Crittenden Marriott

“ Miss Fitzhugh seemed to understand, for she stepped forward and laid her hand on his arm. “Believe me, Mr. Caruth,” she declared earnestly, “believe me, you have done right. Whatever value this letter possessed belongs to us of right. The man who wrote it betrayed a secret that was not his; and, whether his or no, your valet could not have profited by it. You have done a good deed, and you have been as kind and true and staunch to me as my own brother could have been. My mother was right when she told me a woman could always appeal safely to an American gentleman. ”

“ Men were all alike, after all. American men were no better than their European brothers. She had seen so many; so very many. Caruth would yield, and she would despise him for it. Yet she went on. “Give it to me,” she breathed.
[28] “No!” Caruth’s voice rang out. “No! No! Oh, you women! You beautiful women! How easily you beguile men! How dare you do it? How dare you use beauty such as yours for such a purpose? How dare you use such tools to gain your selfish ends?”
“How dare I?” The girl’s form straightened till to Caruth’s gaze she seemed to tower above him. ”

“ Caruth: I am not a police reporter nor a yellow sensation reporter. My duty to the Consolidated Press does not call on me to solve murder mysteries, nor to pry into scandals. I don’t know you very well, nor what you are capable of doing at a pinch. For the matter of that, nobody does know what a man is capable of—not even himself. I’ve seen too many unexpected manifestations of virtue and of crime to judge lightly. That is why I have kept silent, though I knew you were holding back something about this murder. ”

“ Caruth gazed at her in consternation. This cowering woman was not the brave girl he remembered. Love had indeed robbed her of her courage.
“What is it? What is it?” he importuned, sinking down beside her. “Lermantoff shall not back out now. He shall not take you away from me. If he tries——”
“It isn’t Lermantoff. It’s the police. They know I am here. They know my disguise. They know I am on this train. They are only waiting till it stops to seize me. The guard is one of our men. He came along the footboard at the risk of his life to warn me. It’s all over, dear. I’ll never see America again.” ”

“ In his grip I am held powerless. I am only a woman. I cannot fight with my hands. I can only use my wits. You reproach me because I am contending for gold. Can you conceive what this gold will do for our cause? What a mighty lever it will be in our hands? For we are poor—poor! If I can put this money in the hands of the Brotherhood, I shall have done more than I ever hoped to do. Then let the bureaucrats lay me by the heels and I will laugh in their faces, content to die.”
Abruptly the girl stopped; and then went on with an entire change of tone. “Now, Mr. Caruth,” she said, “you know all. ”

“ At last the old man calmed himself. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Bristow,” he quavered. “I beg your pardon. I was very discourteous. I was not laughing at you, but at the way things come about. What creatures of fate we all are! We think we control events, but events really control us! Mr. Bristow, I have been worrying myself sick about Olga, and here you come, pat to the moment, to set everything straight. You say that Olga loves you?”
“Yes.” The reporter’s voice was hushed and reverent.
“Then everything is all right. I shall be delighted to have her marry you. ”

“ For a thousand years the path has been drenched in blood. What right have you—you to whom freedom came with your first breath; you who have never known tyranny; you who can freely assemble and criticise and change your rulers—what right have you to rebuke us who are just starting on the same bloody road your fathers trod for you? Granted that some innocent lives are taken; granted that some excesses and outrages are perpetrated in the name of freedom ”

“ The valet turned toward her, subservient as ever.
Without taking her eyes from him, Miss Fitzhugh sank into her chair. “So, Wilkins,” she said slowly, “you have been listening?”
“Yes, madam.” There was no defiance nor disrespect in the valet’s tones, nor was there any apology. He simply admitted the undeniable fact, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“It is a vice of servants the world over. When one subordinates himself to the will of another, he seems [31] to lose many of the manly virtues. If you have been listening, Wilkins, you know that I put a high value on that letter. ”

