Her eyes swept the room with cold hauteur

The Shears of Destiny

By
Leroy Scott

Author of
“To Him That Hath,” “The Walking Delegate”

Illustrated by Alexander Popini

New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1910

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, BY THE SUCCESS COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1910, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1910

CHARACTERS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SHEARS OF DESTINY

THE SHEARS OF DESTINY

CHAPTER I
THE WOMAN IN BROWN

INSTEAD of the week Drexel had thought his business would keep him in Moscow, two days sufficed. They were a pleasant two days, rich with promise of future profit, and it was with regret that he settled down in his compartment of the day express to St. Petersburg. He would have been glad had his business denied him a little longer the company of his aunt and his cousin Alice and the polished Prince Berloff.

Drexel gave little heed to the country through which his train shrieked and rumbled. And there was small reason that he should, for the land was monotonously flat, and made more monotonous by its vast blanket of sunless snow, beneath which it had been asleep these two months and which it would not throw aside with the awakening gesture of Spring for three long months to come. As far as the eye could reach there was only this gray-white, frozen desert—desolate emptiness, save where forests of spruce and hemlock lifted their myriad whited peaks toward the sullen sky, or a distant peasant village huddled low as if shivering with the bitter cold.

The pictures before his inward eye were far more interesting than this unvaried panorama unrolled by the snowbound land of his exile. He had reserved an entire compartment that he might think uninterrupted, and as the white miles flew behind him new visions of fortune, of power, of position, shaped and reshaped themselves in his rapid incisive mind. He longed impatiently to be back in Chicago—back with his uncle in the midst of things!

Running through all his thoughts and visions was his last talk with his uncle. That talk had risen from this very business of his coming to Russia. While in Paris the preceding summer Alice and her mother had met Prince Berloff, then in France on a secret diplomatic mission. He was one of Russia’s greatest titles, Alice one of America’s greatest fortunes, so the engagement that followed was possibly pre-ordained. Alice’s mother had written her husband that she desired to see the country where her daughter was to be so exalted a figure, and had declared that they would be perfectly safe, even though smouldering revolutions did threaten to flame forth, under the protection of so great a nobleman as Prince Berloff. But old John Howard would not permit their visit without a nearer escort; and since he himself could not leave the great traction deal which then engrossed him, he had shunted his duties upon his convenient nephew.

Drexel had rebelled. He protested against leaving the traction deal and the other vast interests his uncle was drawing him into. And on another ground he protested with even greater vehemence. He had thought himself in love with his pretty cousin, and he now urged to his uncle the ironic incongruity of the rejected suitor being compelled to escort his inamorata about the land, and among the honours, of his successful rival.

His uncle had put a hand upon his arm. “See here, Henry,” he said with brusque affection, “you don’t really care for Alice, and never did care. You just thought you did.”

“We’ll pass that. But even if I cared, you would have turned me down just the same.” His tone was bitter, for the thing still rankled. “Of course I realize that your sister’s son is a poor man.”

“No poorer than my son would be, if I had one, if I had died twenty-five years ago like your father. In this marriage business, it wasn’t that you haven’t any money. It was because your aunt—well, you know as well as I do how keen she was about a title. But forget all that, my lad. I like you just as if you were my own boy. And I’m proud of you. Ten years from now, you’ll be the biggest young business man in America!”

Drexel gave a dry laugh. “I don’t look much like that picture at present. What have I got? Only the little my mother left me!”

And then his uncle had said the great words. “Eh, but, boy, you’re only twenty-six; and so far you’ve just been in training! In training to take my place when I step out. Your training is over; when you come back from Russia, your real career begins—and a big one, too! Oh, your fifty thousand is nothing”—he brushed it aside with a contemptuous hand—“but you know you’re coming in for a good part of what I have and you’re going to manage the whole pile. One of these princes may be all right for a son-in-law, but he don’t get control of my business! The things I’ve spent my life in building up, I’m not going to have sold, or ruined by mismanagement. No, sir!”

The old man had brought the flat of his hand down upon the table. “See here, Henry—forget your grouch—look me straight in the eye. That’s right. Now, down in the bottom of your heart, don’t you know that you’ve got the biggest business chance of any young fellow in America?”

The keen young gray eyes looked steadily into the keen old gray eyes. “I do,” he admitted.

“And is there anything you’d like better than to control great industries—to make millions on millions—to know that though you don’t live in Washington you’ve got as big a say-so in running things as any man that does?”

The young man’s face had glowed, his voice had rung with perfect confidence. “I’m going to be all that, uncle. I feel it in me! It’s the dream of my life!”

And it was about this great future that Drexel’s thoughts revolved as his train roared onward across the snow. His ironic duty was all but done. For three months he had grimly played his part, and now in two weeks Alice would be Princess Berloff. Originally the marriage was to have taken place in Chicago, but the disturbed state of affairs would not permit the prince to leave his country, so it had been decided that the wedding should be in St. Petersburg—and Mr. Howard, set free by a business lull, was now lunging through wintry seas to be present at the ceremony. Two more weeks, and Drexel and his uncle would be speeding back to Chicago—back to giant affairs.

