The Mission of Poubalov. Frederick Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "You're not going to leave the house, I hope?" exclaimed her uncle.

      "Certainly, uncle," she replied; "I feel quite well, and I will not overtax myself. I can stand anything better than staying idle here."

      "I am strongly disposed to forbid you," said Mr. Pembroke, anxiously; "you are sure to have a most disagreeable and painful experience."

      "Please don't go!" cried Louise, who had read the paper that Mr. Pembroke had concealed.

      "I am sorry to displease you both," returned Clara, "but if I am forbidden to go I shall have to disobey."

      "Then Louise must go with you," said her uncle.

      "I should like to have her. Will you, Lou, dear?"

      Louise was only too anxious to accompany her cousin, and accordingly they left the house together just in time to escape a squad of reporters representing the other evening papers. Clara had arranged her programme the night before, and left word at the house for Ralph and Paul, should they come in her absence, to go to Ivan's room. Mrs. White had seen Clara on the few occasions when Mr. Strobel had served afternoon tea to his intended and other friends, and she fell into a great flurry of agitation when she recognized her at the door.

      "Come in," she stammered as she led the way; "of course I am glad to see you, for I am certain you cannot believe it."

      Louise tried to check the landlady from making the inevitable revelation, but Clara laid one hand on her cousin's arm and asked:

      "Believe what, Mrs. White?"'

      "Why, what's in the paper," replied the landlady; "you've read the papers, I suppose? I presumed that was why you came."

      "I read the papers," said Clara, "and I came to inquire about Ivan. Do you refer to the suggested irregularities in his accounts? Of course I do not believe anything of that kind."

      "Dear, no! I didn't suppose you did. I meant about my daughter Lizzie."

      "Your daughter!" exclaimed Clara in a low voice, while Louise hid her face in her hands. "What do you mean? Let me see the paper."

      More agitated than ever, Mrs. White produced a copy of the paper that Mr. Pembroke had withheld from his niece.

      "I must have overlooked this," said Clara, wonderingly, as she saw that the account differed in style from those she had read. The reporter of this paper, sharper than his rivals, had somehow discovered that Lizzie White had left her home, and he set forth the circumstances with every delicate turn that language would allow to suggest a connection between her flight and Ivan's disappearance.

      "It is shrewdly suspected by the friends of Strobel," so the story ran, "that as the time of his marriage approached, he found his fancy for Miss White stronger than his love for Miss Hilman, and that he chose elopement with the former as less dishonorable than marriage with the latter."

      The writer then proceeded to an elaborate explanation of how Strobel might himself have arranged the wheel of his coupé so that it would fall off, and how he might then, by previous understanding with the second cabman, who was also conveniently missing, have been driven to the Park Square railroad station, where he waited for Miss White. It was entirely possible that they might have taken the one o'clock train for New York, if not the noon train.

      Clara was very pale when she laid the paper down, but her faith in Ivan was not so much as touched by doubt.

      "It's an outrage," she said quietly.

      "I knew you wouldn't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. White.

      "Believe it! of course it isn't true! It's not possible!"

      There was a ring at the door just then, and Mrs. White excused herself to answer it.

      She opened upon Ivan's mysterious visitor, Alexander Poubalov.

      CHAPTER V.

      THE AGENT OF THE CZAR

      "Good-morning," said Poubalov, gutturally; "this is Madame White, I believe?"

      "Yes, sir," replied the landlady, impressed at once by the stranger's deferential manner, and believing that through him the mystery would be cleared away; "won't you come in?"

      "Thank you, yes. I have called to inquire for my friend Strobel."

      "You are not the first, sir," said Mrs. White, opening the door to the sitting-room. "There are two here now who will be glad to see you. Miss Hilman, this is the gentleman who called on Mr. Strobel yesterday morning. Miss Hilman was to have married him, you know, and this is Miss Pembroke," and having thus awkwardly initiated a new scene, Mrs. White took refuge in the nearest chair.

      Poubalov was as near to showing surprise as he ever permitted himself to come, and Clara, rising impulsively, went directly to him and said:

      "Then you can tell me something about Mr. Strobel, can you not?"

      "I can tell you nothing," he answered gravely; "I came for information myself."

      Clara looked into his eyes searchingly, and went back to her chair feeling that her greatest hope had been dashed to the ground.

      "I feel the awkwardness of my position, ladies," continued Poubalov (I make no attempt to suggest his dialect, which was at times almost unintelligible, as there was nothing of a humorous or trivial character in his conversation). "Every newspaper makes me out as a possible foe to Mr. Strobel, a mysterious ogre going about seeking to destroy young men, and perhaps I should not blame anybody for supposing that I might have been concerned in preventing Mr. Strobel's marriage, but I assure you that I was not. I did not know of his intentions until yesterday morning, when he told me about it himself. I am as much surprised as anybody to read of his disappearance."

      Poubalov paused and with marked deliberation took out his card case.

      "It was but natural," said Clara, tremulously, "that we should hope that you could throw some light on his movements, for knowing nothing except that somebody had called on him unexpectedly, we could not fail to attribute something significant to the visit."

      "Especially," put in Mrs. White, "as the young men and I hunted the house over for your card and couldn't find it."

      "All very natural," responded Poubalov, imperturbably, "and it was a circumstance of the utmost triviality in itself that lent color to my mysterious coming and going. You remember, Mrs. White, do you not, that you took my card to Mr. Strobel?"

      "Yes, indeed, and he – I don't want to give offense – he didn't seem particularly pleased to see it."

      "So you told the newspaper men. I am not in the least offended. Here is the card you took to him. I asked Mr. Strobel where I might call upon him after his wedding tour, and he wrote that address upon my own card. Of course I took it away with me." He handed the card to Clara, adding: "I want you to see that I am concealing nothing, and if my voluntary return to this house did not signify anything, your suspicions should certainly be relieved by seeing that Strobel himself made a semi-appointment with me at his future home."

      "I hope, Mr. Poubalov," said Clara, with her eyes upon the card, "that you will forgive us for cherishing any unjust suspicions. At the worst, they were vague, and everything is so confusing."

      "I feel that there is nothing to forgive," began Poubalov, СКАЧАТЬ