PRINCE KALKOV was an opponent with whom it was dangerous to hesitate and fatal to appear disconcerted, so I shook myself up as quickly as I could, and answered with a smile.

“That’s a very plausible story, your Highness, but if you can do all this, why are you here? It’s not for your health, is it; or from any newly-born affection or solicitude for us?”

“No, I have made no such pretence,” he said drily.

“Then why?”

“Because it will be less troublesome to recover the papers directly through you than indirectly from Mr. Marvyn. I merely wish you to see that they will be recovered, one way or the other.”

“Then I think you’d better go to work indirectly, Prince,” I said in a very deliberate tone. “If I don’t accept implicitly the explanation you’ve just given me, don’t blame me. You must set it down against that knack of yours to say one thing and mean another. Yes, I think on the whole it had better be indirectly. I see a little flaw in your plan.”

“Had we not better avoid personalities and insults, M. Denver?”

“You mean about your little knacks. Is that an insult? I thought it was a canon of European diplomacy according to Talleyrand—that language is given us to conceal our thoughts. I meant it as an explanation, not an insult.”

“You prefer to meet these charges?”“Oh, yes. I don’t see any difficulty in them. As for the murder charge, I happen to have at command the evidence of the man who was with Vastic at the time, and he can prove I acted in self-defence.”

“The testimony of a fugitive Nihilist,” he rapped out.

“True, but still testimony; and as I’m an American, it will have to be a fair and open trial. There is also Mademoiselle Helga’s evidence. Yes, on the whole, I’m disposed to take that risk. As to the treason business, do you really think you’d better prove that? It was your idea that I should play the part of Emperor, and you furnished me with forged documents and other lies to get those papers back; and as you’re making it an international matter, it would make rather an awkward story. Still, do as you like. But you haven’t frightened me. I don’t think there’s a bullet in the cartridge. Go right ahead anyway, pull the trigger, and we’ll see.”

“I can do what I have said, nevertheless, monsieur.”

“Possibly you think so—possibly, I say. But I don’t agree with you. You see, my father is not only a rich man, but has a heap of influence at the White House. If I remember, too, he has a bit of a grievance against Russia; and he’d make things hum a lot if you monkey with me. I hadn’t thought of bringing him into it, but I believe it would be the best thing. Helga and I were trying to think of the best way out when you came, and I’m hanged if I don’t think you’ve given me just the cue I wanted.”

“You think, perhaps, he could save the mademoiselle?”

“One thing at a time, and for the moment we’re talking about my case. Yes—” I spoke with intentional slowness, as if thinking it out—“yes, I shall cable him to hurry over. I wonder I never thought of it. If I can’t get to the Emperor, he can, right away; and if he don’t make it an international affair inside two shakes, then I don’t know my own father. That treason charge was just a lovely thought of yours, Prince.”

The Prince rose. I had turned the tables on him at his own bluff, but like a good player he kept his end up.

“We do not allow prisoners to have the use of our telegraphs, monsieur,” he said nastily.

“The Embassy can send it in cypher. Same thing,” I replied unconcerned. “The worse you make things for me, the bigger the fuss when it does get out.”

He turned from me to Helga.

“You will go back to your cell, and you and M. Denver will not meet again, mademoiselle,” he declared, like the bully he was.

“I am quite ready,” she answered, not flinching a hair’s breadth; “now that I have heard what is to happen;” and she rose and met his look steadily.

And we stood thus a space in silence. Both sides recognized that the situation was just bluff. I had shown him the rottenness of his position; and he knew that, despite my easy words, I was anxious to get the thing arranged without any of the trouble I had outlined. And yet neither was willing to take the first step down.

Then I offered him a bridge.

“Is this worth while, Prince?” I asked very quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“I have shown you my hand, and you can see it’s a strong one. Why not take the card you’ve been keeping up your sleeve. You have one, you know.”

“Do you mean you are willing to submit to me?”

“No, indeed, I don’t. I’ve shown you I can set you at defiance and face the worst you can do, with absolute confidence that I shall win. But I’m willing to listen to what you came to say. You haven’t given us the proof that Helga’s charge against you in regard to her father is mistaken. What’s the proof?”

“I can prove it by the man most concerned.”

Helga went white to the lips.“Name,” I asked curtly.

“By her own father—Prince Lavalski. He is still living—in Siberia.”

“My God, my poor father!” cried Helga, falling into a chair and covering her face with her hands. I crossed and laid my hand on her shoulder.

“Courage, Helga, courage. This may be good news, dearest.”

“It is not good news, monsieur, but the worst for his daughter,” continued the Prince, relentlessly. “You have forced me to tell you. His life was spared against his wish when his offences were proved; and it is by his own desire that he has remained in Siberia, dead to all who knew him.”

“It is a lie, a base lie, a lie of lies,” cried Helga, with sudden passion. “He is dead, and you—you, Prince Kalkov, are his murderer.”

