Augusta de Grasse Stevens

“ Will you restore my faith and belief in womanhood; that faith and trust which another woman has so nearly destroyed? Hush, wait one moment before you speak. Yes, I know I am almost a stranger to you, I have seen you but half-a-dozen times; you know but little of me, and that little is not of the best. And, I too, what do I know of you? Nothing, save what Esther was pleased to tell us all concerning you. I realise that your past is seared and crossed by sorrow and grief, but always, Adèle, always since first I saw you, you have haunted me, you have possessed me, you have laid me under a spell. ”

“ Would her name—her place—become but an empty memory—a recollection to be put aside with all haste? Would he forget her, too—he, Philip, for whose love she had played so hazardous a game? Would he forget her, as these people forgot her, glad to rush away from the excitement of looking at her to the greater excitement of condemning her? Must she, too, like Adèle Lallovich, drink to the very dregs the bitter cup of humiliation and desertion?
When all this grim comedy—this farce that touched so close on tragedy—was over, when Russia's hand had closed upon her, would he think of her then? ”

“ Patricia Hildreth's face was not good to look upon, as she read his response; if ever mortified vanity and determined revenge was readable on a woman's countenance, it was to be seen on hers then.
"So I have humbled myself in vain," she said. "Well, it shall be your turn next, my Philip, or my woman's wit is of no account; you shall feel the same sting as you have given me, incased in your armour of pride and well-being though you may be. Take care, Philip, my hand is small but it is firm to strike, and he is most lost who thinks himself invulnerable to a woman's charms." ”

“ Again it was the woman who first broke the silence, and though it was but the lightest whisper it pierced Philip's soul with dismay.
"Petersburg," she murmured, "and that means the mercies of the Imperial Chancellerie!"
"Patty," cried Philip with sudden passion, "this terrible alternative must never come to pass—it must be averted at all costs; do you hear me?—must be. You must be frank with me now, as frank as though your last hour had come. Answer me with absolute truth the questions I shall ask. I can only save you if you will save yourself." ”

“ Ten years is a very long time; long enough to drink deep of experience; long enough to plant, and sow, and reap. Long enough to lose more than one friend, make more than one enemy; long enough to sink oneself to the neck in intrigue, and to bury oneself in crime. May not Miss Hildreth have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and found the evil overweigh the good? May not Count Mellikoff have been her friend, and become her enemy? Is it not possible that each is striving to outwit the other, and each is afraid of the other? ”

“ He gave a short, hard laugh as he replied:
"I cannot compliment you, Count Mellikoff, on either section of your system. To me, as I said before, you all appear to act only as special police spies, each one ready and eager to betray the other should occasion arise, and each knowing the other to hold this power over him. You have interested me deeply; but, pardon me, I cannot jump with you the entire length of the Tsar's fatherly protection, as exemplified by the Imperial Chancellerie. I have an old-fashioned prejudice in favour of individual free will and independence." ”

“ The trained voices of the Imperial choir rose and fell in regular cadences, unsupported by instruments of any kind, but perfect in harmony and unison. The bells chimed at intervals, while the worshippers, as they fell upon their knees, repeated again and again the symbol of the cross on forehead and breast.
And so it was that Olga Naundorff became the wife of Ivor Tolskoi.
Sanctioned by the most solemn ritual of her faith, surrounded by the highest nobility of her land; loved, admired, feared, and envied, Olga, the beloved of Vladimir Mellikoff, pledged her vows to Ivor Tolskoi ”

“ Without knowing it, a true and absolute belief in her cousin Vladimir Mellikoff's integrity had gradually grown up within her; she had come to regard him as the one faithfully sincere lover out of all her admirers, whose very sternness and power of repression spoke more eloquently to her than all the more emotional pleadings of her other suitors. She had believed herself to be the first and only woman on whom he had expended even the smallest measure of love; and to be the object of so unique and chivalrous a devotion, had not been the least among her reasons for yielding to his solicitations. ”

“ With which little home thrust Miss Darling settled back in her chair beamingly.
"Then, since acting it is to be, let's settle the play," said Jack Howard. "It's always a long business, and we haven't any too much time at our disposal."
"There's School," suggested Miss James, "or Ours, or The Romance of a Poor Young Man; and oh, doesn't that make one weep for poor Montague?"
"Oh, how sentimental!" cried Dick. "Why don't you have something jolly, like The Mikado, or Ruddigore, or even Patience? There's something more in any one of them, than in all your love and moonshine plays put together." ”

