CHAPTER XXII
THE HOUR OF INDECISION
MY anticipations of the interview with Christina were a mingling of pleasure and apprehension. I was longing to see her. I had not set eyes on her for four days, and, busily as the time had been filled, my thoughts had been constantly with her. I recalled, too, with a feeling of mixed tenderness and pain, how she had then said we must not meet again alone, and at the recollection my pulses thrilled again with the sad sweetness of our acknowledged but never to be avowed love.
The knowledge of her present danger moved me deeply. I had to tell her the ill news myself, and, in telling it, to urge her to take the course which I knew must put an impassable gulf between us. It had been easy enough for me, in consultation with Zoiloff, when we were both staggered by this new development, to decide for the counsel of energy and to choose the course which, while loyal to Christina, my Princess, was traitor to Christina, my love. But if she would fly the country, there would be no longer the barrier of a throne between us.
And in the minutes I was alone waiting for her coming, the thought of all I was to lose in losing her, and of all I was to gain if she would consent to flight, threatened to make a coward of me and urged me to plead with all a lover’s strength that she should choose the course which would make her my wife. Away from her I could be the impassionate adviser, but in her presence, with the light of her eyes upon my face, with my heart glowing and throbbing with the knowledge of my love for her and hers for me, it would be hard to be more than a lover, and, being that, not to set the hopes and desires of our love beyond all other consideration.
I had to wait some minutes for her; and, as they passed, the struggle grew fiercer, the temptation strengthened, and the fear of losing her waxed until I was almost impelled to call in Zoiloff to prop my stumbling resolve. There were so many arguments to favour flight. The road was still open; the means were instantly available; safety could be won in a few hours—long before this Russian tyrant could strike; the Prince had counselled, even urged it; the Russian captain had done the same; all were convinced that safety could lie in no other course.
And if we struck and failed, what outlook was there but humiliation, ill-usage, a prison, and possibly death? Love was calling to us both on that frontier road, and smiling with the promise of a life of rare delight; and here in the city stood the gaunt shadow of menacing defeat, with all its grim terrors and gloomy threats of ruthless indignity, and quenchless, loveless sorrow and separation. Is it to be wondered at that I hearkened for the moment to the whispering invitation of love, and closed my ears to aught beside?
But before she came I had fought it back, thrusting the temptation away from me as a thing dishonourable and unclean, and I rose to greet her with a heart as full of loyalty as of love. She was looking sad and troubled, and she bowed to me merely, not giving me her hand as on former visits.
“I had not thought that we should be alone again, Count Benderoff,” she said, a little formally; and I hoped I could detect in this reception and in the light of her eyes when they fell upon me the sight of a personal feeling of pleasure that needed to be held firmly in check. I adopted a tone of formality that equalled her own.
“I had not forgotten your wish, Princess, but I have been compelled by grave circumstances to come to you thus. Have you heard any news? Your anxious looks suggest that you may know what I have to tell.”
“I have heard nothing. Is there bad news?”
“I grieve to say it is of the worst.”
“This time, at least, you are the bearer of it,” she replied, smiling faintly. “And I can trust you to tell me frankly. What is it?”
I told her plainly everything. First, the warning which the Russian officer, Captain Wolasky, had given me on the previous evening; and his strong advice that she should fly before it was too late. Then, in great detail, all that had passed between the Prince and myself that morning.
She was very pale and much agitated as my narrative proceeded; but she interrupted me scarcely once, and at the close sank back in her seat, and with her hands across her eyes remained buried in thought.
“It is hard news to hear,” she said despondently. “You say it spells the ruin of everything.”
“It is to the full as hard for me to tell as for you to hear,” I answered gently. “But it is no moment to flinch from the facts, however ugly. I fear it means the ruin of everything.” At my gloomy words she shuddered, and sat for some minutes silent in dismay. When she turned her face to me, it was so full of anguish and pain that it made my heart ache.
“How can I save those whom I have involved in this?”
“We are thinking of you, Princess,” I answered.
“Oh no, no, not of me!” she exclaimed vehemently. “For myself I care nothing. Heaven knows, my motives have not been inspired by mere personal ambition. I do not crave a throne, but I have longed with a passion I cannot perhaps make you feel, to spread the blessing of freedom among the people. For this end I have striven; and now it seems I have failed. Do not think of me. I will not think of myself. But to bring others to ruin is more than I can endure. Tell me—what do you advise? What can I do?”
“There seem but two courses open,” I said, and told her what Zoiloff and I had agreed together.
