Part 17 (1/2)

I stood before her, not with bowed head, as perhaps I might have done had my true feelings been expressed, but with bowed and stricken heart, suddenly aware that I had gained the glory of her love only to lose it, and in a manner which carried with it no redress.

”I have completed an organization of men, Zara,” I went on, calmly, and in a tone which I endeavored to render as monotonous as possible, ”that has for its purpose the undoing of nihilism, as it is now practiced.

That body of men extends, in its ramifications, throughout St.

Petersburg, and even to other cities of Russia. Its purpose, primarily, is not to send conspirators to Siberia to suffer exile there, with all the other horrors that go with it, but to----”

”Enough!” she interrupted me. ”I have heard quite enough, Dubravnik!

What you say to me now, is meaningless twaddle. You are like all the others who pit themselves against the silent body of men and women who are engaged in seeking the freedom of their country. If you knew anything of the horrors of Siberia, to which you so glibly refer, you would shudder when you mention them, and you would fly with horror from any act of your own that might commit a person to Siberia, and exile.”

She came half-way around the table, and stood facing me, somewhat nearer. ”If you had taken a journey through Siberia before you offered your services to the czar, you would have strangled yourself, or have cut out your tongue, rather than have gone to him with any such dastardly proposition as you confess yourself to have fathered. _You_ prate of stultifying yourself by taking the oath of nihilism, and repudiating your word to Alexander. YOU! YOU! A PROFESSIONAL SPY!” She threw back her head and laughed aloud, not with glee, but with utter derision of spirit, and I shrank from the sound of it as I might have done from a blow in the face.

Again she was a creature of moods and impulses. Again the wild Tartar blood, leaping in her veins, controlled her. With a sudden move she came nearer to me, and bending forward, looked into my face intently, as if searching for something which had hitherto escaped her notice.

”What are you doing, Zara?” I asked her; and she replied.

”I am searching for the man whom, but a moment ago, I thought I loved.

I am seeking to find what it could have been that I saw in your eyes, or your face, or your manner, that has so '_stultified_' ME. It is an apt word, Dubravnik.”

”Seek further, and perhaps you will find.”

”No,” she said. ”He is gone, if he ever was there;” and she shrank slowly away from me, backward, across the room, until the table was again between us, and she stood leaning upon it with both hands this time, peering at me with widened eyes that might have belonged to a child in the act of staring between the bars of a cage at some wild beast confined within it.

It is impossible to describe her att.i.tude and the expression of her face, at that moment. Horror, repulsion, contempt, loathing, even hatred, were depicted there. I recognized the fact with shuddering despair. I was that one thing which she most despised.

It is strange how the light of the world went out, for me. In realizing the great calamity that had fallen upon me, I forgot all else; but strangely enough I did not once think of appealing to her. Slowly I turned away, and with slow strides approached the door which would admit me to the corridor, and so permit me to pa.s.s from the house to the street.

I reached it; I drew it open. I did not turn my head to look at her again, lest I should become unmanned, and degrade myself by pleading with her for the impossible. I pa.s.sed into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind me, and then, somehow, I got as far as the bal.u.s.trade, which, by following it, would lead me to the bottom of the stairs at the house entrance.

My foot was upon the first step of the stairs when I heard rus.h.i.+ng footsteps behind me, and instantly was caught by clinging arms around my neck, and I felt her hot and quick breath upon my cheek.

She did not speak; she only clung to me. I did not speak; but I turned about with restored strength, and with my spirit renewed. I seized her in my arms. I crushed her against me, violently. I raised her from her feet, holding her as if she had been a child, and then, bearing her with me, I strode backward through the doorway, and into the room I had just left. I carried her to the divan, and I seated her upon the edge of it, still retaining my grasp upon her; and I said:

”Zara, you are mine. Nothing short of death shall take you from me. In the last few moments I have experienced all the horrors of a separation from you. A little while ago you loved me. Only a few moments ago, we were all there was in creation. For a moment which has seemed an eternity, I believed that I had lost you, but when you followed me to the landing of the stairway, I knew that I had not lost you, even for that instant. You love me, Zara, and you shall be mine. Before G.o.d, you shall be!”

For a moment I thought she intended to struggle again, to escape me.

Indeed, I was certain that she was on the point of doing so, and I tightened my grasp upon her while I dropped upon one knee, and added:

”Zara, let me hear you say once again that you love me.”

Her answer was a burst of tears, and for a time she could find no other expression for her emotions; and while these lasted, she clung to me the more tightly, so that when, at last, the storm did come to an end, her lips were closely against my ear, and I heard the whispered words:

”I do love you.”

But instantly she started away from me, and she cried out.

”Wait! wait, Dubravnik! I remember, now, that I had begun to tell you a story. I was telling you what made me a nihilist.”

”Yes.”

”I will finish the story, if you will let me.”