CHAPTER IV.

_MOSCOW._

Mind's command o'er mind, Spirit o'er spirit's, is the close effect And natural action of an inward gift Given of God.

Laura was much better the next day; indeed, the improvement was so great that her protector considered himself justified in pressing on for another stage of their journey. She was not so joyful as might have been expected. Perhaps his parable had calmed the little girl, making her impatience less by the hint of possible separation. Laura cared very much for her friend. She had become so united to him in thought and affection that she could scarcely imagine a future without him. We must remember that with little ones, especially when their natures are impressionable like Laura's, it does not take long for these attachments to be formed. With them habit passes quickly into a necessity. It was thus with Laura. She had become so accustomed to her friend's protecting tenderness that she could not bear to think of being separated from him. But Laura was not untrue to her mother. She thought as much as ever of her return to the little cottage by the sea. Only in thus far her dreams and ideas were changed. She could not and would not think of that return, of those pleasant days when mamma would be happy and papa at home, without including in them all this kind guide who was planning their happiness.

Her friend's look at the end of his tale had been so sad that she dared not ask for an explanation, and indeed her own little heart had been almost too full of sympathy with the bereaved star-spirit for her to think of much else at the moment. But to this one thing in her after reflections Laura made up her mind: her friend should go back with her to her mother, he should not look so sad, they would make him as happy as they would be. In fact, the child mapped out the future, as many of her elders will do, in those long days of travelling that succeeded their stay in Vienna.

They were very long and very wearisome, unbroken by incident of any kind; the very passengers became few, and the towns scattered as they advanced. It was not difficult to get a carriage to themselves, but certainly some comforts were necessary to make the long journeys tolerable. Laura, however, had no relapse. At every possible resting-place her companion watched narrowly to see if fatigue were taking any effect upon her. He was reassured. The child slept, ate and made herself happy.

L'Estrange was not so fortunate. Anxiety, suspense, and a certain vague uneasiness of conscience concerning even this late delight--which seemed to have aroused the latent good that was in him--kept him wakeful, and by the time Moscow was nearly reached the faithful child noticed that he looked pale and ill. She told him so with a sweet womanly concern that sat strangely on her child's face. But he only smiled, and said rest would set him right. Evening had fallen on the earth when at last Moscow the long-desired dawned on the sight of the wanderers. It was from the midst of a desolate country, bleak and half cultivated, that it rose suddenly, almost, as it were, by magic, its glittering cupolas and myriad towers visible long before the city itself came in sight.

L'Estrange, who knew all about this strange appearance (he had travelled through Russia before), pointed it out to the child. Very little could have surprised Laura much at this time; she had been living ever since she had left quiet Middlethorpe in an atmosphere of wonders; but amongst them all this arrival had been looked to as something pre-eminent. For Moscow was the city where this wonderful father was hiding. Laura was fully convinced that he would be the first person they should meet in the streets, and it did not seem unnatural that Moscow itself should be strange as any of the wonders in the Arabian tales. Perhaps, Laura reasoned with herself, it was because it was so beautiful and wonderful that her father had remained there. She had heard of people who had gone to heaven, not wishing to come back, and vaguely she blent the two ideas together till the feeling in her mind was something like this: Moscow was like heaven, so beautiful and delightful that those who went there never wanted to go home again.

The first sight of the ancient city was enough to justify her dreams. It was to the child like a glimpse of Fairyland. Once at the window, watching the gradual approach, out of the pale evening light, of those dim, ghostly giants that lifted their stately heads from the surrounding dimness, nothing would persuade her to leave it.

They drew nearer and the darkness gathered, so that Laura, though straining her eyes into it, could see nothing. When they arrived finally, and drove into the enchanted city, its wonders were hidden by the dim, gray night of the North. From the magic and dazzle that through the twilight had shone many-colored on the background of sky, they passed to a hotel exceedingly like the others at which they had put up.

