Part 8

Almost the whole of the wall confronting the door was occupied by a tall French window, which opened directly on a lawn. Shrubs grew waist-high about it. Instinct told him that this was the likeliest approach for the other person, by whose order his kidnaping had been plotted. He felt convinced that this person would prove to be a woman, but he was taking no chances. With the night behind her, she could spy on him for hours without being detected. She might be spying on him now.

Assuming a listless manner, he seated himself to one side of the fireplace. Out of the tail of his eye, without seeming to do so, he watched the shadowy panes. His right hand was thrust into his pocket, gripping the revolver.

After the lapse of some minutes, he heard in the passage the widow's returning footsteps. Outside the door she halted, fumbling at the handle. Giving up the attempt, she called to him to open. Just as he was rising, a face, tense with eagerness, lifted itself out of the bushes, peering in on him.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH--HE BECOMES PART OF THE GAME

I

THE face hung there against the darkness for a second; then the leaves closed over it as it was stealthily withdrawn. In the utterness of his astonishment, Hindwood all but gave himself away. It was not the face he had expected.

Masking his excitement with a yawn, he turned his back on the window and stepped toward the door, opening it sufficiently to thrust his head into the passage, but not wide enough to permit the watcher in the bushes to learn anything of the person with whom he talked. He found his captress standing just beyond the threshold, carrying a tray, which accounted for her awkwardness.

“You won't have to dine in the village,” she explained. Then, catching his strange expression, “What has happened?”

“Some one was to come to-night,” he whispered: “the person who gave orders for my kidnaping. Isn't that so? She was to enter through the window from the lawn, while you held me prisoner at the revolver's point.”

“Is she here?”

“No, but a man who is her enemy--a Major Cleasby. He's hiding directly in her path. He supposed you were she when you tried the door. He showed his face. Is there any way in which we can warn her?”

The widow set down her tray. Her eyes met his searchingly. “If the man were there, you wouldn't want to save her.”

“Why not? You think I've invented the man in the bushes in order that Santa may be scared away? I'm no more afraid of Santa than I was of you. Besides, in your absence I've stolen your revolver. Ah, that convinces you! The man's her husband and a secret service agent. I can feel his eyes in my back. If you don't warn her, she'll be caught. There must have been some prearranged signal. What was it?”

Instead of answering, she pressed nearer, glancing fearfully across her shoulder into the unlighted hall. Her voice came so faintly that he could only just hear her.

“She wouldn't spare us. Why should you and I--? You don't know what she intended.”

He smiled grimly. “I can guess. I was to have been her scapegoat for the Rogovich murder. She was staging a new version of what happened in the woods of Vincennes. Whether she escaped or was brought to trial, I was to have been arrested. By that time she would have clothed me with the appearance of her guilt. I was to have figured as her lover and the Prince's rival. The motive for my crime was to have been jealousy. The old story--an innocent man dying in her stead!”

“If you think you know that, why should you, unless you are her lover?”

“Because she's a woman.”

Her hands seized his, coaxing him from the doorway into the darkened passage. “For the love of God, go!” she implored. “I give you back your parole.”

Drawing her to him, he held her fast. “Don't struggle. He might hear you. You decoyed me. You trapped me. Why this change? What makes you so concerned for my safety?”

“I didn't know,” she panted, “the kind of man you are.”

“What kind?”

Her heart beat wildly. She lay against him unstirring, her face averted. The moment he released her, she burst forth into new pleading.

“For my sake. I beg of you.”

Into the grimness of his smiling there stole a gleam of tenderness. “And leave you? I guess not. What's the signal?”

“The piano.”

“Come, then,” he said, “you shall play for me. While you play, if we mask our expressions, we can talk of what we choose. Outwardly, to deceive the man in the bushes, we must act a part. I'm an old friend. I've dropped in unexpectedly. You've provided me with supper. While I eat, we chatter and laugh. You sit at the piano and sing for me occasionally. When the hour for Santa's arrival is past, I take my leave. If you're brave, we can carry the farce through. Are you game?”