“ He had come to her with the unformed theory, evoked by John Mainwaring's ambiguous words, still at work within him, and he determined, if it lay in his power, to force confirmation of it from her.
"You know that is not what I mean," he said gently; "no one can ever again entertain so vile a suspicion against you."
"Yet you doubted me, Philip," she interrupted; "you doubted me throughout."
"Yes," he answered, "if you like to classify a feeling, that scarce had formation in my mind, under so grave an emotion as doubt—why, then—I did doubt you, Patricia." ”

“ In his eyes all women should be, like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion, and it hurt and galled him that even a shadow of aspersion should rest on Patricia's fair fame.
And yet, as Miss James had said, ten years was a long time, and Miss Hildreth gave no explanation, beyond a vague and general one, as to how she had spent that time. Might there not be some secret bound up in those years; some secret between herself and Vladimir Mellikoff, which it was wisest to leave so buried? Was it possible of belief that in all that time Patricia had never consoled herself for the lost love of her youth? ”

“ A breath of the past was mingled with the present, and bore along with it the scent of fresh grass, a mingled perfume of fruit and flowers, a vision of flowing muslin draperies, a lithe, graceful figure, dark, lustreless hair crowning a proud little head, eyes of deepest violet shaded by black, pencilled brows and lashes, a face whose almost dusky colouring flushed in an instant into richest carmine when deeply moved.
Ten years had gone by since Philip Tremain, a young barrister struggling for briefs, idle, clever, lazy, and cursed with expectations of money, first met Patricia Hildreth. ”

“ How can I put any other construction upon your conduct, save that of wilful and wanton cruelty, when I remember, that twice as Miss Hildreth, you refused me, scorning my love; and then, that only a few short hours afterwards, as Adèle Lamien you accepted me, and all I had to offer—accepted me, with a lie upon your lips, and deceit in your smile. Have you no explanation to give me, Patricia? Oh, my dear, I will accept any pretext you may offer; only make some little excuse, no matter how trivial, for the duplicity of your conduct. ”

“ Your own rather too vivid imagination has outrun itself, Ivor, and accredited to Count Mellikoff's absence in the United States a more sinister motive than could be found in the records of the Chancellerie. Murder and arrest are two ugly words and have an ugly sound to ears unaccustomed to them, especially when applied to a woman."
"Nevertheless, chief," answered Ivor, impatiently, the frown deepening on his brow, "though you may choose to call Count Mellikoff's mission by every name under heaven save the right one, you cannot disguise its true motive. ”

“ Could a man stand thus, looking into the eyes of the woman of his life-long devotion, and remain indifferent? Would not any sop from out that gilded past, if thrown to him by her hand, prove of sufficient value to be worth his glad acceptance?
All this time his eyes had never left her face, and she grew restive under the intensity of his scrutiny, flushing and paling, while the hand that held the fleecy drapery about her throat and neck trembled.
"Patty," he said at last, in a voice set in a lower key than usual. "Patty, it is ten long years since we stood thus, alone together. ”

“ Philip noted an easy-chair and a rug spread beneath the table, while on the table were writing materials and books, and a vase of delicate-hued roses; the counterpart of those he had seen in Esther's boudoir the night before. It touched him strangely to see this proof of Esther's love and Esther's faith; the golden blossoms came, he knew, from the rose-houses at the Folly, and spoke eloquently of Mrs. Newbold's belief in Patricia's innocence, since their presence in that prison-room—fraught as they were with so many memories—must, if she were guilty, prove a scourge rather than a comfort. ”

“ Behind the Empress came the Tsar, dressed, as was often his pleasure, in the scarlet kaftan of his own guard, and by which he signified his desire to remain incognito. Following him were Olga Naundorff and the Emperor's equerry, who, with Patouchki and Ivor, formed the Royal suite.
The Tsarina in passing had acknowledged Tolskoi's presence by a gracious recognition, which sent the young man's blood running hotly through his veins, flushing his face and brightening his eyes. Ivor was every inch an Imperialist, and he loved his gentle Tsarina Dagmar with a real and chivalrous devotion ”

