AS I hurried out from Drexel, intending to try and find means to render myself more presentable by getting rid of some of my grime, I found Helga waiting for me.

“I am all mud,” I said apologetically.

“I am all impatience, and that is worse,” she returned.

“Let me get rid of some of this;” and I spread out my hands and glanced down at my clothes, and looked up to find her smiling. “You can’t tell how glad I am to see that,” I added.

“You will see no smiles if you keep me waiting. I will forgive the dirt if you will only tell me.”

“I could tell you more comfortably if we were en route for the frontier.”

“Perhaps we shall be soon. Come,” and she led me into a room, all dirty as I was.

“Disaster is easy to tell. Prince Kalkov knows everything about your plans, your name, your real part in Boreski’s business, your fight against him—everything;” and as shortly as I could I told her all I knew and had learnt from the Prince.

She listened with scarcely an interruption, and when I finished sat thinking with pursed lips and gathered brows.

“It was very clever and very devilish,” she said. “And for the time it means failure. You are right. I must fly, and that to-night.”

“I am glad you see that.”

“I have had to do it before—for a time. But I shall, of course, come back. I am not beaten. Flight is only one of the tactics in the fight I am waging. I shall never cease to fight until I win or they kill me. But he has beaten me for the time, and now that he knows my motive, he will be harder to fight than ever.”

“It is I who have ruined you by betraying this place through my stupid blundering.”

“Ah, I had not thought of that,” she said, turning and smiling to me. “You will have suffered. It was a mistake, but it would have made no difference in the end. With the new clues which the Duchess Stephanie and this Drexel could give him, the Prince would have found me here. I should not have waited for him indeed, so that by warning me now you have more than made good the mistake.”

“Do you think Boreski has told him anything?”

“No, not Boreski; I am sure of him. It is Drexel. A man when he is afraid for his life is a contemptible creature. But it is his nature,” she said scornfully. “I knew it and knew him. I used him as a tool, and when a tool breaks in your hand, you are fortunate if you are not hurt.”

“The sooner we start the better.” But she was thinking and appeared not to hear me.

“I shall have to begin again,” she said, with quiet resolution. “It is no new experience. I have had to do it two or three times before. My next attempt shall be better planned. Each time I do better—learning from my failures. Next time I shall win.”

“When shall we start?” I asked, as she paused.

“We? If you are wise and take my advice, you will go to your Ambassador, tell him frankly all that has occurred, and get his help.”

“And if I am not wise?” I sought her eyes and we both smiled, and she sighed.

“No, no, you must not.”

“You know that I shall, Helga. Let us be frank.”

“You wish me to be frank?” and she looked up calmly.“Why not?”

“Then I would rather you did not attempt to accompany me.”

“Do you mean to leave me in the lurch?”

“Don’t,” she cried, with a little wince of pain.

“I didn’t mean that—but you know what I do mean.”

“You know nothing can come of it.”

“Call it nothing or something, it is just all in all to me.”

“Please!” she said, almost pleadingly.

“I will have no mercy when you speak of parting.”

“But I mean it. You must not come with me. I am stronger alone.”

“Why?”

“You can be very stupid—when you wish,” she cried, with another smile.

“Why?” I repeated. “Why stronger alone?”

“Because—ah, you know.”

“May I not wish to hear you say it?”

She looked up steadily, and said in a quiet, firm tone—

“Because when you are with me I weaken in my purpose.”

“That is just my object. I hope to win you from it altogether.”

“It is impossible. You must not go with me.”

“You wish never to see me again?”

“How cruel you can be!” Then defiantly, “Yes, I do wish it.”

“Very well,” I cried decidedly, as I rose. “Then I will go.” I paused, and she started and gave me a glance in which surprise and pain were blended. I went to the door, and turning, saw she had paled slightly. I waited for her to speak.

“I—I am glad.” The tone was very low, and her lips faltered.

“Yes, I have put up with it long enough. I can bear it no longer.”A quick questioning, half-indignant light was in her eyes as she rose.

“You can bear it no longer. I am sorry——”

A laugh from me checked the words on her lips.

“I have never been so dirty in my life. I must wash.”

She turned away with a toss of the head.

“You treat it as a jest—at such a time.”

“When I am earnest you won’t take me seriously—you won’t take me at all! indeed, it seems. But in any case you can’t travel with a man who looks like a tramp. I am going, as I was saying, to try and get clean again.”

She turned then, and there was neither pain nor surprise on her face, only relief and intense gladness.

“I thought you were in earnest.” It was only a smiling reproach.

“I am always in earnest where you are concerned.” I took a step or two towards her. “And you are glad?”

“I am ashamed of my weakness.”

“A weakness of which such a smile as that is a fitting confession.”