“ Caruth bowed and seated himself across the centre table from her. Though his surprise had not abated, he was rapidly regaining his self-possession, and as the girl resumed her own chair, he leaned forward a little, studying her thoughtfully, noting the anxious lines about her youthful eyes and mouth.
Although her English had been excellent, she did not impress him as being of American nor yet of English birth. An alien air clung intangibly about her and about her costume, which, even to his [20] masculine intelligence, bespoke the work of a dress-maker of more than ordinary skill. ”

“ The avatar of fate was one who would attract attention even in New York, that melting pot of the nations. Carelessly dressed, dark, with high cheek-bones and glowing eyes, even the casual might pronounce him a fanatic who was living on his nerves and declare that some day the nerves would burn out and the man collapse.
At the door he gave his name to Olga Shishkin, the Professor’s daughter, now grown to womanhood, and she took it to the Professor in his laboratory. ”

“ You know you took her vows—the vows of a mere child—to devote her life and her beauty to your cause. You know that you are holding her practically for sale to the highest bidder—to him who will do most for that cause. It isn’t fair! It is an outrage on womanhood. It is trafficking in all that is holiest and highest in life. No cause will prosper that depends on such methods. Be advised! She has done [195] her best for you. She has done more than most women could do. Release her! Let her marry me—if she will.”
Caruth’s breath came quick and fast. ”

“ Florence breathed easier. The old man had caught her cue and was playing up to her. “All is discovered!” she cried theatrically. “Twenty years ago, here, in Russia, you stole me from my father, the Grand Duke Ivan, and took me to America, away from all I knew and loved. How could you do it? How could you do it?”
[216] Shishkin began to understand. It was not only the nihilists who knew that he had stolen Olga; Demidroff knew it, too! This girl knew it! But what was this talk of grand ducal paternity?
“It was my right,” he protested. “It is always a man’s right to recover his own child.” ”

“ Thoughtfully Lermantoff studied his face. “Mr. Caruth,” he said slowly, “all your life you have had everything you wanted. This is probably the first time you have had to fight and wait and hope for anything. You find it hard. Further, you are young. Your own happiness and the girl’s seem to you the most important things in the world. Really, they are not. What difference will it make to the world one hundred years from now whether you two marry or not? ”

“ Florence had taken the sloop’s only small boat, and Wilkins, unable to swim, found himself hopelessly marooned, unable to get ashore except by calling for aid. Although he had no nerves to speak of, and was ready at any time to fight his weight in wild-cats, even he found the situation appalling. Alone in a strange seaport, unable to speak a word of the language, under ban of the police, tied by the leg to a pile of gold, and deserted by his companions, a weaker man would have attempted to sail away despite his ignorance in regard to the management of the boat. ”

“ But it will make a great difference one hundred years from now whether the Russian people have won their freedom or not. We have trained Marie Fitzhugh for the work she has to do. We have no one in all the Brotherhood who can do that work so well. To give her up—to surrender this tool that we have fashioned so carefully—is to set back the cause by no one knows how many years. Consider a moment, Mr. Caruth! She went to New York and enlisted your coöperation with all your wealth and influence within an hour after she had landed. ”

“ Captain Wilson woke to life. “Fire on that battery!” he yelled. “Mr. Caruth, get those divers up. We can’t stay here.”
Blood flecked Caruth’s lip where he had bitten it through. “What!” he cried. “Run away and leave the gold to them? I won’t do it.”
“You must!”
“I won’t. I’ll——”
A hand fell on the young man’s arm. Marie Fitzhugh stood beside him.
“The gold is gone,” she moaned.
“Gone!”
“Yes! The strong room on the Orkney has been broken open. The boxes are there, but they are empty. Some one has been before us. The gold is gone.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s true. I ordered the divers on board. ”

“ All winter long they lie bound about with ice. With the spring, the ice, borne southward by the waking streams of the north, grinds past them, scraping and tearing, rending all that lies in its path. The short summer follows, when the great bowl of the Baltic rocks to the horizon like molten gold; when the black rocks take on a coat of living green ”

