"As you will, princess," I said. "I promised to keep your secret twenty-four hours. You have still ten hours in which to do one of three things to obviate the necessity that is now upon me, of betraying you."
"The easiest one will be for you to notify me of your intention to depart from the country. The second, quite as effective, was suggested by yourself last night when we talked of suicide. The third will perhaps prove more congenial than either of the others; you can have me murdered." I bowed, and started towards the door, but she barred the way before I could reach it.
"You shall not go!" she cried, extending her arms as if to bar the way against my exit, and again her speaking countenance betrayed the impulse within her. This time it was terror.
"No? Is your brother Ivan here to complete the work so badly begun, princess?" I purposely rendered my question insolently offensive.
For a moment she gazed at me in horror; then, with a sob in her throat, she stepped aside and pointed towards the door.
"Go," she said. "I should not have detained you." But as I was about to take her at her word she burst into a passion of tears. At the same instant she leaped towards me, and seizing me with both hands, drew me back again to the middle of the floor.
"No--no--no--no!" she cried. "You shall not go! Don't you know that you would be shot down at the door of my house, or at best before you had gone a hundred feet away from it? Have you forgotten that your appointment with me to-day was known by those who have decided upon your death? Will you force me to acquiesce in your murder, even though you believe me capable of committing it?"
I knew that what she said was undoubtedly true, for I had neglected my usual caution in not providing for an emergency of this kind; but I pretended to be incredulous.
"Yet I cannot remain here indefinitely, princess," I said.
"It is the only way to save your life. If you leave here before I have seen those who would kill you, you will not live fifteen minutes after my door closes behind you. Oh, I beseech you, take the oath; promise me that you will take the oath, and let me go and tell my friends that you will do so."
She was pleading with me now, with her hands supplicatingly extended, and with an expression of such utter terror in her face because of the calamity which threatened me, that my soul was for a moment moved to pity for this woman, who could pass through so many phases of emotion in so short a period of time. But nevertheless it was not my purpose to betray that pity, then. I had still to draw her out, more and more; there was still much to learn of this complex woman, so beautiful and so noble, who yet could find a sufficient excuse to engage in such nefarious practices.