But some of his business thoughts centred here in Russia; for, after all, his banishment from business promised to be a fortunate misfortune. Drexel had not been in Russia two days before he had seen the tremendous opportunities the future would offer capital in this the most undeveloped of civilized countries. He had begun to project great schemes—schemes to be inaugurated years hence, when the success of the Czar or the revolutionists had given the country that stability necessary for business enterprise. And it was characteristic of his energy, and of the way he prepared for distant eventualities, that he had applied himself to the study of the Russian tongue the better to fit himself for these dim-seen Russian successes.

At Bolgoîé his meditations were interrupted by the pause of the express for lunch. The platform was crowded with soldiers and gendarmes, and standing about in attitudes of exaggerated indifference were men whose furtive watchfulness betrayed them as spies of an inferior grade. At Drexel’s table in the station dining-room sat several officers of the gendarmerie, to whom he mechanically listened. They were discussing the greatest of the Government’s recent triumphs—the arrest a week before of Borodin, one of the chief revolutionary leaders, who immediately following his seizure had been secretly whisked away, no one knew whither save only the head of the spy system and a few other high officials. In what prison the great leader was held was a question all Russia was then asking.

“Ah,” exclaimed the officers, “if the same prison only held The White One!”

That was a name to arouse even such indifferent ears as Drexel’s, for he felt the same curiosity as did the rest of Russia concerning the person concealed behind this famous sobriquet. The little that he knew had served only to quicken his interest. He joined in the officers’ conversation, but they could add nothing to his meagre knowledge. The White One was the great general who planned and directed the outbursts from the underworld of revolution—a master of daring strategy—the shrewdest, keenest brain in the Empire. That was all. For the rest The White One was shrouded in complete mystery. To Russia at large The White One was just a great, invisible, impersonal power, and to the Czar the name most dreaded in all his realm.

Back in his compartment, Drexel renewed his eager planning, and his mind did not again turn from business till St. Petersburg was but some two hours ahead, and the short, dull-hued day had long since deepened into night. He heard a voice in the corridor of his coach remark that near the station at which the train had just paused was the great estate of Prince Berloff. He peered through the double-glazed window out of casual interest in the place he knew from several visits. But he could see nothing but a long shed of a station building and a few shaggy peasants in sheepskin coats, so as the train started up he settled back and his brain returned to its schemes.

A few moments later he became aware that the portière at the door of his compartment had been drawn aside. Irritated that anyone should intrude upon the privacy he had paid high to secure himself, he looked up. In the doorway stood a young woman, twenty-two or three perhaps, slender but not too slender, with hair of the colour of midnight, long black eyelashes and a smooth dark skin faintly flushed with the cold. The eyes were of that deep clear blue that is sometimes given a brunette. She wore a long loose fur coat of a rich dark brown, and a cap of the same dark fur, and she carried a brown muff, and over her wrist a leather bag.

For only an instant did she pause, with the portière in one hand. Then without a word to Drexel, who had half risen, she entered the compartment and took the opposite seat.

CHAPTER II
CAUGHT IN THE CURRENT

WITH her chin in one slender, exquisitely gloved hand, she stared out into the flying darkness. As for Drexel, not another thought went to America or to fortune-building. The moment he had seen that darkly beautiful figure a thrill had gone through him and a dizzying something that choked him had risen into his throat.

Her fixed gaze into the outward blackness gave him his chance and he was not the man to squander it. He eyed her steadily, noticed that she breathed quickly, as though she had hurried for the train—noticed how white and even were the teeth between her barely parted lips—noticed again how smooth was the texture of her skin and how like rich old marble was its colour—noticed how finely chiselled were all her features, how small the ear that nestled up in her dark hair. He wondered who she was, and what. But who, or what, she was decidedly a Russian, and decidedly the most beautiful woman he had seen in all the Czar’s wide realm.

Once he gazed out the window, with the purpose that he might look back upon her with the freshness of a first glance. When he turned, it was to give a start. She was gazing straight at him. And her eyes did not fall or turn when met by his. She continued to gaze straight into his face, with those black-lashed blue eyes of hers, such a blue as he had never before seen—with no overture in her look, no invitation, no whit of coquetry—continued peering, peering, as though studying the very fibre of his soul.

What her outward eye saw was a figure of lithe strength, built as the man should be built who had been his university’s greatest tackle, and a dark-mustached, square-chinned, steady-eyed face that bespoke power and one used to recognition and authority.

Drexel met her gaze with held breath, in suspense as to what remarkable event this remarkable look would the next minute lead to. But it led to none. She merely turned her eyes back into the darkness.

He noticed now that she seemed a little tense, as though mastering some emotion. But other things claimed his thoughts above this. He wanted to speak to her—wondered if he dared; but, despite that long direct look, despite her walking into his private compartment, he knew she was not the woman with whom one could pick up acquaintance on a train. He saw what was going to happen; they would ride on thus to St. Petersburg—part without a word—never see each other again.

The train sped on. At length they neared the environs of the capital. They stopped at a station where lay a train from St. Petersburg, then started up again. It seemed to Drexel that her tensity was deepening.