For answer she picked up the tray and stepped into the room, smiling back at him as he followed.

“I'm your humble servant, as always, Mr. Hind-wood, but I have only two hands and they're occupied. If you'll bring up that table--yes, set it before the fire. That's right. You must be comfortable, if I'm to sing for you.”

II

She won't come now.”

The words reached him in a sigh. The pale hands fluttered from the keyboard. The fair head dropped. Almost instantly she straightened herself, banishing her appearance of weariness. “Don't think that I'm showing the white feather. It's only that I'm exhausted. She won't come now. I'm sure of it.” Then, bending forward with a nervous tremor, “I daren't look round. Has he gone?”

Hindwood pushed back his chair from before the hearth. For the moment he did not answer. He was striving to restore the spell which the intrusion of her fear had broken. Glancing at her sideways, he regarded her quietly where she sat at the piano in her widow's garb. Through the window at her back he caught a glimpse of the garden, shadowy and patched with moonlight. Above the silence he heard the rumble of waves, sifting the pebbles on the shore. Who was she, this woman who possessed the magic to enchant him? Who had been her husband? What kind of man? Had she loved him? How long since he had died? There were so many questions.

She had persuaded him into following her, well knowing that he believed her to be Santa. She had met his discovery of her impersonation with a threat. When the luck was all in her favor, with the panic of a stricken conscience she had thrown in her hand. For the past two hours, in this cozy room, she had surrounded him with shy intimacies of affection, to the end that the unseen spectator, listening outside the panes, might be beguiled. Apparently the deception had succeeded; the spectator had given no sign. It had succeeded too well for Hindwood. It had roused in him the longing that, behind her pretense of friendship, there might lurk a genuine emotion of liking. He had tried to forget that the scene was stage-set. He had wanted to believe that it was real.

“Has he gone?”

There was a break in her voice.

He pulled himself together. “Do you wish me to make certain?”

Rising, he lounged over to the piano as though to select a sheet from the pile of music. In a flash he turned, wrenching wide the doors of the French-window, and was across the step in a bound. Nothing rose from the shadows to disturb the peace of the night. Stooping by the bushes, he made a hurried examination.

“Come,” he called. Then, seeing how she pressed her hands against her mouth, “There's no need to fear.”

When she was standing by his side, he explained: “To-morrow you might think that I'd tricked you. I want you to see for yourself. Here's where he was hiding when he peered in on me. The ground's trampled. The bushes are bent back.”

“He may be still here,” she whispered, “in the garden--somewhere.”

Hindwood smiled reassuringly into her upturned face. “He wouldn't do you any harm if he were. Remember he's a secret service agent. As a matter of fact, he ought to make you feel safe.”

“Safe!” She knotted her hands against her breast. “Shall I ever feel safe? Oh, if I could confess--to you, to any one!”

“If it would help----”

Without giving him a chance to finish his sentence, she plucked at his sleeve with the eagerness of a child. “Would you?”

“What?”

“Let me?”

III

They had reentered the room, fastening the window securely behind them. When that was done, they had drawn the curtains across the panes. She had flung herself into a chair beside the fire and was waiting impatiently for him to join her. But he hovered in the center of the room, fingering his watch and looking troubled.

“What's delaying you?” she asked without turning.

He slipped his watch into his pocket. “I had no idea it was so late.”

“Does that matter? Till morning there are no trains.”

“I was thinking of hotels.”

“They'll be shut.”

“Precisely. So what am I----?”

“Stay with me,” she said lazily.

The room became profoundly silent. The darkened house seemed to listen. Had he plumbed a new depth in this drama of betrayal at the moment when he hoped he had discovered loyalty? He had been deceived by women before. Had he not allowed Santa to deceive him, he would not have been here. He might tell himself that this woman was different. If a man did not tell himself that each new woman was different, the mischief of love would end.

He caught sight of her flaxen head and became ashamed of his reflections. It wasn't possible, if the soul was foul, that the flesh should be so fair. She had the wonder of the dawn in her eyes. Nothing that she had said or done could belie the frankness of her innocence. Standing behind her chair, he gazed down in puzzlement at her graciousness.

