The Red Symbol. Ironside John

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      Von Eckhardt turned to me open-mouthed.

      “Selinski? He is himself one of the Five; he is in London, has been there for months; and it is he who is to bring her before the tribunal, by force or guile.”

      “He is dead, murdered; stabbed to the heart in his own room, even as Carson was, four days ago.”

      He sat down plump on the nearest chair.

      “Dead! That, at least, is one of her enemies disposed of! That is good news, splendid news, Herr Wynn. Why did you not tell me that before? ‘To a gracious message an host of tongues bestow,’ as our Shakespeare says. How is it you know so much? Do you also know where she is? I was told she would be here, three days since; that is why I have waited. And she has not come! She is still in England?”

      “No, she left on Sunday morning. I do not know where she is, but she has been seen at Ostend with – the Russian Grand Duke Loris.”

      I hated saying those last words; but I had to say them, for, though I knew Anne Pendennis was lost to me, I felt a deadly jealousy of this Russian, to whom, or with whom she had fled; and I meant to find out all that Von Eckhardt might know about him, and his connection with her.

      “The Grand Duke Loris!” he repeated. “She was with him, openly? Does she think him strong enough to protect her? Or does she mean to die with him? For he is doomed also. She must know that!”

      “What is he to her?”

      I think I put the question quietly; though I wanted to take him by the throat and wring the truth out of him.

      “He? He is the cause of all the trouble. He loves her. Yes, I told you that all good men who have but even seen her, love her; she is the ideal of womanhood. One loves her, you and I love her; for I see well that you yourself have fallen under her spell! We love her as we love the stars, that are so infinitely above us, – so bright, so remote, so adorable! But he loves her as a man loves a woman; she loves him as a woman loves a man. And he is worthy of her love! He would give up everything, his rank, his name, his wealth, willingly, gladly, if she would be his wife. But she will not, while her country needs her. It is her influence that has made him what he is, – the avowed friend of the persecuted people, ground down under the iron heel of the autocracy. Yet it is through him that she has fallen under suspicion; for the League will not believe that he is sincere; they will trust no aristocrat.”

      He babbled on, but I scarcely heeded him. I was beginning to pierce the veil of mystery, or I thought I was; and I no longer condemned Anne Pendennis, as, in my heart, I had condemned her, only an hour back. The web of intrigue and deceit that enshrouded her was not of her spinning; it was fashioned on the tragic loom of Fate.

      She loved this Loris, and he loved her? So be it! I hated him in my heart; though, even if I had possessed the power, I would have wrought him no harm, lest by so doing I should bring suffering to her. Henceforth I must love her as Von Eckhardt professed to do, or was his protestation mere hyperbole? “As we love the stars – so infinitely above us, so bright, so remote!”

      And yet – and yet – when her eyes met mine as we stood together under the portico of the Cecil, and again in that hurried moment of farewell at the station, surely I had seen the love-light in them, “that beautiful look of love surprised, that makes all women’s eyes look the same,” when they look on their beloved.

      So, though for one moment I thought I had unravelled the tangle, the next made it even more complicated than before. Only one thread shone clear, – the thread of my love.

      CHAPTER XII

      THE WRECKED TRAIN

      I found the usual polyglot crowd assembled at the Friedrichstrasse station, waiting to board the international express including a number of Russian officers, one of whom specially attracted my attention. He was a splendid looking young man, well over six feet in height, but so finely proportioned that one did not realize his great stature till one compared him with others – myself, for instance. I stand full six feet in my socks, but he towered above me. I encountered him first by cannoning right into him, as I turned from buying some cigarettes. He accepted my hasty apologies with an abstracted smile and a half salute, and passed on.

      That in itself was sufficiently unusual. An ordinary Russian officer, – even one of high rank, as this man’s uniform showed him to be, – would certainly have bad-worded me for my clumsiness, and probably have chosen to regard it as a deliberate insult. Your Russian as a rule wastes no courtesy on members of his own sex, while his vaunted politeness to women is of a nature that we Americans consider nothing less than rank impertinence; and is so superficial, that at the least thing it will give place to the sheer brutality that is characteristic of nearly every Russian in uniform. Have I not seen? But pah! I won’t write of horrors, till I have to!

      Before I boarded the sleeping car I looked back across the platform, and saw the tall man returning towards the train, making his way slowly through the crowd. A somewhat noisy group of officers saluted him as he passed, and he returned the salute mechanically, with a sort of preoccupied air.

      They looked after him, and one of them shrugged his shoulders and said something that evoked a chorus of laughter from his companions. I heard it; though I doubt if the man who appeared to be the object of their mirth did. Anyhow, he made no sign. There was something curiously serene and aloof about him.

      “Wonder who he is?” I thought, as I sought my berth, and turned in at once, for I was dead tired.

      I slept soundly through the long hours while the train rushed onwards through the night; and did not wake till we were nearing the grim old city of Konigsberg. I dressed, and made my way to the buffet car, to find breakfast in full swing and every table occupied, until I reached the extreme end of the car, where there were two tables, each with both seats vacant.

      I had scarcely settled myself in the nearest seat, when my shoulder was grabbed by an excited individual, who tried to haul me out of my place, vociferating a string of abuse, in a mixture of Russian and German.

      I resisted, naturally, and indignantly demanded an explanation. I had to shout to make myself heard. He would not listen, or release his hold, while with his free hand he gesticulated wildly towards two soldiers, who, I now saw, were stationed at the further door of the car. In an instant they had covered me with their rifles, and they certainly looked as if they meant business. But what in thunder had I done?

      At that same moment a man came through the guarded doorway, – the tall officer who had interested me so strongly last night.

      He paused, and evidently took in the situation at a glance.

      “Release that gentleman!” he commanded sternly.

      My captor obeyed, so promptly that I nearly lost my balance, and only saved myself from an ignominious fall by tumbling back into the seat from which he had been trying to eject me. The soldiers presented arms to the new-comer, and my late assailant, all the spunk gone out of him, began to whine an abject apology and explanation, which the officer cut short with a gesture.

      I was on my feet by this time, and, as he turned to me, I said in French: “I offer you my most sincere apologies, Monsieur. The other tables were full, and I had no idea that these were reserved – ”

      “They are not,” he interrupted courteously. “At least they were reserved in defiance of my orders; and now I beg you to remain, Monsieur, and to give me the pleasure of your company.”

      I accepted the invitation, of course; partly СКАЧАТЬ