“Pardon,” suddenly said a voice at the door.

Both Drexel and the girl looked about. There stood a big-bodied, bearded man in the long gray coat of a captain of gendarmes.

“What is it?” Drexel curtly demanded in his broken Russian. The young woman said nothing.

The captain entered. He had the deference which the political police show the well-dressed and the obviously well-born, but can never spare the poor.

“Excuse me,” said he, “I must examine madame.”

The young woman paled, but her voice rang with indignation. “What do you mean?”

It was a distinct surprise to Drexel that her Russian was also broken—but little better than his own.

“It is my duty, madame,” returned the officer. “I am sorry, but I must discharge my duty.”

She rose in her superb beauty and flashed a look at the captain that made Drexel’s heart leap, so much of fire and spirit did it reveal.

“Duty or no duty, I shall accept no indignity at your hands!” she cried.

The officer hesitated. “My orders are my orders, as madame must know. What I do here I must do through all the train; no woman can leave till she has been examined. But I shall go no farther than necessary. Perhaps madame’s passport will be sufficient. That, madame knows, she must always show upon request.”

The young woman’s indignation subsided, and she sat down and reached for her leather bag. Drexel had been in Russia long enough to know this searching of a train meant that something had happened. And he knew how formidable was this officer—not in himself, but in what he represented, what was massed behind him: a quarter of a million of political police and spies, hundreds of prisons, Siberian exile, the scaffold, blindfolded death from rifle volleys.

Both Drexel and the captain closely watched the young woman. She went through the notes and few articles for the toilet in the little bag; and then a look of annoyance came over her face. Drexel’s heart beat high. He knew what faced the person who had no passport.

She went through the little bag again—and again found nothing.

The captain’s eyes had grown suspicious. “Well, your passport, madame!” he cried roughly. “Or you come with me!”

Drexel knew she was in danger, and in a flash he thought of a dozen wild things that he might do to aid her. But he thought of nothing so wild as what next occurred.

She looked up from her bag and turned those wonderful eyes straight into his face—and smiled! The intimate, domestic, worried smile that a wife might give her husband.

“John, dear,” she said in purest English, “that bothersome passport must have been packed in among your things.”

Henry Drexel may have been unconscious for some portion of an instant. But the captain, who had turned to him, saw never a blink, never a falter.

“Why, perhaps it was, Mary,” said he, and he reached for his bag.

The world whizzed about him as he went through the form of searching his suit-case; but he showed only a perplexed, annoyed face when he looked up.

“We must have left it out altogether, Mary,” he said, speaking in Russian for the sake of the captain.

“How provoking!” cried she, likewise in Russian.

But this play-acting, good though it was, was not enough to counterbalance “orders.” “I’ve got nothing to do with forgotten passports,” said the captain. He seized her arm. “You’ll have to come with me!”

She gave Drexel a quick look. But he did not need it. Already he was on his feet.

“Don’t you dare touch my wife!” he cried, and he furiously flung the captain’s hand away.

The captain glared. “I’ll do what—”

“You won’t!” snapped Drexel. He pressed his chest squarely against that of the officer. “You dare touch my wife—the wife of an American citizen—and see what happens to you when I make my complaint! It will be the worst mistake of your life! As for this passport business, as soon as we get to Petersburg I shall fix it up with the chief of police.” He pointed at the door. “Now—you leave us!”

The captain looked at the broad-shouldered young fellow, with the determined face and the flashing eyes. Looked and hesitated, for Drexel’s dominant bearing was not only the bearing of wrathful innocence, but it was eloquent of power to carry out his threat.

The captain wavered, then broke. “I hope monsieur will excuse——”

“Good-bye!” said Drexel sharply.

The captain bowed and stumbled out. When Drexel turned the young woman was breathing rapidly and her face spoke many sensations—relief, excitement, gratitude, perhaps a glint of admiration.

She gave him that direct gaze of hers and held out her hand. “Thank you—very much,” she said simply, in English.

“I’m afraid I was rather melodramatic,” returned Drexel, somewhat lamely.

“You could not have done it better. Thank you.”

“John, dear,” she said in purest English, “that bothersome passport must have been packed among your things”

They sat down and for a moment looked at each other in silence. Her breath still came sharply. He was eager to know the meaning of all this; he was sure she would explain; but he said nothing, leaving it to her to speak or keep silent, as she would.

She saw his curiosity. “You are surprised?”

“I confess it.”

“I am sorry so poorly to reward what you have done. But I cannot explain.”

He inclined his head. “As you please.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

If Drexel had thought this incident was to establish them at once in close acquaintance, that hope soon began to suffer disappointment. There was no lack of courtesy, of gratitude, in her manner; he was already so far in her confidence that she dropped her mask of perfect control, and let him see that she was palpitantly alert and fearful; but she spoke to him no more than a bare monosyllable or two. Her fear spread to him. Mixed with his wonderment as to who she was, and what was this mysterious danger that menaced her, was a trembling apprehension lest the captain, recovered from his intimidation, should reappear in the compartment.

