"Our women, Trewinnard, are, alas! not like women of the people," was the Sovereign"s calm reply, his deep, earnest eyes upon mine. "It is their misfortune that they are not. They can never enjoy the same freedom as those fortunate ones of the middle-cla.s.s; they seldom are permitted to marry the man they love, and though they may live in palaces and move amid the gay society of Court, yet their ideas are warped from birth, and broken hearts, alas! beat beneath their diamonds."
"Yes, I suppose what Your Majesty says is, alas! too true. Ladies of the blood-royal are forbidden freedom, love and happiness. And when one of them happens to break the iron bonds of conventionality, then scandal quickly results; the Press overflows with it."
"In this case scandal would already have resulted had you not acted as promptly as you did," His Majesty said. "Where is that lad Geoffrey Hamborough now?" asked the autocrat suddenly.
"Living on his father"s estate in Yorkshire," I replied. "I hope I have been able to put an end to that fatal folly; but with a girl of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess"s type one can never be too certain."
"Ah! the mischievous little minx!" exclaimed the Emperor with a kindly smile. "I"ve watched, and seen how cunning she is--and how she has cleverly misled even me. Well, she must alter, Trewinnard, she must alter--or she must be sent away to the Caucasus."
"Where she would have her freedom, and probably flirt more outrageously than ever," I ventured to remark.
"You seem to regard her as hopeless," he said, looking sharply into my eyes as he leaned back in his chair.
"Not entirely hopeless, Sire, only as a most interesting character study."
"I have been speaking to her father this morning, and I have suggested sending her to Paris, or, perhaps, to London; there to live _incognito_ under the guardianship of some responsible middle-aged person, until she can settle down. At present she flirts with every man she meets, and I am greatly concerned about her."
"Every man is ready to flirt with Her Imperial Highness--first, because of her position, and, secondly, because of her remarkable beauty," I a.s.sured him.
"You think her beautiful--eh, Trewinnard?"
"I merely echo the popular judgment," I replied. "It is said she is one of the most beautiful girls in all Russia."
"Ah!" he laughed. "Next we shall have her flirting with you, Trewinnard. You are a bachelor. Do beware of the little dark-eyed witch, I beg of you!"
"No fear of such _contretemps_, Sire," I a.s.sured him with a smile. "I am double her age, and, moreover, a confirmed bachelor. The Emba.s.sy is expensive, and I cannot afford the luxury of a wife--and especially an Imperial Grand d.u.c.h.ess."
"Who knows--eh, Trewinnard? Who knows?" exclaimed the Sovereign good-naturedly. "But let"s return to the point. Am I to understand that you are ready and willing to execute this secret commission for me?
You are well aware how highly I value the confidential services you have already rendered to me. But for you, remember, I should to-day have been a dead man."
"No, Sire," I protested. "Please do not speak of that. It was the intervention of Providence for your protection."
"Ah, yes!" he said in a low, fervent tone, his brows contracting. "I thank G.o.d constantly for sparing me for yet another day from the hands of my unscrupulous enemies, so that I may work for the good of the beloved nation over which I am called to rule."
There, in that room, wherein I had so often listened to his words of wisdom, I sat fully recognising that though an Emperor and an autocrat, he was, above all, a Man.
With all the heavy burden of affairs of State--and not even a road could be made anywhere in the Russian Empire, or a bridge built, or a gas-pipe laid, without his signature--with all the onus of the autocratic Sovereign-power upon his shoulders, and with that constant wariness which he was compelled to exercise against that cunning camarilla of Ministers, yet one of his chief concerns was with that pretty little madcap Natalia, daughter of his brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas.
He wished to suppress her superabundance of high spirits and stamp out her tomboy instincts.
"I am reading your thoughts, Trewinnard," the Emperor remarked at last, pressing his cigarette-end slowly into the silver ashtray to extinguish it. "My request has placed you in a rather awkward position--eh?"
"What Your Majesty has revealed to me this afternoon has utterly amazed me. I feel bewildered, for I see how dire must be the result if the truth were ever betrayed."
"It will never be. You are the only person who has suspicion of it besides myself."
"And I shall never speak--never!" I a.s.sured him gravely.
"I know that you are entirely loyal to me. I am Emperor, it is true, but I am, nevertheless, a man of my word, just as you are," he replied, his intelligent face dark and grave. "Yes. I thought you would realise the seriousness of the present situation, and I know that you alone I can trust. I have not even told the Empress."
"Why not?"
"For obvious reasons."
I was silent. I only then realised the motive of his hesitation.
"I admit that Your Majesty"s request has placed me in a somewhat awkward position," I said at last, bending forward in my chair. "Truth to tell, I--well, I"m hardly hopeful of success, for the mission with which I am entrusted is so extremely difficult, and so--"
"I am fully aware of that," he interrupted. "Yet I feel confident that you, who have saved my life on one occasion, will not hesitate to undertake this service to the best of your ability. Use the utmost discretion, and you may get at the truth. I do not disguise from you the fact that upon certain contingencies, dependent on the success of your mission, depends the throne of Russia--the dynasty. Do you follow?" And he looked me straight in the face with those big, round brown eyes, an open, straight, honest look, as became a man who was fearless--an Emperor.
"I regret that I do not exactly understand," I ventured to exclaim, whereat he rose, tall, handsome and muscular, and strode to the window.
The band of the Imperial Guard was playing below in the great paved quadrangle, as it always did each day at four o"clock when the Emperor was in residence. For a few seconds he stood peering forth critically at the long lines of soldiers drawn up across the square. Then the man whose word was law turned back to me with a sigh, saying:
"No, Trewinnard, I suppose you do not follow me. It is all a mystery to you, of course,"--and he paused--"as mysterious as the sudden disappearance of Madame de Rosen and her daughter Luba from Petersburg."
"Disappearance?" I echoed, amazed. "They are still in Petersburg. I dined with them only last night!"
"They are not now in Petersburg," replied the Emperor very quietly.
"They left at nine o"clock this morning on a long journey--to Siberia."
My heart gave a great bound.
"To Siberia!" I gasped, staring at him. "Are they exiled? Who has done this?"
"I have done it," was his hard reply. "They are revolutionists-- implicated in the attempt that was to be made upon me early this morning as I drove up the Nevski."
"Markoff has denounced them?"
"He has. See, here is a full list of names of the conspirators," and he took a slip of paper from his desk.
"And General Markoff told Your Majesty of my friendliness with Madame and her daughter?"
"Certainly."
"Markoff lied when he denounced them as revolutionists!" I cried angrily. "They were my friends, and I know them very intimately. Let me here declare, Sire, that no subject of Your Majesty was more loyal than those two ladies. Surely the _agent-provocateur_ has been at work again."
"Unfortunately I am bound to believe the word of the head of my political police," he said rather briefly.
I knew, alas! how fierce and bitter was the Emperor"s hatred of those who plotted against his life. A single word against man or woman was sufficient to cause them to be arrested and sent to the other side of Asia, never again to return.
"And where have the ladies been sent?" I inquired. The Emperor consulted a slip of paper, and then replied:
"To Parotovsk."
"The most far-distant and dreaded of all the Arctic penal settlements!"
I cried. "It is cruel and unjust! It is death to send a woman there, where it is winter for nine months in the year, and where darkness reigns five months out of the twelve."
"I regret," replied the Emperor, with a slight gesture of the hand.