"Ah, what is the use of an oath in which there is no fire, no life, nothing but dead cold ashes! What has changed you? Are you thinking of marrying this woman?"

"If she waits till I wish to marry her, she'll die unmated," I returned.

"Why can't you say yes or no to my questions?" she cried, stamping her foot again, irritated by the little evasion. "Are you thinking of marrying her?"

"No. Is that answer blunt enough for you?"

"It sounds like a forced lie more than anything else. Do you know what I would do, Alexis, if I thought you meant to try and deceive me?"

"I can pretty well guess," I answered, calmly. "Probably go round and have afternoon tea with her and tell her that little fable which you told me the other day. You weary me with these constant threats, Paula. They get like a musket that's held so long at one's head that it rusts at the lock and the trigger can't be pulled. It would be so much more interesting if you'd go and do something."

With that I turned away and lighted a cigarette, almost wishing in my heart that I could offend her sufficiently to drive her away; and yet sick at the knowledge of her power over Olga and me.

"I like that tone better," she said, with a laugh. "At least it shews some kind of feeling. I hate a log. You will find I can 'do something,' as you say, when the time comes, if you drive me. My muskets don't miss fire."

"No, nor your daggers blunt their points. I admit you can be deadly enough where you hate."

"Don't make me hate you, then," she retorted, quickly.

"Is that possible, Paula?" I replied, turning to her with a smile.

The instant change in this most remarkable woman at this one slight touch of tenderness was wonderful. She was hungering for the love I could no more give her than I could have given her the Crown of Russia, and at this little accent of kindness she turned all softness and smiling love.

"Ah, G.o.d! You can do as you like with me, Alexis," she cried, excitedly. "Just then you were rousing all the devil there is in me; and now no more than a smile drives out of my heart every thought save of my love for you. If it is so easy to make me happy why kill me with your coldness? Kiss me, Alexis." She came to throw her arms round me but wishing to avoid this caress, I remembered my wound and stepping back, kept her off.

"Mind, I have a little hurt here;" and I pointed to the place.

Little did I think of the consequences of that most simple action, or of the price I should have to pay for shirking a few distasteful kisses. She was at once all anxiety.

"A hurt? A wound? Tell me what it is. Have you--was it in consequence of rescuing your sister? Have you had some fight or other?"

I told her in as few words as I could, glad to turn her thoughts from the wish to caress me. When I had to admit that it was a slight sword thrust, however, she insisted upon seeing the wound as well as the places where I had torn my arm in the efforts to get rid of my bonds.

No one could fail to see her care was prompted by deep feeling.

I took off my coat and just turned up my sleeve to satisfy her curiosity, and held out my arm for her to see, laughing half shamefacedly as I did so, to a.s.sure her there was no cause for real anxiety, and that she was making much of nothing.

But the effect it had on her was startling indeed.

After glancing at the marks which were fast dying away, for my skin always heals very rapidly, she smoothed them gently and kissed them.

"It is the left arm, Alexis, always the left arm," she said, glancing up with a smile, and speaking as if there were some special significance in the fact--though what that could be I could not even guess, of course.

The chief mark was on the lower part of the upper arm, just above the elbow, and when she had kissed it and had turned it round so that the front part of the forearm, where the muscles are broadest was in full view, I felt her start violently, and heard her catch her breath quickly, as if with a gasp of surprise.

She stared at it for fully a minute without raising her eyes, her only gesture being to pa.s.s her fingers across the muscles twice.

When she raised her eyes and looked at me, there was an astounding change in her face. She was as white as death, and trembled so violently that even her face quivered, while her eyes were fixed on me with an expression of wildness and mingled emotions such as I could not read or even guess at.

"Are you ill?" I asked.

She started again as I spoke; and her lips merely moved very slightly as she moistened them with her tongue.

And all the time she kept the same staring, strained, frowning, questioning look fixed on me.

"What's the matter?" I cried again. "Are you ill?" I thought she was in for a fit of some kind.

But all she did was to continue to stare with the same indescribable intensity, the heavy brows closing together as the frown deepened on her forehead.

"My G.o.d!"

The exclamation seemed to be wrung from her in sheer pain of thought.

She took hold of my arm again and examined the same place once more with briefer but no less fierce scrutiny.

Then looking up again into my face she let the arm fall. She seemed to shrink from me as she drew in one long deep shivering breath that sounded between her teeth. Next she turned away and sat down, pressing both her hands to her face.

Every vestige of feeling and pa.s.sion had pa.s.sed, leaving only the close, concentrated, strained tension. The colour had left her cheeks: and the roundness and beauty of her face appeared to have been transformed in a moment into a veritable presentment of lean, haggard, vigilant doubt.

Many minutes pa.s.sed before either of us spoke. Then she got up and again came quite close to me and staring right into my eyes, asked in a voice all changed and unmusical--a sort of keen piercing whisper, that seemed to send a chill through me--while she pointed to my arm:--

"What does it mean? Who are you?"

I returned the look steadily, but bit my lip nearly through as I guessed well enough the discovery she had made. I answered lightly:--

"Excellently acted. But what is it all about?"

"Who are you? That tells me who you are not." She spoke in the same hard discordant whisper, and pointed to my arm again.

"Are you mad?" I cried sternly. "What do you mean by this pretence?"

Her only answer was to stare with the same stony intensity right into my eyes.

"Shall I send for my own sister to identify me?" I cried, with what I intended as sarcastic emphasis. But the effect of my question quite disconcerted me.

It broke her down and with a cry that was almost a scream, she threw herself into a chair and gave vent to emotions that were no longer controllable.

For an hour she was in this semi-hysterical condition; and I could guess the leading thought of her frenzy. If I was not the man she had believed, she would jump to the thought that Olga and I were lovers, and not brother and sister. Her jealousy made her a madwoman.

By the time she had recovered from her frenzy I had resolved on my course. The only thing possible was to hold strenuously to the old deception. What had shaken her belief in me, I could not, of course, even guess. If by any means she could make her words good, it was clear she carried my life in her hands. Strong as the story which she had concocted as to my supposed crime would have been against the real Alexis, it was a hundred times stronger as told against someone impersonating Alexis for what she would of course declare were Nihilist purposes. The mere fact of the impersonation would be accepted as proof of guilt in everything: while Olga's share in the conspiracy would render her liable to a punishment only less in extent than mine.

As I thought of all this, my rage against the woman pa.s.sed almost beyond control; but I forced it back and listened when she spoke--telling me of all the things which had made me seem so different. My conduct to her; my manner; my lack of love; the difference in looks, in gestures, and in what I said and the way I said it; the thousand things that had set her wondering at the change in me.

Then she spoke of the change in my sister's conduct; how a word from me had made her friendly where a thousand words before had failed. And when she spoke and thought of Olga, she seemed to lose again all self-control; declaring she had been made a tool and a dupe of for some purposes of our own.

My protestations were of no avail. She brushed them aside with abrupt contempt, and when I tried to find out indirectly what her proof was, she laughed angrily and would not tell me.

"I will tell you when I bid you good-bye for Siberia, or see you for the last time in the condemned cell. You shall not die in ignorance,"

she said: and then she went on to dwell with horrible detail upon the punishments that were in store for both Olga and myself.