But the captain did not reappear, and they rode on in their strange, strained silence. When the train drew into the Nicholayevsky Station in St. Petersburg, Drexel started to help her from the coach. She tried to check him, but he had her out upon the platform before she could say a word.

She quickly held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she said hurriedly.

“Good-bye?” he cried in dismay.

“Yes. We shall not meet again.”

An icy chill swept through him. “Not meet again! Why, I had hoped that you would let me come—”

“You cannot come,” she went on swiftly. “And you must not try to follow me.”

That was the plan that had instantly shot into his head. “But—” he pleaded.

“You must not!”

He hesitated.

A look from those blue eyes, straight into his own. “You will not. I trust you.”

He bowed his head. “I shall not.”

“Good-bye—and thank you,” said she.

He gripped her hand. “Good-bye,” he said. And he gathered in his last look of her.

But suddenly, when he thought he had lost her, her hand slipped through his arm—slipped through it as with wifely habit—and she was saying to him in a hurried whisper:

“Don’t look back. That gendarme captain is working this way. I think he’s not wholly satisfied. I must at least leave with you. Come.”

Again Drexel did not blink. Instantly he was leading her along the platform, arm in arm, with the easy manner of four or five married years. In the open square before the station scores of bearded drivers, swathed in blankets till they looked like bulky mummies, were clamorously shouting, “Isvochtchik! Isvochtchik!” One of these Drexel signalled. He was helping her into the little sleigh when he saw her give a calm, steady look to some one behind him. Turning, he saw the captain, for whom a sleigh was drawing up to the curb. Drexel gave him a curt nod, stepped into the foot-high sleigh and drew the fur robe about them. The driver cracked his whip and the horse sprang away.

“After a few blocks you can set me down,” she whispered.

For even that respite Drexel was grateful.

“Where shall I take my lord?” came over the driver’s shoulder.

“Up Nevsky Prospect,” Drexel ordered.

They turned into bright-lit Nevsky Prospect, thronged with flashing sleighs, and glided without speech over the polished snow. After a few moments she glanced back. She clutched his arm.

“He is behind us!”

He did not need to be told not to turn his head. “The captain?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he is following us?”

“Perhaps he is only taking the same direction by chance. Let us stop a few times. That will show us.”

Drexel gave the necessary orders. They made a stop at a fruit store, another at a confectioner’s—but when she looked back, there, at a distance, was the captain jogging in their tracks.

“He is following—that’s certain!” she breathed.

“He is suspicious, but hesitates to do anything, and thinks it wisest to watch us. Apparently there is no shaking him.”

Suddenly a new idea rushed into Drexel’s head. He looked down into her face; he tried to speak steadily—tried to keep his joy out of his voice.

“Do you remember what we told that officer—that we were husband and wife?”

“Yes.”

“Till we can get rid of him, our only safety is in keeping up that pretence. If we make one suspicious move he will pounce upon us. You and I, we must stay together.”

She was silent.

“Don’t you see that?” he asked.

“Yes. But the danger to you?”

“That? That is nothing!” he cried. “Will you come with me?”

She looked steadily at him a moment.

“I will come,” she said.

For an instant he considered at what hotel there was least danger of his being recognized. “Isvochtchik, to the Hotel Metropole—straight!” he ordered.

Ten minutes later they were standing in the hotel lobby, her arm in his, two porters industriously brushing the snow off their long fur coats, and a gold-braided major-domo before them.

“I suppose,” said Drexel, “you have a room for myself and wife?”

“Certainly, sir,” said the bowing major-domo.

“Ah—say two rooms, with a connecting door?”

“Certainly. I will show you.”

Drexel followed, and the young woman, with perfect poise, with a grace that made him marvel, swept up the stairway at his side. The two rooms were large, each with a great white-tiled stove filling one corner from floor to ceiling, with long windows looking out upon the street—and with, between the two, the required door.

Were the rooms satisfactory? Entirely so. Would madame or monsieur desire anything for their comfort? If they did they would order it later.

When the major-domo and the porter who had brought up Drexel’s suit-case were gone, and Drexel was left standing alone in the larger room with that brilliantly beautiful creature, he was swept with a desire that this marriage game they played—a game involving life and death, and far, far more, for aught he knew—were not a game at all, but a reality.

But he mastered himself. It was only a game—and he had to see the game through to the end.

“This room will be yours,” said he.

“Very well,” said she.

He stepped to the connecting door and changed the key to her side of the lock. She thanked him with a look.

“Perhaps you would like something to eat?” he suggested.

“Nothing.”

He wanted to remain and talk with her, yet the situation was such that the suggestion had to come from her. He hesitated near the door, waiting—but the invitation did not come.

“I shall put out my light,” he said, “but I shall not go to bed. If you need me, just call. Good-night.”

Suddenly she came across the room to him, her hand outstretched, her dark face glowing.

“Forgive me if I seem unthankful,” she said in her rich low voice. “I am not. And forgive me because I can say so little. Perhaps the time will come when I can tell you all, and thank you as you deserve. But please understand that I understand, and that I appreciate, what you have done for me, and the danger you are now incurring in being here.”