“ When will you cease to be such a boy?"
"When I cease to sun myself in your smiles, mademoiselle," replied the young man, gallantly, and with a half-mocking bow. "When that unhappy day dawns for me I shall take leave of my youth for ever, and seeing it fall from me, grow as 'grave and reverend a signior' as Count Vladimir himself."
To this allusion to her absent lover, Olga made no rejoinder save by a scarcely perceptible upward movement of her head. ”

“ Patricia, who counted her lovers and admirers by the score; who was always triumphant and victorious and worshipped wherever she appeared; whose smile was a reward highly coveted; whose favour was a prize eagerly courted—to be in prison, arrested on some crime too horrible even to be named. Alone; subjected to indignities and privations whose very meaning had been hitherto unknown to her easy, luxurious existence.
"Ah, do let us get to her at once," Esther had cried, imploringly, after she had poured out all the horrible story in George Newbold's astonished ears. ”

“ Miss Hildreth had passed the greater part of that time abroad, and his news of her had not only been meagre but nil, for after the first few weeks of her absence, during which her name had been on every one's lips, coupled with her broken engagement, and her inherited fortune, it was rarely mentioned, and never in Philip's presence.
The most perfectly controlled human heart cannot so entirely root up envy and malice as not to cavil somewhat at the perversity of Providence, in showering benefits with both hands upon a fellow mortal, who certainly cannot so thoroughly deserve them as oneself. ”

“ Believe me, if we can only master thoroughly this hitherto neglected art, we need have no further fears either for our digestions or complexions. It was, I think, old Sir Piers who said that all one's nightmares, physical or moral, arose from one of two causes, an unruly liver, or a too vivid memory; let us give the old man the credit of the aphorism, in any case."
"Since you are so willingly blind, Patricia," cried Philip, roused from his apparent calm by the cool impertinence of her replies, "it seems a pity to force you to recall a past that dates back ten years. ”

“ A woman scorned is of all beings the most desolate, so Vladimir Mellikoff had said, little thinking that his prophecy was one day to come true of his passionately-loved Olga. Let us refrain from gazing on her in her hour of despair.
There is no fairer woman to-day, in all Russia, than Olga Tolskoi; one more envied and feared, nor one more hopeless and beyond hope. Like her Imperial ancestress, she has forsaken the good for the evil; and, in giving rein to the lower passions of her nature, has lost for ever the power of repentance and contrition. ”

“ At Patty's name thrust thus sharply and unexpectedly upon him, Philip started forward, impelled by the same unknown, unreasoning force that had held and controlled him throughout their interview, but he was too late. He was conscious of a light silken rustle, a low laugh, a hand laid for a moment on his, and then he was alone.
As Mdlle. Lamien drew the portières behind her, two figures crept back into the obscurity of the room beyond, and as she passed swiftly on and out into the hall, a whisper in a woman's voice echoed across the shadows:
"Are you satisfied—convinced? There is no mistake?" ”

“ Count Mellikoff smiled, and the fire in his deep-set eyes leapt up, as he answered:
"Sir, this is but a small portion of the all-powerful protection bestowed on his children by our father, the Tsar. Even here, in your own land of equality and freedom, his emissaries are ever at work, and from every capital of Europe, indeed from many insignificant towns and villages, there go forth daily weekly or monthly reports to the Imperial Chancellerie at Petersburg. Is it not useless, then, for any one individual to fight against so omnipotent and universal a power?" ”

“ The crime committed by Adèle Lamien was an offence against the laws of man, and being such, she stood a criminal and fugitive in the eyes of men. But what should be said of the false-hearted traitor who had committed a far graver moral crime, when he killed for ever the soul and heart of the woman he had called his wife? That was a question for a higher tribunal than any mere earthly one to answer, and before that eternal justice Stevan Lallovich had entered, with the guilt of moral murder fresh upon him. ”

“ As she crossed the threshold the slightest possible shrinking or timidity caused her to hesitate for one brief moment, then she took her place in the Royal equipage, and her face, as she turned it towards her husband, wore a brave courageous smile.
Poor Tsarina! though wrapped about on every side with all luxury, yet never to realise the happiness of confidence; never to feel secure, even in your strictest seclusion; never to know when the cruel bullet, sent with a fatally true aim, may end your tenure of greatness, and send you back to your magnificent palace, a heart-broken, lonely widow! ”