“TO prison? Do you mean that, Katinka?” asked Volna; her tone low and tense.
“Do I usually say one thing and mean another?”
Volna turned swiftly to me as if seeking a contradiction.
“Where is my mother, Mr. Anstruther?”
Katinka’s large eyes flashed angrily. “Do you wish to insult me, Volna, by appealing from me to this new English friend of yours?”
Volna ignored her save for a gesture. “Mr. Anstruther?”
“I stayed at your mother’s request to assure you that she does not think it serious.”
“My dear, dearest mother!” A piteous cry of sorrow and pity; and then a change to indignant reproach. “This is your doing, Katinka, yours and Paul’s and uncle’s; with your miserable plots and schemings and intrigues! And having done the mischief, you were such a coward as to leave her to face the consequences alone. Shame on you! If I had no other cause to hate your conspiracy, your cowardice in this would make me do it.”
“Don’t be theatrical, Volna.”
“If it comforts you to cover your cowardice with a sneer, do so. I do not envy you the consolation. I should have thought even you would be ashamed.”
“I shall not remain to be insulted before a stranger.”
“When the truth bites like an insult, I can understand how it hurts to hear it. I shall go to my mother, of course. You will help me find her, won’t you, Mr. Anstruther?”
“Of course he will—for Ladislas’ sake,” said Katinka, turning to deliver her last shot as she went out.
“What does she mean?” asked Volna with a start. “She has so many barbs in her speeches. But it doesn’t matter—nothing matters until we find mother. Where do you think they have taken her? How can we find out? Oh, I feel half distracted.”
“I think Colonel Bremenhof holds the key,” I said, very quietly.
She was bending over a small table and looked up instantly and sharply, hesitated and then replied: “This must be explained. They have told you—about him?”
There was just a suggestion of a challenge in her tone; but the question gave me an opening to make the explanation of my position, which had to be made somehow.
“Oh, yes. Ladislas told me.”
“Ladislas?” Surprise and a dash of indignation in the tone.
“No one could have a truer friend than you have in Ladislas.”
To my consternation she broke in with a laugh: “Why do you tell me this?”
“He is my friend also, one of my closest friends. I am under a deep obligation to him. He saved my life—I think I told you—at the peril of his own; and to-day he told me not only about Colonel Bremenhof but—but everything.”
“Everything?” There was no smile now, but just a steady look.
“You are making me speak rather bluntly. He told me, I mean, how deeply he cared for you and he asked me to remain in Warsaw and come here to try and be of some help to you—as your sister said—for his sake.”
A pause of considerable embarrassment for me followed. Then she said merely: “Well?”
I felt very awkward. “I think that’s all,” I stumbled.
“I suppose I ought to be very much obliged to Ladislas,” she said, and dropped her gaze upon the table.
“His idea was that I could have helped your mother and you to get away from the city.”
“On your way to England, of course?” she asked, without looking up.
I hesitated. “Yes, on my way to England. Father Ambrose urged me to go to England, you know, as soon as possible; and General Eckerstein also.”
“I hope you will have a pleasant journey. Warsaw is just now a very questionable pleasure resort.”
“Is that my dismissal?”
She looked up and dropped the formal tone which had hurt me. “I thought you wished to go.”
“That is harder still,” I said.
She gave me her hand impulsively. “But you don’t really think I wish to say things that hurt you. After what you have done for me and what you have had to suffer? Don’t go away with that thought, please.”
“I don’t wish to go away at all, until I have been of some help to you. I wish only to make things plain.”
“Oh, then we are not saying good-bye,” she explained, drawing her hand from mine again, and smiling; only to change the next moment to earnestness. “Why surely you know there is no one whose help I would rather have than yours.”
“For Ladislas’ sake,” I said.
Her eyes took a half wistful, half smiling expression. “No matter for whose sake. We seem fated to be always on a sort of half false footing to one another. Strangers one hour, English the next, then fellow conspirators, and then after that brother and sister, and now——” She paused, as if at a loss for a word.