It was a death to the child's first illusion. Her companion watched her curiously. He noted how the dazzle of expectation and wonder died out of her eyes, and how the real, growing weariness began to assert itself after the excitement which had veiled it for the time. They were together in the handsome, stately saloon--alone, for travellers at this season were few; the short, bright summer of the North was nearly over, the evenings were becoming gray, the nights black and dreary. There was a large square black monument in the room they occupied that emitted a close heat, and the process of shutting out carefully all external air had begun.

L'Estrange seated himself on one of the massive couches and drew the child to his side. "What is it, petite?" he asked as he noted her disappointment.

"Where is papa?" she questioned sadly.

"We shall look for him to-morrow."

He threw off his hat as he spoke, and the child saw that his face was very weary-looking and sad. Fatigue, anxiety and want of sleep were gradually taking their effect on his strong frame, while the close air of the room in his weak condition almost overpowered him.

"Mon pere," she said, clinging to him, "how pale you look!"

He tried to rouse himself: "I am tired, fillette."

But suddenly the pallor spread till his very lips were blanched. He sank back on the couch with a faint moan, yet even then the soul of the man was strong enough to conquer partially the physical weakness. He thought of her through the pain that was striving to master him; he saw her face of despair, though a film seemed to be gathering over his sight, and with a strenuous effort he half raised himself, his pale lips parted in a reassuring smile: "I shall be better soon--water."

She brought it to him in a moment, all the woman in her risen to meet the emergency, and then she placed a pillow under his head and chafed his cold hands. By the time the waiter arrived to lay the cloth for dinner L'Estrange was better. It was a kind of spasm that had robbed him of his power for the moment. He had experienced something of this kind before, and it alarmed him; understanding a little about the science of medicine himself, he knew the danger of mysterious pains, and he felt that it would not answer for him to be laid up until his work was done.

When dinner was over they went out into the night together, and the cool air revived him; but afterward, when real solitude had fallen over everything, and the child had been committed to the care of one of the women of the house, the fear of what might come quite mastered him.

L'Estrange was no coward, to shrink from physical pain. Whenever it was possible he would escape suffering (though perhaps his real horror was rather of mental than physical pain); when it was impossible he met it like a man. But this time he felt his frame was weakening. The mental rest he had craved so passionately would never come till his work was over, and in the mean time another such paroxysm as the one through which he had passed might lay him prostrate. In this case what would become of Laura? How would he prove to his wronged Margaret that his intentions with regard to her were good and true?

Even as he thought he felt the pain approaching with stealthy creeping, like a thief come to rob him of his power. He rose with difficulty from the couch on which he had been lying, and opening one of his packages drew from it the small medicine-chest he always carried. His hand shook as he turned the key, for he knew what he was doing, and had it not been for his strange position would have dreaded it far more than the physical pain, which he felt it could not cure, only put away for a time. For L'Estrange had once been in the habit of putting into him this enemy to steal away his soul. He had felt then that his intellect was being weakened--that his bodily and mental powers were being destroyed; he had fought with the weakness and had conquered it.

But as he took out the little well-known phial, with its dark liquid, once so precious, he felt that another victory would be still more dearly bought, and he trembled. Necessity, however, is strong and knows no law. While he hesitated the pain gained ground.

Hastily he poured out a strong dose, drank it, and slept a heavy, uneasy sleep, broken by dreams and distorted images of reality, while through them all the keen finger of pain found its way, touching his heart and chilling its warm life. But even this semblance of sleep was better than the dismal wakefulness.

He got up better, and found that the pain whose ravages he had been dreading had left him. He sighed as he rose. An inner consciousness told him it was only for a time. Through that day the effects of the potion of the night followed him. Even Laura, child as she was, remarked the change. There was about her friend a certain languor, an absence of vital energy. He could scarcely rouse himself, even to take the steps needful for the accomplishment of the object that had brought them so far.

Toward the next evening, however, the effects of his dose began to lessen. He regained something of his physical energy, and in the gathering twilight started, without the child, for the address of the agent who held the information they required.

