Part 29 (1/2)

”_Au revoir_!”

Her tears were falling still, though she answered him steadily enough.

Then she turned away, pulling down her veil, and he saw her grope blindly for the fastening of the door. It shut gently behind her, and he was alone. He sat down by the table with its litter of books and newspapers, and stared dully round the room which her pa.s.sing had left more hopeless and ugly than ever.

Life itself would be more _fade_ and ugly now. As well for him that after to-day he would have no time to sit and brood. It would be all stern reality soon, enough to cure him of lovesickness.

First the work and risks of a secret printing press in some cellar or sordid room behind a shop, and later on the inevitable police-raid, a trial that would be no trial with the condemnation signed before-hand, and afterwards the _travaux forces_, the long marches, the agonies of farewell at the Siberian boundary-post--not for him, for his were said, but for his companions in misery--the miseries of the sick and dying, the partial starvation, and the horrors of dirt and vermin. There were sure to be some women too among the ”politicals,” and he would be obliged to watch their sufferings.

There would be no imaginary grievances in that life at all events.

On the floor, as it had dropped from among the music there lay a photograph, face downwards.

He picked it up and looked back at the childish, smiling face, the tiny, rounded figure of Marie Roumanoff.

”_Tout pa.s.se, tout ca.s.se, tout la.s.se_.”

His mouth twisted into a cynical smile. She had been a true prophetess when she had written that.

He tore the picture across, and threw it upon the rest of the _debris_.

The Roumanoff would never haunt his dreams again.

Her portrait was easily destroyed. A flimsy thing of print and paper, as slight and fragile as herself.

Of Arith.e.l.li he possessed no tangible likeness, but he would have her always with him, for her image was seared deep upon both heart and brain.

_The Witch_ sailed out of Barcelona harbour with the early morning tide. Besides Emile and Vladimir, and a small picked crew, she carried an a.s.sortment of strangely-shaped machines, things that looked like the inside of a clock, and were full of wheels and cogs, firearms, and ammunition, some copies of a revolutionist manual on street fighting tactics, and other inflammatory literature.

Their plan was to enter Russia by way of Finland, leaving all the things there to be smuggled through by degrees.

When they came to the frontier they would part company. Emile would make his way towards the city that holds its trembling autocrat as closely guarded in his palace as any convict in the mines, while Vladimir was to go back to Spain overland to report success or failure in the landing and disposal of their dangerous cargo.

All day the two men sat together, talking, plotting, preparing for all contingencies.

There were no feminine voices to be heard on board the yacht now, no singing on deck in the evenings, no hint of the presence of a woman, either as wife, mistress, or companion.

They neither discussed nor recalled these vanished days, though one had hours of memory and regret, and the other was consumed with a savage hunger for that which he had lost.

Both had taken upon themselves vows that put them outside the pale of human ties and affections.

The G.o.ddess whom they both served had risen, claiming their allegiance, their service, and with the lives and ways of mortal women they had no concern. The Cause had triumphed.

CHAPTER XX

”Do you not know I am a woman?”

AS YOU LIKE IT.

Sobrenski was a man who wasted no time in making up his mind. His success as a leader had depended upon his swiftness of action and unscrupulousness, and his latest manoeuvres had turned out an admirable success, upon which he might safely congratulate himself.

The day following the resolution of the Committee, he had written to Arith.e.l.li, telling her to come to his flat to receive instructions.