“Friends,” I prompted.
“Oh, yes, always friends, I trust.”
“Then let us try to think what can be done for your mother.”
“My dear mother. I must see Colonel Bremenhof, of course. Even with you to help me, the way is very hard to see.”
“Shall I go to him with you?”
At that moment the door was opened quickly and Colonel Bremenhof entered.
He was intensely surprised to find me in the room and I think quite as angry. It was Katinka’s doing.
“Your sister told me I should find you here, Volna,” he said; “but not that any one was with you. Least of all, Mr. Anstruther.”
Volna drew herself up and without taking his outstretched hand asked: “Where is my mother, Colonel Bremenhof?”
“I have come to speak to you about her.”
“They tell me you have had her arrested. Can that be true?”
“I wish to see you alone.”
“Until my question is answered, I will not speak to you alone; and if her arrest is your work, I will never see you again.”
“There are many things to explain. Will you be good enough to leave the room, sir?”
“Will you please stay, Mr. Anstruther?” said Volna quickly.
“Volna, I must see you in private. For your mother’s sake. Now, sir.”
“If Mr. Anstruther goes, I go,” she declared.
His face grew as dark as a thundercloud. “You forget yourself, Volna. Does this gentleman know——”
“That we have been betrothed? Oh, yes. It was Mr. Anstruther who saved me from the police at Bratinsk and afterwards. He naturally has my entire confidence. I know him for a friend, and he was about to start with me now to see you and get the truth from you about my mother’s arrest.”
“You are making a very unfortunate admission which may very greatly affect him.”
I couldn’t stand this. “Be good enough to leave me out of the question for the moment, Colonel Bremenhof,” I said. “I think I have shewn you that I know how to take care of myself.”
“Have you dared to arrest my mother?” asked Volna again.
“Madame Drakona is not arrested at all. Those who are concerned in the matter of this national trouble wish to ask her certain questions which she will, I hope, be able to answer quite satisfactorily.”
“What do you mean by you ‘hope’ she will be able to answer?” was Volna’s prompt retort. “I hope that even you would not stoop to the baseness I can read under your words.”
“In the absence of certain evidence, Madame Drakona has nothing to fear. That is all,” he said, doggedly. “Let us speak of this alone, Volna.”
“No!” she cried, with indignant emphasis. “Are you so ashamed of your act that you dare not discuss it? I know what you mean by what you call the evidence against my mother. You used your opportunities here and set your spies to scrape it together and you keep it in your own hands, holding it over me to force me to comply with your wishes. You are that kind of man. Now, what is your price?”
It was as easy to see that she was right as that her scorn and contempt struck right home. He changed colour, twisted his beard nervously, glanced at her, and from her to me; and stood baffled, disconcerted, scowling and silent.
“What is your price? Are you ashamed to name it before Mr. Anstruther?” she went on, in the same bitter tone. “On what terms will you consent to put that evidence in my hands? Can you do it? If I should consent to pay the price, what guarantee should I have, not only that you could, but that you would, keep any bargain you made? I should surely need some. I am ready to save my mother. Now, what is your price?” Her face flushed, her eyes shining, her manner eloquent of her contempt for him, she presented a magnificent picture of angry scorn.
He cut a pitiful figure in contrast, as he winced and cowered under her words as under the lash of a knout. He cared for her. There was no doubt of that. But it was this very love which made him suffer then. Hard, callous, cruel, indifferent to the suffering he made others endure, he cringed now under the mental torture she inflicted.
It galled him the more that of all men I should be the witness of his humiliation; nor was I at any pains to conceal my pleasure at his discomfiture.
When she spoke next, her tone was cold, quiet, and biting. “You are still ashamed to name it? You would do the thing itself, mean and dastardly as it is; but the mention of it harrows your delicate sense of honour. You are a Russian, and worthy of your country. You have thrown my mother into prison in order to force me to marry you at once. That is the price you will not name aloud; and that is a price I will not pay.”