Laura had been restless and uneasy during the whole day, startled with the slightest noise, watching curiously all who came in and went out; for now that the time, as she believed, was very near for her meeting with this unknown father, she began to feel vaguely afraid.

"You are going to find him," she said as her companion came booted and cloaked into the room where she was sitting.

He looked at her earnestly: "And to give up my treasure."

She clung to him: "He won't take me away, mon pere. We shall all go home to mamma together."

Her friend smiled, but he shook his head, and Laura's heart sank and the tears filled her eyes. She was too young for all this conflict of feeling. L'Estrange felt it with a sudden sense of compunction. He tried to comfort her as he would have comforted any ordinary child under the circumstances: "No doubt it shall be all as my little girl wishes."

But Laura looked up into his face with those mournful, searching eyes, and then turned away from him. In her simplicity she had read the hollowness of his efforts at consolation, and she was hurt that he should tell her anything but the truth. Her friend stooped down to her and took both her hands in his:

"You are a little witch, Laura. What am I to say to you, then?"

"I don't want you to say what I like," she answered in a low, tearful voice; "I want you to say what is _really_ true." And then she began to cry: "I love you, and I love mamma--oh, so much!--and I think I shall love my papa when I see him. _Why_ can't we all be happy together?"

"Why, little wise one?" He settled his hat upon his brows and turned away, leaving her unconsoled. "Ask the stars," he said from the door, and Laura was left alone to think and wonder, for young as she was the shadow that rests evermore on things human was closing her in its dark embrace. The why, the dark mystery of human fate, had already begun in her young soul its restless questioning.

Her friend felt this, and his heart ached for her, but the mischief was wrought--he could do nothing. Action was the only cure for their common sadness, therefore he would delay no longer. Hiring a droshki, he drove through the modern Moscow, while ever before him rose that mighty circlet of walls and battlements, enclosing, its forest of towers, steeples and cupolas, gorgeous as an Eastern tale, fantastic as the dream of a diseased imagination, that city within a city--the Kremlin.

He was gathering together the forces of his mind, and this helped him in his task, for L'Estrange had ever been specially alive to the influence of externals. Beauty of form and coloring had always been able to sway his moods. This mighty monument, by strength formed and endowed, seemed to brace his spirit as he looked out upon it and thrilled to the memories it enshrined. The great impregnable, before whom Napoleon and his legions melted, the strong abode of the Muscovite giants--Ivan the Terrible and his court--the treasure-house of the Czars, the representative of the history of a nation destined to great things,--as he gazed upon it he felt the softness leave his heart. He was trying to be great, and this monument of human greatness helped him. He could not meet his enemy, although his words were to be, in a certain sense, peace, with the tender voice of a child ringing its sweet sadness into his ears, with the languor of sorrow and pain stealing away his strength.

And gradually as he drove through the shadowy streets, by the walled gardens and stone buildings, with the Kremlin rising ever before him in the distance, his mind took a stronger tone. Not as the wrong-doer, but as the representative of the wronged, he would stand before the man he sought, arraigning his enemy for the crime to which, as he well knew, his own conduct had lent a colorable pretext. L'Estrange could scarcely believe that it was anything but a pretext. Margaret's fault, if fault there had been, was so venial, her manner of life after the separation--and L'Estrange was too much given to intrigue himself to be able to understand how Maurice Grey could know nothing whatever of that--had been so pure, so single in its aims, that the harshness of her husband's judgment became great and vindictive in comparison.

L'Estrange found it by no means difficult to work himself up into a state of suitable indignation, and as he reached the door of the house indicated as that of the agent who held the knowledge of Maurice Grey's hiding-place, he was once more the dark, stern man, strong and self-contained.

His newly-formed resolutions were not yet destined to be fulfilled. Time and distance still separated him from Maurice Grey.

He had gathered from the conversation overheard in the Champs Elysees an approximation to the truth, though some diplomacy was necessary before anything could be wormed out of the crafty Russian.

The golden key opened his lips at last, and L'Estrange applied it liberally, but with a certain amount of caution, for he wished to be sure his information was accurate.