As he looked into her glowing eyes, his words burst out of their own accord. “I would rather be here than any place else in the world!”

She flushed slightly under his gaze. “Good-night—” and she pressed his hand.

“Good-night,” said he.

He stepped into the other room, and the next moment the key turned in the lock.

CHAPTER III
A LONG JOURNEY THAT WAS SOON ENDED

DREXEL walked to one of the long windows and gazed down into the bright street through which those absurd-looking yet comfortable little sleighs, the winter cabs of Russia, were still whizzing to and fro. Less than three hours had passed since the young woman had entered his compartment, and hardly more than a quarter since this strange adventure had taken a new turn by sending them together to the Hotel Metropole. Dazed, tingling, he began dimly to wonder what they would do on the morrow, and what was to be the outcome of it all.

But his thoughts were not to be completed. He had been in the room no more than a couple of minutes when a rap sounded at his hall door. He opened it and there stood a hotel porter.

The porter held out a pad of paper. “Will monsieur please write his and madame’s name for the registry?”

Drexel took the pad. She had called him John. So without hesitation he wrote, “Mr. and Mrs. John Davis, New York, U. S. A.” As he wrote he heard the rasping of the lock of the connecting door, and looking about he saw that “Mrs. John Davis” had entered.

He handed back the pad. “Thank you,” said the porter. “And will monsieur oblige us with his and madame’s passports?”

For a moment Drexel stood nonplussed. In the excitement of the last fifteen minutes he had completely forgotten one great essential fact—that no person can stay over night in a Russian hotel, or sleep as a guest in a private house, without sending his passport to police headquarters to be registered.

For the moment he knew not what to say. It was the young woman who saved the situation. She came forward calmly.

“Our passports are in our bag,” she said in her broken Russian, motioning to Drexel’s suit-case. “As soon as we have unpacked, monsieur will bring down our passports in person.”

“Very well,” said the porter, and closed the door.

Drexel looked at her in dismay. “I had forgotten all about passports!”

“So had I. But I thought of them the instant you left me. I knew what was wanted the moment I heard the knock.”

“If we only had a passport for you!”

“I had unexpectedly to turn mine over as a credential to gain admission to—to—a certain place this afternoon. I had no time to get it back.”

“They have your passport! Can’t they trace you through that?”

She shook her head. “It was a false passport.”

“What can we do now?”

“I must leave, somehow.”

“Then I leave, too!” cried Drexel.

“I cannot let you risk yourself further.”

“You cannot prevent me!”

“But you must have guessed that that gendarme captain is not the only man searching for me.”

“I don’t care if there are a hundred!” he cried recklessly.

She looked at him queerly a moment.

“By this time,” she remarked quietly, “I dare say there are fifty thousand.”

“Fifty thousand!” he slowly ejaculated, and stared at her. “Then,” cried he, “all the greater is your need for passing as an American! They have a description of you?”

“I’m sure they cannot have a clear one.”

He began to pace the room. “What shall we do?” he asked himself. “What shall we do?”

Suddenly he paused. “I have it. Passports are not required for travelling on trains. Except in such rare cases as this afternoon. We shall go upon a trip—as Americans—one lasting for days, or till we can think of something better. If any trouble rises, I’ll bluff it out. Are you willing?”

“It is I who should ask the question of you.”

“Then it is settled!” He was fairly swept out of himself by the prospect of days spent in her company. The danger—that was nothing!

“But how can we leave the hotel, without its looking queer?” she asked. “There is your bag, you know.”

“We’ll not take it. Luckily there’s nothing about it to reveal my identity. The things in it we really need I can put in the big pockets of my shuba,” and he pointed at his great loose fur coat. “We’ll simply saunter out with the air of going for a stroll. A bag and anything else we want we can buy at some little shop.”

She nodded. “And I noticed there was a side entrance, out of which we might slip without being seen.”

“Yes. One minute, and we’ll be off!”

He slipped on his shuba, threw open the bag, stuffed his pockets, then closed the bag again.

“Come now,” he cried, almost gaily, starting for the door.

“But wait.” He looked at her with a quizzical smile. “Don’t you think it’s—er—rather nice for a husband and wife to know one another’s name?”

She smiled back. “Why yes, it would be a convenience.”

“Well—?”

“You called me Mary.”

“Yes, but that—”

“My name is Mary Davis,” she said. And for all that she still smiled, he knew he would get no other name.

“Then I’m to remain John Davis, I suppose. But in my case there’s no reason you should not know my real name. It’s Henry Drexel.”

At his name the smile faded from her face, and one hand slowly reached out and caught the back of a chair.

“Henry Drexel!” she breathed.

“You seem to know it.”

“You are—ah—the American who has been here as the guest of Prince Berloff? Whose cousin is going to marry the prince?”

“Yes.”

She was quite calm again. “Yes, I have heard of you. That’s only natural, for the marriage has been much talked about. Shall we start?”

They were at the door, when she stopped him with a hand upon his arm.