“There are conventions. We may have met unconventionally, but neither of us can afford to ignore them.”

Without looking up, she answered, “If you were as alone as I am, you could afford to ignore anything.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Then you understand.”

“I think I understand.” He spoke gently. “I suppose no man can ever be so lonely as a woman, especially as a woman who has lost her happiness, but I, too, have been lonely. Everybody has. The cowardice which comes of loneliness is responsible for nearly every wickedness. Most thefts, and cheatings, and even murders are committed in an effort to gain companionship. But you can't elude loneliness by short-cuts. Wherever you go, it's with you from birth to death. Brave people make it their friend. Cowards let it become their tempter. Loneliness is no excuse for wrong-doing, nor even for surrendering to the appearance of it.”

“Preaching?”

“No. Trying to share with you my experience. Until this afternoon, you didn't know that I existed. All your life up to the last five minutes, you've been able to do without me. Don't be greedy and spoil everything before it's started. There's tomorrow.”

“Why wait for to-morrow when I trust you now?”

He stooped lower. She had become irresistibly dear. In a rush he had found the clue to her character--her childishness. She couldn't bear to postpone the things she wanted.

“Trust me! I wonder! You're the first woman to have the daring to tell me. I'm not sure that I feel complimented; at this hour of night one has to be a little cold to be trusted like that. But I trust you--which is strange after all that's happened. The person I distrust is myself. You're beautiful. The most beautiful----”

“Am I more beautiful than Santa?”

He caught the vision of her blue eyes glinting up at him. There was nothing roguish in their expression. They were pathetic in their earnestness. Her throat was stretched back, white and firm. Her lips were vivid and parted. Her question sounded like the ruse of a coquette, yet she seemed wholly unaware of her attraction.

He drew himself erect, staring at the wall that he might forbid himself the danger of looking at her. His voice came harsh and abrupt. “Your confession can keep till morning. One can say and unsay anything. It's deeds that can never be unsaid.”

He had reached the door. She spoke dully. “You despise me.” And then, “All my life I've waited for to-morrows. Go quickly.”

Glancing across his shoulder he saw her, a mist of gold in a great emptiness. Slowly he turned back.

“Can't you guess the reason for my going? I reverence you too much.”

Clutching at his hands, she dragged herself to her feet. “It's friendship that I'm asking. What's the use of reverence? Like me a little. You'd do more for Santa. Only to like me wouldn't cost you much.”

IV

I should have died if you'd left me.” He was feeling both amused and annoyed at his surrender; at the same time he was on the alert for developments. She had extinguished the lamps. The sole illumination was the firelight. For what reason she had done it, whether as an aid to confession or as a discouragement to watchers, she allowed him to guess. Whatever the reason, the precaution was wise, but it increased the atmosphere of liaison. He had pushed back his chair to the extreme corner of the hearth, so that he was scarcely discernible. She sat where the glow from the coals beat up into her face. He saw her profile against a background of darkness.

“Died!” He pursed his lips in masculine omniscience. “You'd have gone to your bed and had a good night's rest.”

“I shouldn't. I was in terror. I used to be afraid only by night; now it's both day and night. You're never afraid. You weren't afraid even when I----. How do you manage it?”

“By doing things, instead of thinking about the things that can be done to me. I've learned that what we fear never happens--fear's a waste of time. Fear's imagination playing tricks by pouncing out of cupboards. It's the idiot of the intellect, gibbering in the attic after nightfall. IPs a coward, spreading cowardice with false alarms. It's a liar and a libeller; life's a thousand times kinder than fear would have us paint it.”

She sighed happily. “It was kind to me to-night.” He waited for her confession to commence. She leaned back, her eyes half shut, watching the red landscape in the dancing flames. Time moved gently. Night seemed eternal. Her contentment proved contagious. Neither of them spoke. Nothing mattered save the comfort of her presence. In a hollow of the coals he invented a dream cottage to which he would take her. It had a scarlet wood behind it and mountains with ruby-tinted caves. As the fire settled, the mirage faded.