“You did not think that I would fly and leave those who have rallied to my cause to bear the brunt while I was seeking the coward’s refuge of safety?” she asked, half indignant that I should even have suggested it.
“No, I did not,” I answered quietly; “I knew you;” and her eyes thanked me for the words. “I should remind you, too, that this check has come so suddenly and prematurely for our plans that there are very few who are really involved in any danger. We have barely had time to throw off the veil of Russia’s sanction of our efforts, so that there are scarcely more than a handful of us who know the real object of the scheme; and General Kolfort would be unable to bring home even to them any acts against Russia. It is he who has encouraged the plans laid ‘In the Name of a Woman,’ and his own writing was in evidence to prove it. You will remember my early insistence upon the necessity for obtaining his written sanction. In the face of that I do not see that he could produce proofs to convict anyone except our trusty Zoiloff and Spernow, and say two or three others.”
“But yourself?” she cried, in a tone of quick alarm.
“I do not regard the consequences to myself as very serious, Princess,” I said calmly.
“I shall not run away,” she said, taking what I said as an argument in favour of her seeking her own safety, and she paused again to think. “Could I go myself to General Kolfort; give up everything on condition of his visiting it all on me? I am responsible.”
It was a true woman’s offer, and a noble one; but I shook my head.
“I fear it would be hopeless. He would but drag from you all that you could tell him, and then use the information remorselessly and without a scruple against those implicated. You would do the very thing you seek to avoid.” Her face fell as she saw the truth of this, and she sighed heavily.
“But this alternative—what is it but a wild forlorn hope? A desperate step with scarce a chance of success? May not the consequences be a thousandfold worse than the worst that can come of doing nothing? Have you thought of what would happen if we failed? You said just now that so far only a few are openly embroiled; but should we not be forcing each man to declare himself, and would not each be marked out plainly as a target for Russian malice?”
“There is the hope of success, even if it be forlorn. There are many of us who think it better to fight and fail than not to fight at all.”
“I do not like it; I am afraid of it. The chances are so few; the risks so enormous to others. I dare not sanction it.”
“We are men; the cause is a noble one; enthusiasm has spread everywhere, and a lesser spirit has ere now led a feebler movement to success. There is not one of us, I believe, who would stand back in fear.”
“There may be bloodshed,” she cried.
“Much blood has already been shed in the cause of oppression. We must think of the ends, not the means. A bold stroke here will bring the army in the south to your standard—and that may do everything.”
“It is a momentous decision to have to make. I cannot make it. I must have time to think.”
“Every hour that delays the decision may turn the balance between success and failure.”
“If I thought we could triumph!” she cried, her eyes flashing and her cheeks glowing for a moment. But she paused, the light died out as quickly as it had come, and she shook her head mournfully. “I must have time.”
“Let me send for Captain Zoiloff. Hear him.”
“Do you think he can persuade me where you fail, Count?” she asked, her eyes burning again, but with a different emotion.
“At least I would have you hear him, Princess,” I said, dropping my eyes and speaking as evenly as I could command my voice.
While he was sent for I stood in silence, and when he came I told him briefly what had passed. He spoke strongly and bluntly like the sturdy fellow he was; but he could not prevail any more than I, and he left the room rather abruptly.
The Princess looked after him with an expression of the deepest pain, and when she turned again to me I saw the tears standing in her eyes, and her voice was all unsteady as she cried from her heart:
“Does he think I would not do this if I dared?” And throwing herself back in her seat, she pressed her hands to her face, quite overcome with the strain of her emotions.
I waited in much embarrassment, uncertain whether to go or stay. Some moments passed in this tense silence, and then, to my surprise, she turned upon me with some indignation.
“Why did you bring him here to humiliate me like this? Does it give you pleasure to stay and witness my weakness—or what you deem weakness? Cannot you understand what I feel? Is everything to yield place to ambition, and are the dictates of humanity nothing to you? Cannot you see what I am suffering, torn in this way by the distracting doubts of such a crisis? Do you think these tears are not as hard for me to shed as the blood of others as innocent of wrong as God knows I am? Why do you plague me until I—— Oh, forgive me my wild words! I don’t know what I am saying.” And she passed in a breath from indignation to lament.
“Permit me to leave you now, Princess,” I murmured.
“Would you also leave me in anger? Have I no friend staunch enough to bear with my moods, or true enough to understand me? Yes, Count Benderoff, if you wish to go the way is open to you.” And, rising, she stood erect and proud, and made me a stately bow as of dismissal. “I can decide and act alone, if need be.” Yet in the very moment of her passing indignation her lip quivered and her breath was tremulous.