“Something just occurs to me. Would it not be wiser to learn about the trains before we leave? We can better regulate our actions then.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that. I can make inquiries down at the hotel office—as though I were finding out in advance about trains for to-morrow or the next day.” He laid aside his cap and coat. “I’ll be back immediately.”

It was perhaps a dozen minutes since Drexel had entered the hotel. He strolled coolly enough down the stairway, but, the lobby gained, it was only with an effort that he maintained his calm exterior. Near the desk where he could see all who went and came, was the burly captain of gendarmes, his bearded face still ruddy with the outer cold. Reciting some story to him stood the major-domo. Upon the instant Drexel had to alter his plans.

“Pardon me,” he said to the major-domo, giving the captain a short nod.

“Yes, monsieur.” The major-domo turned to him.

“Through some oversight my wife’s passport was left behind when we threw a few things together to run up here for a day. I suppose if I make explanations directly to the police department, there will be no trouble. I am quite willing to pay.”

“It can be arranged, monsieur.”

“I am tired and do not feel inclined to go out,” he went on with haughty indolence. “Would you please, when you get time, get the proper official on the telephone, explain, and ask him to come here? My wife is resting now; let him come in an hour. You can say to him that it will be worth his trouble.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the major-domo, who surmised this rich American would also make it worth his own trouble. “Anything else, monsieur?”

“Send me the head waiter.”

A porter went scurrying for that functionary. Drexel half turned away, and the major-domo resumed his recital to the captain.

“The report says, Captain Nadson, that the woman gained admittance on the pretext of having an engagement. The servants could not clearly make out her face, for the light was dim and she was veiled; but her dress and manner made them believe her a lady of importance, and they told her to wait.” Drexel pricked up his ears. “It is certain she knew he was away, and chose her time accordingly, and it is certain she must have known the house well, for she slipped into his study and got into his private papers. When Prince Berloff—”

“Prince Berloff!” exclaimed Drexel. He saw Captain Nadson give him a sharp look. Instantly he was under control. “He came in and found her?” he queried casually.

“Yes,” said the major-domo. “But she fired two shots at him.”

“Kill him?” Drexel nonchalantly asked.

“No. She did not even touch him. And in the hubbub, she got away. The report says it was probably a plot of The White One.”

“The White One!” A shiver crept through Drexel at that dread name.

“The White One—yes,” nodded the major-domo. “Obviously a scheme to get some State papers which were temporarily in Prince Berloff’s possession. But the young woman failed. I wonder if they’ll capture her?”

“I wonder,” Drexel repeated indifferently.

To the head waiter, who just then appeared, he gave an order for an elaborate supper that would be a good hour in preparing. Then he casually inquired about the trains for the morrow, and learned that he could get a train for the south of Russia in half an hour.

All the while Drexel had kept Captain Nadson in the corner of his eye. He perceived that his cool front had had its effect; the officer was half reassured, and plainly was afraid to take any immediate action lest it might prove a mistake disastrous to himself. Drexel nodded curtly at the captain and walked away, feeling that suspicion was rendered inactive till the police official should arrive upon the business of the passport. By that time they would be miles out of St. Petersburg.

As he sauntered up the stairway he wore the same cool, careless front; but within him was turmoil. How about the story the major-domo had told? But that, even were it true, that was nothing! The great thing, the only thing, was that for days he was to be constantly near the wonderful woman awaiting him above. It went through him with a thrilling sweep; and it was with a tense eagerness such as he never before had felt that he threw open the door.

But she was not in the room where he had left her. Nor in the other room. He rushed from one to the other, looking even into the closets. There was no doubt of it. She was gone.

CHAPTER IV
THE PRISONER OF THE WHITE ONE

AS Drexel realized that she was gone, a pang of dizzy agony shot him through. What his uncle had said about his liking for Alice was perfectly true; it had been but a boy-and-girl affair at its best, never warmed by the least fervour; and it had been weakly, sentimentally cherished by him only because no true love had ever come to show him what thin moonshine stuff it was. But this was different—a thousand times different! The danger he had stood in, mortal danger perhaps, had been nothing to him in his anticipation of days of companionship with her. That he had seen her for the first time but three hours before, that she was an unknown personage to him, that she was hunted by the police, that the report said she had tried to shoot his cousin-to-be, Prince Berloff—these things counted also as nothing.

Shrewd, cool-headed, imperturbable, with such an eye for the main chance as insured his getting it—thus was Drexel already widely known in Chicago. His uncle had more than once remarked to him in his blunt fashion, “Henry, you’ll never let your heart boss your brain cells!”

And yet this was exactly what his heart was doing. He was wildly, recklessly in love!

From the first he realised she must have gone wholly of her own accord—slipped out by the second staircase—and slipped out, to face alone what dangers? And why had she gone? This puzzled him for several moments, for she had seemed glad of the refuge offered by the plan of travelling as his wife. Then suddenly he bethought him of the instant-long change in her manner when he had told her his name, and the truth flashed home. She was afraid of Henry Drexel, and her sending him down to inquire about the train was but a ruse to give her a chance to escape him.