“ When Russia’s needs became great owing to the war with Japan, my imperial master directed that money be borrowed for the government on your English estates. If you were found, he would pay it back; if you were not found, the estate would in time revert to the Crown. That gold was carried by the Orkney, wrecked by the nihilists, and is now being stolen from you by your pretended father and his rascally associates. It makes one’s blood boil, Princess!”
For obvious reasons, Florence’s blood did not boil quite so ardently as the Baron’s seemed to do. ”

“ There ain’t a speck of dust left on the Orkney. Bill’s got it all!”
Amazement gripped Florence and held her dumb. The gold whose capture was to be the price of proofs of her princesshood had passed into other hands. What was she to do? There was no time to lose. Should she betray Wilkins to Caruth or to the Baron? How could she betray him to the Baron even if she wanted to? Should she grasp at the money and let the visionary rank go. She did not question whether she should be true to Professor Shishkin. ”

“ Caruth! I did not threaten him. I warned [72] him. I belong to a great organization that is waging a desperate warfare for the rights of millions of human beings. We fight as we can. Think for a moment! You have been free so long—you and your English forebears—that you take your freedom as a right. But it did not come as a right. All of it, all of it, was bought for you at a price. Every forward step was forced. Every grant from Magna Charta down was wrested from the king. Thousands upon thousands of unknown men died that you might live in peace and freedom, undespoiled. ”

“ All that I am and have belongs to it. My future, my liberty, my life, are all at its service. I am entitled to that letter—I swear it. If you ask it, I will tell you everything, and in so doing put my life in your hands. Shall I do it?”
Caruth drew his hand across his eyes. “No!” he said hoarsely. “I believe you. Take the letter.”
Eagerly the woman reached out her hand, but before her fingers could close upon the envelope, the portières that hung between the apartment and an inner room clashed gently on their rings and Caruth’s valet pushed his way through them. “I beg pardon, sir!” ”

“ Such a captain once found, and signals arranged, Bill would return to Helsingfors to join the others and help take the schooner out to meet the vessel.
Tom Wilkins stood the monotony of waiting very well. Used to the loneliness of the plains, his own thoughts sufficed. But Florence had no resources in herself. Accustomed to the clatter of New York, she had been bored even by the quietness of the life on the Sea Spume, and this was ten times worse. Day after day she did nothing but twirl her fingers and think about Baron Demidroff and his wonderful tale of Princess Yves Napraxine. ”

“ Do you think one can be a newspaper man and see daily the broad trail of joy and sorrow, blood, death, ruin, happiness, rapture, and all the rest of it that love marks athwart the path of human life, and think it foolishness? ”

“ Once you have read it, there will be no more safety for you on the face of the earth. Death will dog your footsteps and sit by your side. Sleeping and waking, he will be upon you. You cannot beg for mercy, for there will be no one from whom to beg. ”

“ But after that events moved fast. Scarcely had her card vanished when the door was flung open and the Baron rushed in, both hands extended.
“Ah, Madame la Princesse!” he exclaimed. “To think of seeing you here! Come in! Come in!” Eagerly he urged her toward the inner office, pouring out the while a flood of welcomings. “Well! Well!” he exclaimed. “To think of it. Where did you come from, Princess? Where have you been all these days?”
Florence seated herself and stared at him with cool insolence. ”

“ Caruth drew a long breath and glanced up the stairway down which he had just raced. So sure had he been that Wilkins had fled that he had not stopped to search in his own apartments. A suspicion that he had made himself ridiculous began to penetrate to his brain, and he glanced shamefacedly at the watchman.
That individual was regarding him suspiciously. He caught the look, interpreted it correctly, and smiled encouragingly. “It’s all right, Mr. Caruth,” he extenuated. “It’s all to the regular for a gent to have the nightmare when he goes to sleep in his chair. ”