"You don't know what you say, nor what you refuse."

"All the more reason for not regretting my refusal," I retorted, lightly. "But this does not answer my question--Why do you seek to have me a.s.sa.s.sinated?"

"Siberia is getting overpopulated," he returned, manifestly angry at my refusal.

"You mean it's cheaper to kill than to exile."

"One must have some regard for its morals, too," he sneered, with a contempt at which my rage took fire.

I looked at him with a light in my eyes which he could read plainly enough.

"You are a coward, M. Tueski," said I, sternly: "because you presume upon the office you hold to say things which without the protection that guards you, you would not dare to let between your teeth."

"It is useless to talk in that strain to me," he said, shortly. "I know you."

"No--by Heaven, you don't--yet. But I'll let you know something of me now. Men say you know no fear; that your loves, desires, emotions, are all dead--all, save ambition. I'll test that. This plot you have laid against my life is your own private revenge for some fancied wrong.

You have sought to carry it out even at the very moment when you had had a hint to guard me. It was cunningly laid, and nearly succeeded; and then you would have set the blame down at Devinsky's door."

He listened without making a sign: quite impa.s.sively. But the mere fact that he did listen shewed me I was striking the right note, and further that he wished to see what I meant to do.

"Go on," he said, contemptuously, when I paused.

"I can prove this: aye, and I will prove it, even if I go to the Emperor himself: and prove it--by your own wife." He could not wholly conceal the effect of this. He knew the strength of the threat.

"More than that," I cried then, quickening my speech and shewing much more pa.s.sion. "You know what the world says about me and your wife.

You shewed me you knew it, when I told you just now that she was in my rooms when your men came to try and take my life. You have dared to smirch my honour in regard to women: and you have lied. So far as your wife is concerned, there has never been a thought of mine toward her tainted with dishonour. So far as I am concerned she is virgin pure.

But, by G.o.d! beware how you taunt me. It lies with you to say whether I shall change; and if you drive me to it, I'll...."

I left the terrible sentence unfinished; and the change in the man's manner shewed me how he was inwardly shrinking and wincing at my desperate words.

"Go on. What do you want?" He spoke after a great effort and strove to keep his voice at the dead level of official lifelessness. But the man was an inward fire of rage and jealousy.

"This duel is not my seeking, but yours, M. Tueski," I continued. "And for my part I would as soon have a truce. But if we are to fight on, I will use every weapon I can lay my hand on,--and use them desperately.

You can prove the truth of what I say. Send round someone to my rooms and fetch away the scoundrel who is there. My sister will let him go.

Your wife, her friend, is staying with her to help in case of need.

And whatever else I may be, at least I should not give my mistress to my sister for a friend."

"You are the devil!" The words forced themselves through his teeth at this word. I used it deliberately: and it was the shrewdest thing I could have done. He left the room without another word, going through a door behind him; and, calling to someone, he whispered some instructions.

"You have sent? You are right," I said, when he returned. "And now, call off these bloodhounds of yours; and so long as you play fair with me, my sister and your wife can be friends. And no longer. One other condition. Give me two police permits to cross the frontier on special business--one for me and one for my sister. You may not be sorry if I decide to take a holiday."

"I cannot give them, and you cannot leave," he answered.

"Write me the permits. I'll see about using them."

"No; I cannot write them. If I did, they would be cancelled to-morrow by the Ministry of the Interior."

"Why?"

"The fact is what I say. You cannot leave Russia."

"I care nothing for that. Write them--or we resume this duel, M.

Tueski."

He was a changed man. He was so accustomed to exact implicit obedience to his will, and to ride roughshod over everyone about him, that now being beaten, his collapse was utter and complete. He was absolutely overcome by the pressure I could threaten and he thought I was blackguard enough to apply.

For once at least my old black character did me a good turn. He acted like a weak child now, entirely subjected by my will. He wrote the permits as I directed.

As he was writing it occurred to me there must be some influence behind the scenes which told with him. Else, why did he not forthwith write out the order for my imprisonment? He had done it hundreds of times before in the case of men infinitely more influential than myself. His signature would open the door of any prison in Russia. It suggested itself that it was this reason which was at the bottom of the attempt to get me killed. He dared not follow out his own desire.

"One thing puzzles me," I said, coolly, as I took the permits. "Why haven't you, instead of writing these, written an order packing me off to gaol? What is this power behind you?"

"I may live in hope, perhaps," he returned. "Your sword and your shrewdness may carry you far: and some day as far as the gaol you speak of. I shan't fail to write it when the time comes."

I left him with that.

As I left the house a man pressed close to me, and I turned to see what he wanted. There was no one else about.

"Is it done?" he whispered.

I looked at him keenly; but I had never seen him before, I thought.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The night in the riverside wharf," he whispered back.

He was a Nihilist; here right in the very eye of the police web.

"The way is laid," I answered, equivocally, as I hurried away.

I had actually forgotten in my eagerness all about my charge to kill the man with whom I had been closeted in conference.

But I saw instantly that the Nihilist would probably hold it for an act of treachery that I had been in Tueski's house and yet had let him live.

CHAPTER XIII.

OLGA IN A NEW LIGHT.

I walked back to my rooms as I wished to cool my head and think. The interview with Christian Tueski had excited me, and what was of more importance, had kindled a hope that after all I might be able to escape the tremendous difficulties that encompa.s.sed me.

One thing in particular pleased me, for it was a double-edged knife loosening two sets of the complications. It was the promise I had given to the man to respect his wife so long as he kept faith with me.

This gave me power over him, and what was of infinitely greater value to me personally, it was a shrewd defence against the wife also.

I smiled as I thought of the ingenuity of this; but I little thought what would be the actual result. It seemed then the shrewdest and cleverest, as well as the most daring thing I had done; but in the end the consequences were such as might properly have followed an act of the grossest stupidity and villainy possible. For the moment it pleased me, however, and I was in truth finding the keenest pleasure in this parrying of the thrusts which the fates were making at me.

There was a problem I could not solve, however, in the question of the power which seemed to be behind the Chief of the Police; the power which made him apparently afraid to strike me openly though so willing to trip me secretly. I could not imagine what it could be, nor whence it could come.