“I hate myself for being weak at all,” she cried in protest.

“It would be worse if you hated the cause of it. But now it is my turn to be weak, and to lean on you. I have no clothes to travel in.”

“We can help you there. We have many disguises here.”

“A travelling coat is all I need, and an idea of how we are to leave.”

“I have always found the simplest is the best. If you are right about the Prince, he will have given no orders for either you or myself to be watched, and the railway will be open. The mail leaves at ten o’clock; open to tourists of all nations.”

“And the frontier difficulties?”

She laughed.“The Russian officials are the stupidest on earth. We shall, of course, have passports, and our papers being in order, all will be simple. A passport can be a very valuable friend, and those who need them always take care they are in order.”

“I brought mine with me.”

“Then you reckoned on my going?” she asked, smiling. “You count upon your influence with me, it seems.”

“But Kalkov may communicate with the frontier folk?”

“How should he know and why? He has, no doubt, spies who are able to convey information to the brotherhood; but do you think they would return the favour? He will think they may be trusted to do as he wished to us, and when he hears of the failure we shall be beyond his reach.”

It was an ingenious thought and probably correct.

“Good,” I said. “You see how you help me. We are stronger together. We will get ready.”

I went first in search of Ivan, and heard from him that our plan had succeeded entirely, and that the men who had come in quest of Helga had all been secured.

With his assistance I soon got rid of the traces of the evening’s work, and when I saw Helga again she was ready for the start.

“About Madame Korvata?” I asked, suddenly remembering her.

“She has gone to the station for our tickets. She went long ago, before you spoke to me and while you were with Drexel.”

I looked at her and smiled.

“Then you had made up your mind before—before what you said to me?”

She flushed slightly and her eyes brightened.

“I—I foresaw what I should probably have to do,” she answered, and laughed softly. “You see, I knew I must go.”“And that I should not let you go alone. I did not see, but I do now.”

“It is time to start, I think;” and she turned away.

Helga had indeed concluded all the arrangements, thinking of every detail with all a woman’s eye for small things. Madame Korvata was not to travel with us, but to follow later. Ivan was to remain and see to the difficulties in regard to the presence of the men in the house, and then go into hiding until he heard from Helga.

The whole affair was just cut and dried, as though a flight from the police were an ordinary incident of life.

I felt abominably nervous, I admit; disposed to look for spies and police at every turn. But Helga was as cool as if we had been in the States, and were running up from New York to Saratoga for a few days’ change of air.

“There is only one point of possible danger yet—the police may have a spy somewhere near at hand. I doubt it, because the Prince will rely upon Drexel, and knows that if his spy were seen, the plot against us would fail. But I have taken care. There is a house in the square here where the people are constant travellers. Our carriage is there, and we shall leave here unobserved, and pretend to come out of that house.”

“Is such a thing likely to trick them?”

“You smile; but it is just these little simple acted lies which make all the difference. Spies are trained to believe what they see; no more.”

We did as Helga had said, and whether or not we were seen I cannot say; but I saw no one, and we found not the least difficulty with the railway officials, who were indeed exceedingly courteous to the young handsome French widow, Madame de Courvaix, the name conspicuously written upon Helga’s luggage.

The cars were well filled, and we were not alone in our compartment, so that I thought we had better speak very little. But that was not Helga’s intention. She gave me a very meaning look, with a glance toward our fellow-passengers, and began to chatter at once, with all the vivacity of a Parisian.

“I am glad they did not come to see us off,” she said, as soon as the train started. “Train good-byes are so inane.”

“Sometimes they are.”

“Yet I think the General should have come, and young Lablache from the Embassy. He promised me. A ball-room promise, of course;” and she laughed merrily and threw her hands up.

“Lablache? Do I know him?”

“Know him? Not by name. He is that dark handsome man who was so nice about the flowers, and at whom somebody I know, a stupid, jealous somebody, looked daggers;” and she made a pretty grimace at me.

“Oh, that fellow!” I growled.

“He is coming to Paris next month, and has promised to call;” and then we plunged into a conversation about a wholly imaginary set of people, in the course of which Helga managed most adroitly to include a purely fictional history of herself, with side-lights upon our relationship as an engaged couple.

Having done that, she settled herself in her corner, said she was going to sleep, and advised me to do the same; and as I was putting the rugs about her, she managed to whisper a sentence which gave me food for thought all through the night.

“The woman’s a spy. Be careful.”

As she said it she laughed gaily, and in a few minutes closed her eyes and appeared to sleep soundly.

But there was no sleep for me. I forced myself to keep my eyes closed, a continuous effort that was infinitely taxing; and during the long, weary hours, I think I must have pretty well exhausted in thought all the possible dangers that might result from the presence of so dangerous a fellow-traveller.Helga was more than equal to the emergency, however. In the early hours of dawn she woke, or pretended to awake, cross and fretful, and roused me.

