"Ah!"

"I am a coward," she went on. "I did not know it before. It is rather humiliating. I have been trying for some weeks to tell you something, but I am horribly afraid of it. I am afraid you will despise me. I have been a fool--worse, perhaps. I never knew that Claude de Chauxville was the sort of person he is. I allowed him to find out things about me which he never should have known--my own private affairs, I mean. Then I became frightened, and he tried to make use of me. I think he makes use of every-body. _You_ know what he is."

"Yes," answered Paul, "I know."

"He hates you," she went on. "I do not want to make mischief, but I suppose he wanted to marry the princess. His vanity was wounded because she preferred you, and he wanted to be avenged upon you. Wounds to the vanity never heal. I do not know how he did it, Paul, but he made me help him in his schemes. I could have prevented you from going to the bear hunt, for I suspected him then. I could have prevented my mother from inviting him to Thors. I could have put a thousand difficulties in his way, but I did not. I helped him. I told him about the people and who were the worst--who had been influenced by the Nihilists and who would not work. I allowed him to stay on here and carry out his plan.

All this trouble among the peasants is his handiwork. He has organized a regular rising against you. He is horribly clever. He left us yesterday, but I am convinced that he is in the neighborhood still."

She stopped and reflected. There was something wanting in the story, which she could not supply. It was a motive. A half-confession is almost an impossibility. When we speak of ourselves it must be all or nothing--preferably, nothing.

"I do not know why I did it," she said. "It was a sort of period I went through. I cannot explain."

He did not ask her to do so. They were singularly like brother and sister in their mental attitude. They had driven through twenty miles of forest which belonged to one or other of them. Each was touched by the intangible, inexplicable dignity that belongs to the possession of great lands--to the inheritance of a great name.

"That is the confession," she said.

He gave a little laugh.

"If none of us had worse than that upon our consciences," he answered, "there would be little harm in the world, De Chauxville's schemes have only hurried on a crisis which was foreordained. The progress of humanity cannot be stayed. They have tried to stay it in this country.

They will go on trying until the crash comes. What is the favor you have to ask?"

"You must leave Osterno," she urged earnestly; "it is unsafe to delay even a few hours. M. de Chauxville said there would be no danger. I believed him then, but I do not now. Besides, I know the peasants. They are hard to rouse, but once excited they are uncontrollable. They are afraid of nothing. You must get away to-night."

Paul made no answer.

She turned slowly in her seat and looked into his face by the light of the waning moon.

"Do you mean that you will not go?"

He met her glance with his grave, slow smile.

"There is no question of going," he answered. "You must know that."

She did not attempt to persuade. Perhaps there was something in his voice which she as a Russian understood--a ring of that which we call pig-headedness in others.

"It must be splendid to be a man," she said suddenly, in a ringing voice. "One feeling in me made me ask you the favor, while another was a sense of gladness at your certain refusal. I wish I was a man. I envy you. You do not know how I envy you, Paul."

Paul gave a quiet laugh--such a laugh as one hears in the trenches after the low hum of a passing ball.

"If it is danger you want, you will have more than I in the next week,"

he answered. "Steinmetz and I knew that you were the only woman in Russia who could get your father safely out of the country. That is why I came for you."

The girl did not answer at once. They were driving on the road again now, and the sleigh was running smoothly.

"I suppose," she said reflectively at length, "that the secret of the enormous influence you exercise over all who come in contact with you is that you drag the best out of every one--the best that is in them."

Paul did not answer.

"What is that light?" she asked suddenly, laying her hand on the thick fur of his sleeve. She was not nervous, but very watchful.

"There--straight in front."

"It is the sleigh," replied Paul, "with your father and Steinmetz. I arranged that they should meet us at the cross-roads. You must be at the Volga before daylight. Send the horses on to Tver. I have given you Minna and The Warrior; they can do the journey with one hour's rest, but you must drive them."

Catrina had swayed forward against the bar of the apron in a strange way, for the road was quite smooth. She placed her gloved hands on the bar and held herself upright with a peculiar effort.

"What?" said Paul. For she had made an inarticulate sound.

"Nothing," she answered. Then, after a pause, "I did not know that we were to go so soon. That was all."

CHAPTER XLII

THE STORM BURSTS

The large drawing-room was brilliantly lighted. Another weary day had dragged to its close. It was the Tuesday evening--the last Tuesday in March five years ago. The starosta had not been near the castle all day.

Steinmetz and Paul had never lost sight of the ladies since breakfast time. They had not ventured out of doors. There was in the atmosphere a sense of foreboding--the stillness of a crisis. Etta had been defiant and silent--a dangerous humor--all day. Maggie had watched Paul's face with steadfast, quiet eyes full of courage, but she knew now that there was danger.

The conversation at breakfast and luncheon had been maintained by Steinmetz--always collected and a little humorous. It was now dinner time. The whole castle was brilliantly lighted, as if for a great assembly of guests. During the last week a fuller state--a greater ceremony--had been observed by Paul's orders, and Steinmetz had thought more than once of that historical event which appealed to his admiration most--the Indian Mutiny.

Maggie was in the drawing-room alone. She was leaning one hand and arm on the mantel-piece, looking thoughtfully into the fire. The rustle of silk made her turn her head. It was Etta, beautifully dressed, with a white face and eyes dull with suspense.

"I think it is warmer to-night," said Maggie, urged by a sudden necessity of speech, hampered by a sudden chill at the heart.

"Yes," answered Etta. And she shivered.

For a moment there was a little silence and Etta looked at the clock. It was ten minutes to seven.

A high wind was blowing, the first of the equinoctial gales heralding the spring. The sound of the wind in the great chimney was like the moaning of high rigging at sea.

The door opened and Steinmetz came in. Etta's face hardened, her lips closed with a snap. Steinmetz looked at her and at Maggie. For once he seemed to have no pleasantry ready for use. He walked toward a table where some books and newspapers lay in pleasant profusion. He was standing there when Paul came into the room. The prince glanced at Maggie. He saw where his wife stood, but he did not look at her.

Steinmetz was writing something on half a sheet of notepaper, in pencil.

He pushed it across the table toward Paul, who drew it nearer to him.

"Are you armed?" were the written words.

Paul crushed the paper in the hollow of his hand and threw it into the fire, where it burned away. He also glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to seven.

Suddenly the door was thrown open and a manservant rushed in--pale, confused, terror-stricken. He was a giant footman in the gorgeous livery of the Alexis.

"Excellency," he stammered in Russian, "the castle is surrounded--they will kill us--they will burn us out----"

He stopped abashed before Paul's pointing finger and stony face.

"Leave the room!" said Paul. "You forget yourself."