Part 17 (2/2)
”Calmly! Calmly! Yes, that is the word. It is easy for you to be calm when you don't care. But I care, and I cannot be calm.”
”What do you wish to do, Katherine?”
”What can I do? I am a pauper and a dependent, but one thing I am determined to do, and that is to go and live in my father's house.”
”If you were in my place, what would you do Katherine?”
”I would go to Russia.”
”What would you do when you arrived there?”
”If I had wealth I would use it in such a campaign of bribery and corruption in that country of tyrants that I should release two innocent men. I'd first find out where they were, then I'd use all the influence I possessed with the American Amba.s.sador to get them set free.”
”The American Amba.s.sador, Kate, cannot move to release either an Englishman or a Russian.”
”I'd do it somehow. I wouldn't sit here like a stick or a stone, writing letters to my architect.”
”Would you go to Russia alone?”
”No, I should take my father with me.”
”That is an excellent idea, Kate. I advise you to go north by to-night's train, if you like, and see him, or telegraph to him to come and see us.”
Kate sat down, and Dorothy drew the curtains across the window pane and snapped on the central cl.u.s.ter of electric lamps.
”Will you come with me if I go north?” asked Kate, in a milder tone than she had hitherto used.
”I cannot. I am making an appointment with a man in this room to-morrow.”
”The architect, I suppose,” cried Kate with scorn.
”No, with a man who may or may not give me information of Lamont or Drummond.”
Katherine stared at her open-eyed.
”Then you have been doing something?”
”I have been trying, but it is difficult to know what to do. I have received information that the house in which Mr. Lamont and Mr.
Drummond lived is now deserted, and no one knows anything of its former occupants. That information comes to me semi-officially, but it does not lead far. I have started inquiry through more questionable channels; in other words, I have invoked the aid of a Nihilist society, and although I am quite determined to go to Russia with you, do not be surprised if I am arrested the moment I set foot in St. Petersburg.”
”Dorothy, why did you not let me know?”
”I was anxious to get some good news to give you, but it has not come yet.”
”Oh, Dorothy,” moaned Katherine, struggling to keep back the tears that would flow in spite of her. Dorothy patted her on the shoulder.
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