“To begin with, I must tell you that my name is not Petrovitch at all: it is Polowski; Petrovitch was my mother’s maiden name. Why I adopted it, instead of bearing my father’s, you will understand directly. I was born in Warsaw, where my parents at the time had a temporary home. Though she died when I was only seven years old, I can distinctly remember my mother as a tall, beautiful Hungarian woman, who used to sing me the sweetest songs I have ever heard in my life every evening when I went to bed. Oh, how well I can recall those songs!” Her eyes filled with tears at the recollection. “Then there came a time when she did not put me to bed, and when I was not allowed to see her. Night after night I cried for her, I remember, until one evening an old woman, in whose charge I had often been left, when my father and mother were absent from the city, told me that I should never see her again, for she was dead. I did not know the meaning of death then; but I have learnt since that there are things which are worse, infinitely worse, than merely ceasing to live. My recollections of that period are not very distinct; but I can recall the fact that my poor mother lay in a room at the back of the house, and that old Maritza wept for her continually. There was much mystery also; and once an old gray-haired man said to some one in my presence, ‘Do you think he will be fool enough to come when they are watching for him at every turn?’ To which the other replied, ‘I am sure he will come, for he loved her.’ Then came the funeral, a dark and dreary day, which, when I look back upon it all now, seems like the beginning of a new life to me. I was only a little child, and when they brought me home from the cemetery I fell asleep almost before my head touched the pillow. In the middle of the night I was awakened by a loud cry, a trampling on the stairs, and a moment later the noise of men fighting in the corridor outside my room. Terrified almost out of my senses, I crouched in my little bed and listened. Then an order was given by some one, followed by the sound of more trampling on the stairs, and after that all was silence. Though, of course, I did not know it then, my father had been arrested by the police as a dangerous Nihilist, and, a month later, was on his way to Siberia. It was not until I was old enough to understand, that I heard that he had been concerned in an attempt upon the life of the Czar. From what was told me then, and from what I have since learnt, there seems to have been little or no doubt but that he was connected with a dangerous band of Nihilists, and that he was not only mixed up in the affair for which he was condemned to penal servitude for life, but that he was one of the originators of the plot itself. And yet the only recollection I have of him is of a kind and loving father who, when he was at home, used to tell me fairy stories, and who declared his wife to be the sweetest woman in the world.”
“Poor little girl,” said Browne, pressing the hand he held, “you had indeed an unhappy childhood; but you have not yet told me how you came to be placed under the guardianship of Madame Bernstein.”
“She was an old friend of my father’s,” Katherine replied; “and when my mother died, and he was sent to Siberia, she adopted me. I owe her a debt of gratitude that I can never repay; for, though she is perhaps a little peculiar in some things, she has been a very good and kind friend to me.”
“And have you always been — well, shall we say — dependent on her?” asked Browne, with a little diffidence, for it was a delicate matter for a young man to touch upon with a proud and high-spirited girl.
“Oh no,” Katherine replied. “You see, soon after my mother’s death it was discovered by some one — I cannot remember who — that one of her brothers was dead, and that by his will I, as his sole heiress, inherited his money. From your point of view it would be nothing, but to me it meant a great deal. It was carefully invested, and it brings me in, in English money, just three hundred pounds a year. Of course we cannot do much with such a sum; but, as we have no expensive tastes, Madame Bernstein and I find that with it, and the sum I make by my painting, we are just able to make both ends meet.”
On hearing this Browne pricked up his ears. This was putting a new complexion on the affair.
“Do you mean to say that Madame Bernstein has no income of her own, and that all these years she has been living upon you?”
“Yes. And why not? You cannot realise what a wonderful manager she is. I should not be able to do half as much with it if I had the sole control of my money.”
“This is a matter which will have to be attended to in the near future,” said Browne to himself. Then, aloud, he added, “Never mind, little woman; when you are my wife Madame shall retire in luxury. She shall not find us ungrateful, believe me. But continue your story. Or, I fancy, you had better let me finish it for you. You have told me that you have lived with Madame Bernstein, or rather, to be correct, that she has lived with you, for many years. You have travelled from place to place about Europe; for some reason or another you have had no fixed home; then you began to paint, and during the whole time you have denied yourself all sorts of things in order that Madame should live in the lap of luxury. Oh, don’t dispute it, for I know what has happened as well as if I had been there to see. In the course of your peregrinations you went to Norway. There we met. Six months later you came to London, during which time I had been wondering whether I should ever see you again. Fate arranged that we should meet. I found you even more adorable than before, followed you to Paris, proposed and was accepted, and, like all pretty stories, ours must, and shall end with the music of wedding bells.”
“Impossible,” she answered. “From what I have already shown you, you must see that it could not be. Had my life been differently situated I should have been proud — you do not know how proud — to be your wife; but, as it is, it is quite out of the question. Some day you will see that yourself, and will thank me for having prevented you from spoiling your life by a foolish marriage.”
Browne saw that she was in deadly earnest. He was about to argue the question with her, but the look upon her face stopped him. For the moment he was frightened in spite of himself, and could only stammer out, “I shall never see it.”
“You must see it,” she answered. “There is a task I have set for myself, which I must finish, come what may.”
“Then, whatever it may be, I will share it with you,” said Browne. “You must doubt my love, Katherine, if you refuse to let me help you.”
“I do not doubt your love,” she answered, “but it is quite out of the question that I could avail myself of your assistance in this matter.”
“I will not believe it,” he continued. “You are only saying it because you do not wish to inculpate me. But I will be inculpated, come what may. Tell me what it is you have to do, and I will help you to carry it through to the best of my ability; helping you where help is needed, and counselling you where you stand in need of advice. In other words, I place myself and all I have in the world at your disposal, darling, to do with as you will.”
“You are too noble,” she answered; “too good and true. What other man would do as much?”
“Any man,” he answered, “who loves a woman as I love you.”
“There can be but few who love so well,” she replied softly, for her heart was touched more than she could say; “and yet, good as you are, I cannot accept your help. You do not know what I am about to attempt.”
“I do not care what it is,” he answered; “it makes no sort of difference to my promise.”
“But it would afterwards,” she said. “Why, do you not remember that I am the daughter of a convict; that my father was sent to Siberia to live in chains to the end of his days? He remained there for many years. Afterwards he was despatched to the island of Saghalien, where he now is. News has reached us within the last few days that he is ill, and that unless he leaves the island he will not live another year.”
“How did you hear that?” Browne inquired.
“Through Madame Bernstein,” Katherine replied. “Ever since my father was first arrested she has managed somehow or other to obtain news of him.”
“And what is it you intend to do?”
“To help him to escape,” the girl replied.
“But it would be impossible,” said Browne, horrified at her declaration. “You must not dream of such a t............