At last, however, the man was conquered, and perhaps gold was not the only or even the most potent agent. After many twistings and turnings and sundry circumlocutions, which their common tongue, the French language, so supple and delicate, could ably render, the wily Russian told his visitor all he wanted to know. The English milord--so he styled Maurice, probably because his pockets were well lined--had been in Moscow, but had only remained there two days. He had put up at his house, for he and the Englishman had met before, and their relations one with the other were of the most friendly character; also, Mr. Grey disliked hotels: for some reason he had seemed to desire the incognito. Monsieur had unfolded to his friend his intention of wandering, and under these circumstances had appeared to be in some perplexity about his letters, which he wished sent to another address than his own. He (M. Petrovski) had come to the help of monsieur (his readiness to help travellers, more especially, perhaps, the English, had always been very great), proposing that all communication with England should be carried on through himself.

He did not say that as he was a kind of property-agent this was altogether in his line of business, and that for everything he did he was amply paid. Probably the Russian thought it well to leave something to the imagination. And in this he was wise. L'Estrange's imagination was all-embracing, in his species more especially. He understood the position at once, and added so largely to the profit on the transaction--demonstrated so clearly how in the whole matter he would be a gainer--that the Russian's tongue, as by a species of intoxication, wagged more freely than ever.

His small black eyes glittering above his hawk-like nose and long, dark beard--he was a Russian Jew--he proceeded to assure his guest that nothing but his full assurance of the fact that only friendliness was intended to his dear friend Monsieur Grey would have persuaded him to open his lips on the subject.

And L'Estrange entering into his motives and approving heartily of his reticence, he showed his sincerity by leading him to a little side-window which commanded the ante-room, and bidding him look out carefully without allowing himself to be seen.

L'Estrange obeyed. He looked out, and treasured up what he saw for further use.

It was a large, bare room, containing only a table and two or three chairs. On one of these, in full relief, for the light from a small oil-lamp shone on his face, sat a young man. He was evidently English, and very young, almost a boy, for his face was clean shaven and his short fair hair curled over a broad, open brow, upon which time had as yet written no wrinkles. But what L'Estrange chiefly remarked in those few moments of intense study was this: the earnestness of his face, the purpose that shone out of his eyes, the manliness of his bearing and attitude.

He turned from the window to find out how it was that this young Englishman had been shown to him so mysteriously, and the Russian, who had been observing him narrowly, took him by the arm: "The young man has come by appointment on the same errand as yourself: apparently he is very anxious--for some time since he has pestered me with letters. Mark my confidence. I ask _you_ how I am to treat him?"

For a moment L'Estrange was perplexed, then suddenly came back to his mind the remembrance of the lawyer's letter. This was Margaret's messenger. He looked out again. Perhaps the manliness of the young face pleased him; perhaps he saw in this strange search an access to his strength--an instrument that he might use to confirm the absolute truthfulness of what he was about to tell the mistaken husband; perhaps he had a certain compunction at the idea of sending on a fruitless search this young, disinterested champion of the woman who seemed to win all hearts. Whatever might be the cause, the effect of his second look was this. He turned from the window with a half smile: "Tell him what you have told me, my good friend, but keep him about here for some days."

The Russian bowed his assent, and after a few more courteous words preceded his visitor to the door. How had L'Estrange obtained this power over a nature so mercenary? Not by money alone, for others could hold out the same inducement--Arthur had been ready to pour out gold at his feet--nor indeed altogether by his superior diplomacy, though that no doubt had contributed to bring about the result.

That there are certain men who have an extraordinary power over their fellows is indisputable. Strength of purpose and character may be an element in the formation of this power, but it is not altogether alone. Such knowledge of the workings of the human mind as L'Estrange had gained by means of keen observation and long study of his fellows is perhaps the strongest element of all. For L'Estrange knew how to take men, what chord to strike in their natures, often strange and complex, to make them answer to his hand--how to render them actually desirous of doing his will.