The frown on his face deepened ominously as he muttered. “You are betrothed to me.”
“The one thing in my life I am ashamed of. It was a sham betrothal, and you are welcome to the truth now. I was at least honest with you. I told you there was on my side none of that feeling which a girl should have at such a time, and that I was heart free. What I did not tell you was that the betrothal was intended to save those about me from danger at your hand. It served its purpose until to-day, when you have struck this coward’s blow. Now, thank God, the truth can be told.”
Chancing to glance into a mirror at this moment, I caught sight of Katinka listening, white-faced, in the doorway. At this avowal of Volna’s she threw up her hands and hurried away.
“You admit you tricked me?” said Bremenhof between his clenched teeth.
“Call it what you will, I have told you now the truth.”
“You understand what this means?”
“I am not afraid of you. Say what you will and do what you will. I will save my mother in spite of you. Unless she is set free, your part in this shall be made known. How you have constantly held over me the threat of my mother’s arrest; how at my instance you have failed to do your duty—if it was your duty to arrest me—and how you have abused your official power to serve your personal ends with me. You have done your worst now; and have failed. And if justice is not really dead in Russia and we Poles are aught but your serfs, I will see that if we are to be punished, you, our accomplice, shall not escape your share of that punishment.”
“My God!” he exclaimed under his breath, abashed for the moment by her magnificent boldness. Then anger rallied him. “We will see,” he muttered, and turned to leave.
I stepped between him and the door.
“Let him go, if you please, Mr. Anstruther. Let him do what he dare.”
Without even another glance at her he went out.
“Thank Heaven the truth is out at last,” she said.
“I wonder you had the courage. What will he do?”
Before she answered, Katinka came in dressed for the street and looking very angry and alarmed.
“You are mad, Volna. I heard you. At such a time as this to speak so. You have placed us all in peril. You should be ashamed. Much you care for your mother!”
“I don’t think you can even guess how much, Katinka,” answered Volna very quietly. “Where are you going?”
“Anywhere rather than stay here after that. You had no thought for Paul or for me, of course. We are not safe another minute. Paul is with Ladislas; I have warned him by the telephone. I congratulate you, Mr. Anstruther, upon the disastrous result of your interference.”
“You must not say that, Katinka. This is not Mr. Anstruther’s doing; it is my own act, and mine only. But by all means save yourself.”
“The police may be here at any moment to arrest us all.”
“Then why waste time in staying to reproach me?”
Katinka’s great eyes flashed angrily. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” she cried. “You have never been like this before. It is sheer folly and madness.”
“I told him no more than the truth,” replied Volna; adding after a slight pause: “One of the really delicious moments of my life.”
“You purchased your pleasure with the safety of us all. Perhaps that will add to your enjoyment,” retorted Katinka, as she hurried out of the room.
“Katinka is eager for national independence, but she does not like it in the family.”
“What do you suppose Bremenhof will do?” I asked.
“I don’t feel as if I cared at this moment. I am just revelling in my emancipation.” She threw herself into a chair and leaned back clasping her hands behind her head. “I suppose I did not know myself; certainly I never realized before what a capacity for deep feeling I have. I seem to be waking up. Oh, how I hate that man!”
“I think we should be doing something practical,” I suggested.
She sighed impatiently and sat up. “You are shocked because I tell you I can hate?”
“I mean merely that he may send to arrest you; and you should be prepared.”
She rose. “If he does I must fall back upon Ladislas.”
“Ladislas?”
She crossed to the door, turned, and with a slow smile I had learnt to know well, answered: “Did he not get a promise from you to help me? I should never have dared to do what I have done to-day if you had not been here. But influence like that has its responsibilities, also, you know, and you——” The sentence was interrupted by the servant who rushed in then.
“The police are here again, Miss.”
The loud summons at the house door confirmed her ill news. Bremenhof had not left us long in doubt as to what he meant to do.