Why she should hold him in equal fear with the police and throw away the aid he was so eager to give, was a mystery his excited mind did not even try to solve. It was plain she did not want to see him, yet his sudden, overmastering love, made reckless by his loss of her, roused in him one resistless impulse—to try to find her again. What he should do when she was found he did not pause to consider.

Putting on his big overcoat and fur cap, and assuming his best air of composure, he sallied forth into the hall and descended the minor stairway that led to the side entrance. That he knows he is on a wild-goose chase, is no check to the search of a frantic man. Every bit of sense told Drexel he would not find her he sought, yet he cautiously glanced into such side-street shops as were still open; he scrutinised each woman who hurried through the bitter cold on foot and the robe-buried occupants of the tiny whizzing sleighs; he watched each prowling group of gendarmes to see if they held her in their midst; he peered in at the doors of cafes—into poor ones where only tea was drunk—into rich ones, dazzlingly bright, where jewelled gowns and brilliant uniforms were feasting on Europe’s richest foods and wines. But it was as his sense had foretold. No sight of her was anywhere.

Toward midnight the thought came to him that it was barely possible she had left the hotel for but a moment, and that she had returned and was perhaps in distress because of his desertion. He turned back toward the Metropole. But as he drew near it, his steps slowed. He remembered the dinner he had ordered, the police official he had sent for; both had doubtless arrived long since and found him gone. The danger ahead cleared his mind, and, going hesitatingly forward, he was pondering whether he should risk himself anew on so slight a chance of giving aid, when the matter was decided in a wholly unexpected manner.

As he was passing a street lamp, a young fellow with a few papers under his arm stepped before him. “Buy a paper, Your Excellency,” he snuffled, shooting a keen upward glance at Drexel.

“Don’t want any,” Drexel curtly returned, and pushed by him.

“Mr. Drexel?” the young fellow called in a cautious voice.

Startled, Drexel pivoted about. His interceptor was perhaps nineteen or twenty, squat of build and very poorly dressed.

“See here—what do you want?”

“Don’t go back to the Metropole.”

“Why?”

“You’ll be arrested.”

This warning might be intended as a service, and again it might be a new trap. “How do you know?” Drexel asked suspiciously.

“I, and others, have been on the watch for two hours.”

“What for?”

“To warn you. We were afraid you might not understand your danger and might try to come back.”

Drexel stepped nearer. “What do you know about this?”

“That you went to the Hotel Metropole with a girl, as your wife—that she ran away—that you went out to hunt her—that the disappearance of you both has aroused the police.”

Drexel stared, and in the dim light he could see that the shivering ragamuffin was grinning at his mystification. Was there some link between this lad and the young woman?

“What do you want?”

“I want you to come with me.”

“Go with you!”

“Yes. A description of you has gone to all the police. Everywhere they are looking for you. You are safe only if you come with me.”

The young fellow certainly did know a lot; but when Drexel looked over his poor five feet four inches, and thought of him as a protector, his suspicion was all alive. He was in one danger, no doubt—but it would be foolishness to let himself be duped into another.

“I’m not so certain I want to go with you. Who told you to do this?”

“A woman.”

“A woman! Do—do I know her?”

“You do.”

The chance to find the young woman swept for the moment all suspicious fear aside. “Will I see her?”

“Maybe.” The young fellow grinned and winked. “I’ll ask Mary Davis.”

“Come on!” cried Drexel.

With the young fellow leading the way they worked about in a semi-circle, that had the hotel as its centre, till at length his guide thrust Drexel into a dark doorway.

“Wait here, while I get my comrade; he was watching the other entrance of the hotel,” he said, and disappeared.

Two minutes later he was back, with him a slender figure of medium height. “This is Nicolai; my name’s Ivan,” whispered the young fellow. He threw his newspapers into the blackness of the doorway. “Come on—we must hurry.”

They walked rapidly through by-streets, Ivan chattering in a low voice all the time, calling Nicolai “comrade” whenever he addressed him. Drexel took close notice of his two conductors by the light of the infrequent gas lamps. The one called Nicolai was pale, with regular and refined features and a soft, thin, boyish beard; he was silent, but there was a set to his face that made Drexel feel that though Ivan talked the more, he did not dominate the pair. Compared to Nicolai, Ivan was something of a grotesque. He was pock-marked, his large ears stood flappingly out, his mouth was wide and lopsided and showed very brown and jagged teeth; his hair was light and close-cropped, and he had no more eyebrows than if his forehead had just been soaped and razored. His eyes were small and had a snapping brightness, and they flashed in all directions, watching always for policemen or squads of man-hunting gendarmes, seeing a spy in that shifty-eyed cabman waiting for a fare, or that little shopkeeper who at this late hour had not yet put up his shutters.

They crossed the broad and frozen Neva and zigzagged through obscure and narrow streets. Presently they passed through a gateway and crossed a cobble-paved court with houses vaguely outlining its sides. At a door at the court’s farther end Nicolai gave three low raps; the door opened, they slipped quickly in, and it closed and locked behind them.

A lighted candle revealed a big brown-bearded man, who gave Drexel a searching look. “All’s well, I see,” he said.

“Yes,” said Ivan.