“How soundly you sleep,” she said crossly. “How can you in this abominable stuffy atmosphere? Let the window down, please.”

“I think it’s very chilly,” I said, not understanding her.

“Am I nobody?” she cried, with a stamp of the foot and a shrug of the shoulders. “Shall I do it myself?”

I put it down a little way.

“Wide open, I mean,” she said angrily.

“It’s very cold,” I protested; and indeed the cold, keen air came rushing in and made me put my collar up.

“Nonsense, I’m stifled. Wide open, I said. That’s better,” as I put it right down.

Our fellow-travellers stirred, as well they might indeed, for the temperature ran down swiftly several degrees. The man having heard Helga’s request was too polite to interfere, and suffered in silence, drawing his wraps closer round him.

But the woman had no such scruples, and after a while asked me pretty sharply to close the window.

“It is open by my request, madame,” declared Helga in a very angry tone. The woman grumbled to the man, and at her instigation he appealed to me.

This was Helga’s opportunity, and she and the woman began an altercation, which lasted for several miles, and was waged with such bitterness that had they been men they would have come to blows. Helga’s fluency was too much for her opponent; besides, we were masters of the situation; so that the window remained open, and we shivered in victory.

At the first place where we stopped the quarrel began again, and the woman appealed to the officials.

They were sorry, but could do nothing.

The conductor offered a solution, however. There was an empty coupÉ on the train; would Helga remove to it? Certainly she would not. In her beloved France people could have a window up or down as they pleased, and she was not going to yield her privileges for all the cantankerous old women in Russia put together.

This settled it, and with many a parting shot at France and Frenchwomen in general, and Helga in particular, the two got out and followed the conductor to the other carriage.

As soon as we were out of the station Helga, who had kept up her show of vociferous and gesticulating anger, laughed.

“Do put the window up, please. I’m nearly frozen to death. I hope I haven’t given you a cold.”

I closed the window and laughed.

“I thought you were in earnest at first,” I said.

“Thank you; but I am not quite such a crochetty, ill-tempered individual, even after a sleepless night of doubt in a railway carriage.”

“Sleepless?”

“I was planning that little coup all the time, of course. She suspects nothing, or she would have frozen to death before she had left the carriage. She is new to her work, so I could take a risk.”

“You are a wonderful actress.”

“I have had a long training, and life and liberty are bigger incentives than any salary,” she answered thoughtfully. “Now we can sleep safely for two hours, and then we stop for breakfast.”

When we reached the station she said she would not leave the carriage, so I fetched her some, and after I had had mine, I strolled up and down, smoking.

Presently she called me.

“Something has happened, and whatever it is, the officials are uneasy and excited. Go and hear what those two are talking about;” and she pointed to a couple of men, one of whom held a despatch in his hand, which both were discussing eagerly.I strolled over to them and caught my breath quickly as I heard one of them say something about Nihilists and supposed flight.

I went up to them and put a casual question about our train being late, intending to follow it up with others, when some one exclaimed in English:

“Just like my infernal luck!” Recognizing the voice, I turned, and the speaker clapped me on the shoulder and then seized my hand.

“What, Harper, old fellow! What on earth brings you here?” It was an old Harvard chum, Frank Siegel.

The two officials glanced at us, and moved off as we shook hands.

“Rather; what are you doing?”

“I? Oh, I’m out for the Frisco Eagle—the Screecher. I’ve been round the world for them. Trotting home, and, like my infernal luck, I’ve just missed a scoop in Petersburg.”

“What is it?”

“What is it? By gee, it’s just what I’d have given my ears to get. A big Nihilist raid. No end of arrests; but the biggest birds are flown. May be on this very train.”

“I heard nothing of it, and I came from Petersburg.”

“Are we on the same train? My, that’s bully. Say, I’ll get my traps and join you.”

“I’m not alone, Frank.”

“Don’t you worry about that; I shan’t mind your friends. I’m used to all sorts of mixed company;” and with a grin at this gibe he ran off.

I went back to Helga and told her what I had heard.

“Can you trust your friend?” she asked, after a short pause.

“Oh yes, as myself.”

“Then let him come.”

“And you?”“I have already had to explain our relationship once!” she answered, with a glance.

“But if I tell him we’re engaged——” I paused.

“Well?” with a challenging smile.

“It will have to be in earnest.”

“Well?”

“Then the sooner he comes the better,” I said.

“We must know the news, even if we make concessions to learn it.”

“I guess my news will surprise him as much as his will us.”

And we were both laughing happily, despite the ominous turn in things, when Siegel came running up and bundled his wraps into the carriage, as I introduced him to Helga.