Part 51 (2/2)

”Bernadine will try the woman,” she a.s.serted. ”You say that Hagon is infatuated?”

”Blindly,” De Grost replied. ”He scarcely lets her out of his sight.”

”Your people watch Bernadine?”

”Always.”

”Very well, then,” Violet went on, ”you will find that he will attempt an intrigue with the woman. The rest should be easy for you.”

De Grost sighed as he bent over his wife.

”My dear,” he said, ”there is no subtlety like the subtlety of a woman.”

Bernadine's instinct had not deceived him, and the following afternoon his servant, who had already received orders, silently ushered Madame Hagon into his apartments. She was wrapped in magnificent sables and heavily veiled. Bernadine saw at once that she was very nervous and wholly terrified. He welcomed her in as matter-of-fact a manner as possible.

”Madame,” he declared, ”this is quite charming of you. You must sit in my easy-chair here, and my man shall bring us some tea. I drink mine always after the fas.h.i.+on of your country, with lemon, but I doubt whether we make it so well. Won't you unfasten your jacket? I am afraid that my rooms are rather warm.”

Madame had collected herself, but it was quite obvious that she was unused to adventures of this sort. Her hand, when he took it, trembled, and more than once she glanced furtively toward the door.

”Yes, I have come,” she murmured. ”I do not know why. It is not right for me to come. Yet there are times when I am weary, times when Paul seems fierce and when I am terrified. Sometimes I even wish that I were back--”

”Your husband seems very highly strung,” Bernadine remarked. ”He has doubtless led an exciting life.”

”As to that,” she replied, gazing around her now and gradually becoming more at her ease, ”I know but little. He was a student professor at Moschaume, when I met him. I think that he was at one of the universities in St. Petersburg.”

Bernadine glanced at her covertly. It came to him as an inspiration that the woman did not know the truth.

”You are from Russia, then, after all,” he said, smiling. ”I felt sure of it.”

”Yes,” reluctantly. ”Paul is so queer in these things. He will not let me talk of it. He prefers that we are taken for French people. Indeed, it is not I who desire to think too much of Russia. It is not a year since my father was killed in the riots, and two of my brothers were sent to Siberia.”

Bernadine was deeply interested.

”They were among the revolutionaries?” he asked.

She nodded.

”Yes,” she answered.

”And your husband?”

”He, too, was with them in sympathy. Secretly, too, I believe that he worked among them. Only he had to be careful. You see, his position at the college made it difficult.”

Bernadine looked into the woman's eyes and he knew then that she was speaking the truth. This man was, indeed, a great master; he had kept her in ignorance!

”Always,” Bernadine said, a few minutes later, as he pa.s.sed her tea, ”I read with the deepest interest of the people's movement in Russia. Tell me, what became eventually of their great leader--the wonderful Father Paul?”

She set down her cup untasted, and her blue eyes flashed with a fire which turned them almost to the color of steel.

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