The man silently turned over the candle to Nicolai and disappeared. “Who is he?” Drexel asked, as they mounted a flight of stairs.

“The keeper of this boarding-house,” answered Ivan.

Nicolai unlocked a door. They entered and crossed to another door, Drexel seeing nothing of the room save that it was almost bare. This second door entered and locked behind them, and an oil lamp with blackened chimney lighted, Drexel found himself in a square, low-ceilinged room furnished with a hunchbacked couch on one side, a bed of dubious comfort on the other, a wooden table in the centre with a battered and tarnished brass samovar upon it, three chairs—and that was all.

“Here we are at last,” said Ivan, rubbing his cold bare hands. “Now for a bite to eat. I’ll fix the samovar, comrade. Mr. Drexel, sit down.”

“But,” said Drexel, “I thought you were going to bring me to—to—Mary Davis.”

“It’s not time for her to come yet,” returned Ivan. “You’ll have to wait.”

It occurred to Drexel that this was a strange place to meet such a woman, but he brushed the thought aside. Afire with eagerness as he was, he realised that there was nothing for him but to command such patience as he could. So he took one of the rickety chairs and watched Ivan start the charcoal going in the samovar, and Nicolai take paper bags from the sill of the one window and from these bags take big sour pickles, a loaf of black bread and a roll of sausage, which last two he proceeded to slice. Presently the tea was brewed, and Drexel was asked to draw his chair to the table.

In all his life Drexel had never tasted such uninviting fare. “I’m not hungry, thank you,” he said.

But the sharp eyes of Ivan read him. “Hah! Bring out the caviar and the champagne, comrade. What nine-tenths of the world eats always is too poor for the rich American to eat once!”

“Is it!” said Drexel. He pulled his chair forward, seized a chunk of the sausage and a slab of the black bread, and filled his mouth with a huge bite from each.

Ivan clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s right!” said he, through his gag of bread and meat. “Either I like a man, or I want to fight him. Come—let’s be friends while we’re together!”

Drexel smiled amusedly at the bristling, excited little fellow, and took the outstretched hand. “All right. Since you know who I am, you might tell me who you are.”

“You already know we’re revolutionists,” said Ivan in his rapid, choppy way. “We’re fighters for freedom—hey, comrade? Down with Autocracy!—on come that glorious day when there’ll be a chance for every man! Hey, comrade?”

Nicolai nodded.

“But,” said Drexel, “that doesn’t tell me who you are personally.”

“Ah, you want to be introduced!” Ivan sprang up, a hunk of bread in one hand and of sausage in the other, and his little eyes gleamed with a wild, humorous twinkle. “Allow me to present myself”—he bowed low, the hand with the sausage to his heart—“Ivan, the son of I don’t know who, cradled in the gutter, rocked to sleep on the toe of a policeman’s boot, schooled with the dogs, my income the luxurious sum of 60 kopeks a day drawn from my stock in a lace factory. Glad to meet me, hey?”

He grinned lopsidedly at Drexel. “That’s me,” he nodded. “But with Nicolai”—his sausaged hand made a wave toward his comrade—“it’s another story. He’s educated—he was rich—he—but tell him, comrade.”

“Do,” urged Drexel.

“Very well,” said the other with his quiet shrug; “but it’s little more than Ivan’s story. My parents were well-to-do, yes—but very conservative. While I was in the gymnasium preparing for the university, all the country became excited about gaining freedom. I was loyal enough to the Czar at that time, for I was only seventeen and had been shielded by my parents from liberal opinions. But I was caught by the general spirit and took part in a meeting of the students to demand a constitution. Several of us were arrested and exiled to Siberia.”

“Been sent to Siberia! Think of that!” cried Ivan proudly, and half envious of the distinction of his friend. Then his tone changed to fierce hatred. “Think of exiling a schoolboy—and for that!” His brown teeth clenched.

“But it did me good,” went on Nicolai’s quiet voice. “I wasn’t a revolutionist before, but that made me one. After six months I managed to escape, and came back, and——”

“And then we met each other,” broke in Ivan. “And ever since we’ve been brothers. Hey, comrade?” And in an instant he was skipping nimbly about the table patting Nicolai affectionately on the shoulder. But the next instant he was talking again to Drexel. “We’re always together, we two, both lace-makers—The Inséparables they call us. Oh, and what a lot he knows! Me, I only know this!”

Instantly he had whipped out a big pistol and was flourishing it in the air. “That’s the only argument that will ever win us liberty”—lovingly patting the black chamber of the weapon. “The Duma—bah! We’ve got to fight—to die!”

The pocked-marked little fellow began excitedly to pace the low room, a chunk of sausage in one hand, the pistol in the other. Nicolai quietly filled himself another glass of tea. Now that there was no speech for a few moments the purpose of his being here came again to the fore of Drexel’s mind. He looked at his watch.

“It’s one o’clock,” he said. “Are you sure she is coming?”

Ivan glanced at Nicolai. “You must have patience,” answered Nicolai.

Drexel’s burning curiosity could not refrain from a question concerning this woman that he loved. “You know her?”

Both nodded.