“You are ungenerous, even for an enemy, mademoiselle,” replied the Prince, with a bow that was not without courtesy and dignity. “Had you come to me openly years ago, I would have told you the truth.”

“It is false, and you know it. You tried to wreak your malevolence on me. You know I speak the truth, just as you know you were afraid I should tear the mask from your life and ruin you in the eyes of your Emperor. How can you be so base?”

“The full truth of your father’s offences was and is known to but two men in the Empire, mademoiselle. The Emperor himself is one, and I am the other. I had and have nothing to fear from any disclosure or inquiry.”

“God, that such villainy should prosper!” she cried again, with passionate vehemence.

“What I have told you is the truth, and I offer you the means to prove my words.”

“What means?” I asked.

“I will not dishonour my father by even listening further,” exclaimed Helga.

“Mademoiselle Helga can communicate with her father, or you, monsieur, can go to him,” said Kalkov, disregarding her protest, and turning to me.

“Yes,” she said scornfully. “And you would get one of your pliant tools to answer my letters or personate my dead father. I know you and your methods too well, monsieur.”

“I understand your anger, mademoiselle, and pass over your taunts. I have offered you the proof I promised. I have now said my last word, monsieur,” he added, turning to me.

“Can I bring the Prince back with me?” I asked.

“Certainly, if he will come. But he will not.”

“No, for then I should see the deception,” said Helga, with scorn; and then with a change to eagerness, “Can I go to him?”

“No; that is impossible.”

“Why?” I asked.

“There are limits to my powers. I cannot send armed escorts to Siberia and back to satisfy the doubts of all our prisoners.”

“I can go alone,” declared Helga.

“And return—here?” with a significant lift of the eyebrows.

“Do you think I would break my pledged word?” asked Helga indignantly.

“I have no doubt you would endeavour to keep it. But it is a risk I should not feel entitled to take. I repeat I cannot provide an escort for any prisoner for such a distance.”

“I would escort her,” I broke in quickly.

He turned and looked at me coldly and steadily, as he replied deliberately:

“You are not her husband yet, monsieur. And if you were,” he added, after pausing, “what greater security should I have for her return?”

“You want no more than these papers, I suppose, if she did not return?”

“If she can persuade her father to return, that will be better still. We are ready to bury the past.”“Your objection then is not to mademoiselle’s going to find him, but only lest, having found him, she should still use these documents?”

“You have stated it precisely. We must be absolutely secured on that point.”

“Leave me to find the way then. Give me an hour and either return here or I will see you at the palace.”

“I will return,” he said drily; “for if you do not decide I shall take the other course.” With that threat he went away.

It was a curious situation that he left behind him. Helga had not said a word since his pointed sentence in reply to my offer to take her to her father, and I could not of course guess what she thought. But I knew my own mind very clearly; and that is always a circumstance in a two-sided discussion. At the same time I was not a little embarrassed.

Helga was the first to speak.

“Can it be true, do you think? Or is it only another of his schemes?”

“It differs a good deal from any others—at least in one point.”

“I don’t believe it. I won’t. I am sure it is false. My father was the soul of honour and loyalty.”

“You would at any rate see him!”

“Ah, my God, what would I not do to see him,” she cried.

But I wished to get her away from this strenuous mood, so I said with a smile:

“Even comply with his suggested condition?”

“I was not thinking of that. How can you?”

“It would be a long honeymoon trip.”

She shook her head as if my tone jarred.

“Can’t you see all it means to me?”

“I know what it means to me.”

“Don’t!” she exclaimed, impatiently. “Be serious.”

“I think we’ve been serious long enough. Believe me, I know all that this portentous news must be to you. Pray God it is true that your father is alive. But there are some anxieties we can face better with a bright face. So smile to me, and say you’ll go with me to find and bring him back.”

I held out my hands.

She hung back a moment with head averted and then turned and put her hands in mine, her face smiling and her eyes dashed with tears.

“It is all so strange,” she said.

“We Americans are never sticklers for forms. We’ll go with a laugh, dear, whatever we are destined to find there.”

“You are so good and so strong,” she whispered.

“No, I am just discovering how much better and stronger I shall be with—with my wife, Helga,” I whispered back.

She came to me then, with a sigh and a laugh and lots of blushes which she hid on my shoulder from my eyes as well as from the musty dingy old prison walls. Musty and dingy? Well, no. They will never be that in my memory. For the sake of that minute they will always have a halo in my thoughts; for after all it was the prison which did so much to hasten our happiness.

And so it was settled, and for the time we just lost ourselves and babbled and laughed and sighed and held hands and kissed and laughed again; for love will have his way even in a prison with all sorts of vague troubles gibbering and pranking from the other side of the bars.

And when I glanced at my watch I found we had used up the whole hour save some ten minutes.

The problem which the Prince had left us was a big one to solve in ten minutes; but we only smiled at it, for Helga had come round to my view—to meet everything with a laugh. And in that spirit we faced the prospect of the long journey to Siberia.