“As God is my judge, I have no thought but for you!” I cried, with a rush of passion at the sight of her trouble, and I threw myself on my knee before her. “Tell me how you wish me to act, and when I have failed reproach me with want of staunchness, but not till then.”
My voice was hoarse and broken.
As I knelt I could hear the quick catches in her breath as she stood over me, and the very rustling of the trembling laces of her dress seemed to speak to me of her sufferings.
“I have wronged you, or worse—I have insulted you, Count. Ah me! I who know so well how you are indeed my friend! Do not kneel to me. It is I who should kneel to you.” And at that her hand, fevered and trembling, was laid gently in mine, as if to raise me to my feet.
I kissed the fingers, the tender grace of her words of contrition almost unmanning me, and driving out all thought but of my love and my desire to comfort her. I rose, and, still holding her hand, gazed into her eyes, which shone on me through the dew of her tears in a smile of loving confidence.
“I trust you wholly,” she whispered. “Help me to do right.”
“If I were thinking of myself, I would urge you with every means in my power to fly,” I said in low, rapid accents of passion.
“No, no, you must not counsel that,” she cried vehemently. “We must not, dare not, think of ourselves. Spare me that temptation.”
“You cannot stay here and be safe unless we make this desperate venture.”
“And the world would say I ran away because I feared for my safety, betraying all who have sought to help my cause; or else that I fled to——” She paused, her face aflame with sudden blushes. “You would not have me do that?”
“You are my world,” I answered recklessly. “Listen one moment. In our hearts we all know, Zoiloff as well as any, that the cause is lost. Till I fired him again—knowing how you would shrink from flight—he was saturated with hopelessness. When he heard the ill news, his one thought was how you could be saved. That is the thought of us all. The way to the frontier is still open. I have ready at instant command the means of securing your safety. If you will go, I will stay to check the slanderous tongues whose malice you dread. If you bid me I will never see you again. But for God’s sake, I implore you, leave me at least the solace that you are safe.”
The words moved her so that for a while she could not speak, but the clasp of her hand tightened on mine. Then she asked tenderly:
“Do you think the woman in me would know a moment’s happiness if you were in danger?”
“Then let it be a woman’s decision,” I urged passionately, carried away by the love in her voice. “Life is all before us.”
“No. It cannot be. Cannot. Must not,” and she shook her head and shuddered. “You know what this temptation must be to me. Do not urge it. I cannot listen. I dare not yield. I beg you be merciful,” she pleaded.
“Then fly and let me remain,” I said.
“The Princess cannot and must not go.” The words came all reluctantly, but were firmly spoken. I saw my pleading of love was to fail, and my heart sank. “But you must fly!”
“Christina!” The name slipped in protest from my lips before I thought, and I feared she would resent it; and I felt her hand start.
“That is the hardest plea of all you have used,” she said softly, with a smile of rare sweetness. “Christina is powerless to resist you, but the Princess must decide this. Do not use that plea again.”
“I must—I cannot lose you,” I cried desperately, “I love you so.”
“Don’t, please, please don’t. If I dared to think of myself there would be no gladlier fugitive under Heaven’s bright sky than Christina. There, I have bared my heart to you, as I never thought to open it. And by the love I know you have for me, and by the love that answers it in my heart, I entreat you help me to be strong enough to resist you. Let us never have to think that we placed our love before our duty—however hard and stern. Lend me your man’s strength; I need it so sorely.” And with a little piteous action of entreaty she placed her other hand on mine, and gazed full into my eyes.
I stood fighting down my wildly roused passion, trembling under its stress like a child, till I conquered it.
“It shall be as you wish,” I said at length. “We will stay and face this together. But you must not ask me again to desert you.”
“There is a higher happiness than is bounded by our own wishes only,” she whispered.
“I can know no sorrow deeper than my loss of you. But it shall be as my Princess desires;” and I bent and kissed her hands again.
“The sorrow should be the lighter if divided,” she whispered, with a tender reproach for the selfishness of my words.
“The thought made me a coward for the moment. And no man should be a coward whose ears have been blessed by the words which you have spoken, and the knowledge I have gained. Forgive the cowardice.”
“I would I could as easily spare you the sorrow,” she murmured.
“To do that now would be to rob my life of its one great happiness. Come what may for me, I shall never love again;” and with that assurance, which brought all the love in her heart in a rush of eloquent, speaking tenderness to her eyes, I left her, caring little indeed what might happen to me if our union were impossible.