“Does it strike you as comic,” he questioned, “that you and I should sit here after midnight and that I shouldn't even know what to call you?”

“Varensky. Anna Varensky.”

“Russian?”

She nodded.

“But are you Russian?”

“I'm Ivan Varensky's wife.”

“You say it proudly, as though I ought to know who Ivan Varensky was.”

She turned her head slowly, wondering at him. “There's only one Ivan Varensky: the man who wanted to be like Christ.”

Hindwood jerked himself into wakefulness. “I'm afraid I need enlightenment. I don't----”

“You do,” she contradicted patiently, “or rather, you will when I've helped you to recall him. How hurt he would be, poor Ivan, that a man of your standing should so soon have forgotten him! He hoped to make such a noise in the world. After Czardom had fallen, he aimed to be a savior, healing men with words. But he wanted to be crucified at once. He cared more for Calvary than for the road that led up to it. He was an emotionalist, impatient of Gethsemane; it was the crown of thorns that he coveted. Having only words with which to save humanity, he dashed all over Russia in special trains, speechifying at every halting-place, foretelling his approaching end. He had no time to waste; he believed his days were numbered. His message was always the same, whether he was addressing the Duma, armies marching into action, or a handful of peasants: he was about to die for Russia. Then suddenly Trotzky and Lenine came. They were men who did things; they overthrew his government. Worse, still, they refused to fulfill his prophecies; instead of executing him, they bundled him into exile. To be forced to live, when he had pledged himself to die, was a more cruel crucifixion than any he had anticipated. He found himself nailed to the cross of ridicule with no one to applaud his sacrifice. He was left with nothing to talk about, for the thing he had talked about had not happened. He was an idealist, an inspirer, a prophet, but because death had avoided him, there was no gospel to write. Having climbed the long road to Calvary, he had the tragedy to survive. Don't think I'm belittling him. I loved him. It was a proud, but not an easy task to be the wife of a man who wanted to be like Christ.”

She collapsed into silence, sitting lost in thought, her arms hanging limply by her sides. He wondered what pictures she was seeing in the fire--armed men marching, revolution, palaces going up in dame.

Of course he remembered the Varensky she had described--the Varensky who, in the darkest hour of the war, had hurled himself like a knight-errant to the rescue of the Allies. It was he who was to have consolidated Russia, leading its millions in an endless tide to the defeat of the enemies of righteousness. It was freedom he had promised; freedom to everybody. He had preached that every man was good in himself, that the things that made men bad were laws. Therefore he had swept all laws aside. He had done away with compulsion, repealed death penalties, thrown prisons wide. For a day and night he had held the stage, a shining figure, adored by despairing eyes. Then the slaves whom he had released from restraints had surged over him. He had vanished, trampled beneath ungrateful feet, and Russia had become a mob.

So this was Varensky's wife! He felt awed. The romantic heroism of her husband's failure clothed her with a wistful sacredness. Three years ago he could not have approached her. He would scarcely have dared to have regarded her as a woman. The hysteria of the moment had canonized her. Streets through which she drove in Petrograd had been lined with kneeling throngs. There had been something medieval in the spontaneity of her worship. It had been rumored that she was a bride immaculate; that her purity was the secret of her husband's strength. Her face made the story credible. It had the virgin innocence of a saint's. And here he was allowed to sit beside her, with three years gone, sharing her hearth in this obscure place of hiding!

“You were a Russian Joan of Arc,” he declared enthusiastically. “How well I remember all the legends one read about you. And Varensky---- It doesn't matter that he failed; his was the most gallant figure of the entire war. When every nation was embittered, he set us an example of how not to hate. He refused to kill, when all of us were slaying. He had the courage of meekness; in that at least he followed Christ. What became of him? There was a report----”

“There have been many reports,” she interrupted sadly. “Lest the latest be true, I wear mourning. I wear mourning for him always. Before his fall I was his perpetual bride; since his fall I am his perpetual widow. He wishes to be dead, so to please him-----”

“Then he's still alive?” Immediately he was conscious of the indecency of his disappointment.