When the Prince came back I had no formal answer ready for him, of course. Helga was to be my wife; and I could not get any further than that. I was certainly in no fit mood to cope with him.

I suppose he saw the chaotic state of my mind; he must have been very blind if he did not; for the thought of Helga as my wife got in my way and tripped me up every moment, so that my answers to his first questions were given almost at random.

“You have my word of honour that the moment we find matters are as you say in regard to Prince Lavalski in Siberia, the whole of these papers will be returned to you. I suppose that will satisfy you.”

“A personal guarantee is at best unsubstantial,” he returned rudely.

“Does it seem so to a Russian? It is not to an American.”

“I have no choice, it seems. When will you start?” he asked.

“As soon as we are married.”

“That can be at once—to-night or to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” exclaimed Helga, in dismay at the suddenness.

“I suppose we must wait till then if we can’t manage it to-night,” I said; and she laughed to me.

“It will not be an elaborate ceremony,” said the Prince drily. “A prison does not lend itself to scenic effect.”

“A prison,” said I, surprised in my turn.

“Mademoiselle can only leave here as your wife, monsieur.”

“Then I think we’ll try and manage it to-night.”

“No, no, to-morrow,” declared Helga, quickly.

“Better to-night; we can spend to-morrow in the preparations for the long journey,” I answered. “One can’t go to Siberia without clothes; even on a honeymoon, you see. We could start on the following day.”

“But——” her face was wrinkled in dismay.

“No ‘buts,’ only smiles, Helga.”

“I will give the necessary instructions,” said the Prince, perceiving like the shrewd old man he was that I should carry the point.

“We must have witnesses. Mr. Siegel will be one of them,” I said.

“You have the order for his release,” replied the Prince. “I will wait for you, monsieur,” he added, and very considerately took himself off.

He had to wait, for Helga still had scruples which I had to combat. And before I had overcome them his patience was exhausted, and he sent a messenger in quest of me.

“Thank God you’ll be out of here in an hour or two, dearest.”

“But——”

I stopped the protest on her lips. Any lover knows how that has to be done. She laughed at my eagerness.

“Good, sweetheart. We’ll meet it all with a laugh as we agreed;” and not keeping the Prince waiting more than another quarter of an hour, I left her happy, blushing, loving—and resigned.

“I have appointed ten o’clock,” he said as I joined him.

“Very well.” I should have said “very well” if he had named midnight or four in the morning.

“I wish you to understand that I shall do all I can to help you—now,” he said pointedly.

“That’s all right.” My head was still in the clouds. In an hour or so Helga would be my wife.

“I shall wish to know where you will be.”

“God bless my soul, I hadn’t thought about that,” I exclaimed. “We shall stay at the Imperial. Oh, and I’ve no clothes. They are at the Palace. You see it’s a little sudden.”

“My man, Pierre, is at your service, monsieur.”

“I wish you’d let him get them to the Imperial; or shall I——”

“I will see to it. There is one thing, of course, M. Denver. You will make no attempt to see his Majesty.”“I’ve only got an hour and a half.”

“I mean to-morrow, of course,” he exclaimed, testily.

“No, I’d better not, I suppose.”

“To-morrow, I shall have your route carefully prepared, with full instructions to all on the way to help you forward with all speed.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re as anxious as I am to get the thing ended and done with.”

“You will find I can be as firm a friend as I can be a resolute enemy. I wish to be your friend, monsieur, for my august master’s sake.”

“You’ve done pretty well as an enemy, Prince; let’s hope the future will show us the other side.”

“Then for the present, good-night.”

“For the present?”

“I shall of course be at the ceremony.”

I didn’t want him there; but as I would rather be married to Helga in his presence than not married to her at all, I said nothing. Besides, I was not in a critical mood.

I was sufficiently practical to remember to go to the hotel and engage rooms, and on the way I stopped at a jeweller’s store and bought a ring. And having done that I hunted up Harold Marvyn and induced him to consent to be at the wedding.

Then I drove to the prison where Frank Siegel was confined. I produced the order for his release, arranged all the preliminaries, and then told them to show me straight to the prisoner, as I wished to take the news to him myself.

“Hello, what in thunder brings you here?” he exclaimed, as I entered.

“I’ve brought the order for your release, old man.”

His face fell, and he looked the reverse of pleased.

“I hope you’re just monkeying. I don’t want any release,” he said in a tone of such irritation that I laughed.

“Sorry, but you’ve got to come. I’m going to be married in about half an hour, and I want you to be best man.”

He took it so coolly that I could have kicked him.

“Of course that makes a difference. But it strikes me you’re using me some, Harper. Who’s the——”

“You know. Met her in the train.”

“Oh, the Nihilist. Sounds all right. Where?”

“In the prison.”

“Gee; that’ll make good copy.”

And that seemed its best recommendation in his eyes.

“You take it very lightly,” I said, with a smile.

“Well, you see, it’s your marriage, not mine.”

And with that we left the cell.