She gazed into the darkness with a mild surprise. “I do not know. I never know. That's the torture of it. He was always less a man than a spirit. I begin to think he can not die.”

“You want him----?”

If she had heard his uncompleted question, she ignored it. With folded hands she stared into the red heart of the fire. Behind her, across the walls and ceiling as flames leaped and flickered, shadows took fantastic shapes. When she spoke, as though she were talking to herself, her words came softly.

“He was such a child--so dear, so vain, so intense, so sensitive. Why did he marry me, if it was only to resign me? He treated me as he treated Russia. We were both waiting for him to take us in his arms. But it was always ideals--things one can't embrace--that drew out his affections. Had he loved humanity less and individuals more, he could have gone so far. There was something monstrous about his self-abnegations. Perhaps he denied himself the things for which he did not care. He wanted to seem nobler than any one else. Through egotism he missed his chance. Had he planned to live, he could have killed his enemies and prevented revolution. There was a time when he could have crushed both Lenine and Trotzky. But he had to be too noble. 'No,' he said, 'if their ideal is more right than mine, it will conquer. Truth can not be silenced by slaughter.' It was his inhuman magnanimity that defeated him. So Lenine and Trotzky grew strong and crushed him. Because he had planned to die, millions are starving, and Russia is in chaos.”

“But he doesn't own it?”

“In his heart--yes. Like a General who has blundered, the vision of lost battlefields is forever in his eyes--the forests of white crosses! His egotism is gone. He wants to make atonement; to perish seems the only way. Any one who would delay him, even though she were a woman who loved him, is his enemy. In his remorse he hounds death as other men avoid it. He's head of the counterrevolution and goes continually into Russia for the overthrow of Bolshevism. Not that he hopes for success, but that he may be put against a wall and shot.”

“And always he returns?”

“Always until this last time.”

Her voice sank away in a whisper. He eyed her with misgiving. What was it she desired?

“I read something of this. He's been missing for a long time?”

“A long time.”

Coming out of the shadows, so that she could see his face, he drew his chair close to hers.

“And what has this to do with your confession?”

V

She flinched, as though he had made a motion to strike her. “My confession! Ah, yes! I forgot.” She tried to smile. Stretching out her hand, she touched him in a timid appeal for understanding. Taking it between his own he held it fast.

“Like that,” he said, “as though it were a bird that's tired. It isn't its own nest, but it's safe and warm; let it rest till it grows stronger.”

“You're good,” she faltered. “Most good men are hard.”

“Maybe,” he laughed. “But I'm not good. On the other hand, I don't suppose I'm bad. I'm simply a man who's always had to fight, so I know what it's like to be up against it. You're up against it at present. You can see nothing before you but a high stone wall with no way round it. I've been there, and I've found that when you can't get round a wall, there's usually a door. What do you say? Shall we look for a door together?”

“I have.” She sank her head. “Every day and night in three interminable years I've looked for it. I'm like a person lost in a fog, standing still, listening, running, falling.”

“Scared to death?”

She nodded.

“Then don't be scared; stop running. Wait for your fear to catch up with you. If you face it, it'll shrink to nothing. The feet of a pursuer are like an army. What's causing your panic? Varensky? The thought that he may not return?”

“No.”

“That he may?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“That he may go on wasting me forever.”

She waited for him to say something. When he remained silent, she bent forward staring vacantly into the hearth. “Perhaps I'm a coward and unfaithful. Perhaps if he'd been successful---- I know what he thinks of me: that I'm a fair-weather wife. But I'm not. If it would help him, I'd give my life for him. He doesn't want my life. He doesn't want my body. He wants the one thing that I can't give him--that I should believe in him. There are people who still believe in him--the Little Grandmother. There are others, like Prince Rogovich, who pretended to believe in him that he might use him as a cat's-paw. He says good-by to me for the last time and vanishes. I wait in retirement for news of his execution. At the end of two months, three months, half a year, he comes back. Then the rehearsing for his martyrdom commences all afresh. If there were anything I could do! But to be wasted for no purpose!”