is as pure as my own? Those candlesticks, monsieur, were confided to me by a friend; they were lost while under my charge. I wish to be the one to restore them to him, even if it is to cost me half my fortune."
"Madame," replied Volenski, "I honour your motive, but these candlesticks were originally entrusted to my master, the Cardinal, by his Majesty the Emperor himself. They shall be restored to his Eminence, but it shall be through my hands."
"Ah!" said Madame Demidoff sneeringly, "you wish to claim a reward."
"Yes, madame, that is my intention."
"Qu'à cela ne tienne! I will promise you as boundless a reward as his Eminence's munificence could never dream of, if you will grant me this whim."
"Madame, were you to hold in your tiny hand the privy purse of the Shah of Persia I would not give up those candlesticks to you."
"Thirty thousand for that pair of candlesticks," he shouted to the auctioneer, who, with the crowd, was eyeing the antagonists, curiously straining their ears to catch the meaning of their conversation.
"Monsieur," said Madame Demidoff excitedly, "could we not share those candlesticks? Must you have them both?"
So extraordinary was this proposal that for a moment Volenski hardly realised its full meaning. He looked half dazed at the fair Russian, who continued eagerly:
"Monsieur, there are two candlesticks there; one is slightly damaged, the other quite whole. I will abandon you the one if you will let me have the other. Thus we shall share the honour and glory of presenting the recovered treasures to his Eminence. I suppose, being the lady, I might have the undamaged, therefore superior, article?"
What was she saying? The undamaged candlestick? He to have the broken one. Why, that was the one that held his papers, and she wished for the other. But then he was saved! saved! He could not speak, he was too excited; but, taking Madame Demidoff's hand, he dragged her through the crowd, who made way for them, to the auctioneer's desk, where the candlesticks were displayed. He said:
"Yes, yes; I agree. You shall have the one, the best one of the two; leave me the broken one–I am satisfied. Why don't you take it? I will pay for them both," he added feverishly, taking a large bundle of bank-notes from his pocket-book and forcing them into the hand of the astonished auctioneer.
But Madame Demidoff had thrown but one glance at the twin candlesticks, then retreated, her eyes nearly starting out of her head with fear and dismay. The candlesticks were twins indeed, for, in the various vicissitudes through which they had passed in the last few weeks, the arm of the undamaged Cupid had, like its fellow, been chipped from the wrist to the elbow.
Madame Demidoff, vainly striving to appear calm, feverishly seized one of the two candlesticks, wildly hoping that luck would favour her in her choice, and left the room, followed by the astonished stare of the spectators, who instinctively made way to allow her to pass with her precious burden.
Volenski, who had not noticed the lady's look of dismay, nor realised the cause of it, only saw what he thought was the identical candlestick that contained his secret papers standing there before his very eyes. Hardly crediting his senses, alternating between fear and hope, he took it up, and carried it away with him.
Chapter XXI
"Monsieur, – I feel sure that the receipt of this letter will cause you no surprise.
"We are in each other's power. Obviously it would not answer either of our purposes to fight out this duel. Shall we exchange our pièces de conviction, monsieur, to-night at my hotel–after the walnuts and wine? I dine at 7.30.–Yours,
Anna Demidoff."
Iván Volenski held the delicately scented little pink note in his hand, and read and reread it till he knew its brief contents by heart. It was such a strange ending to his terrible adventures of the last fortnight, culminating in that fierce struggle under the auctioneer's desk, and Iván, who was not thirty, and was a man before he became a Socialist, thought of that foe whom he had known and dreaded so long, as she stood imploringly by his side, with the tiny, gloved hand resting on his coat-sleeve.
Since that moment he seemed to remember every subsequent event but as a half-distinct dream. He had grasped the candlestick which he believed held the secret papers with a wild feeling of exultation, and carried it home to his hotel. Once there, and his door securely locked, he had touched the hidden spring and seen the papers resting within the depths of the receptacle. With trembling hands he took them out, and his aching eyes travelled over them feverishly.
Oh! the first feeling of nameless horror when he realised that that writing, those papers, were not the ones he had fought for so valiantly, now, after so bitter a struggle; the hopeless sensation of utter despair, that seemed to numb his faculties, and deaden them even to the extent of not realising the contents of the papers he held in his hands!
It was not till fully half an hour afterwards, when he heard Mirkovitch's heavy step on the stairs, that he succeeded in rousing himself from this strange apathy.
The old Socialist had tried Iván's door, but finding it locked, had evidently gone away again. Iván did not want to see him then; he was beginning to think, and think he must alone, in peace, without fear, and with complete calm.
Madame Demidoff, the agent of the Russian government, held the papers of the Socialistic brotherhood. True, but in exchange he, Volenski, held what would brand her before all the world as the spy of the Russian police, and for ever prevent her following that calling again. If made publicly known that her papers had fallen into wrong hands, her government would, as is customary in such cases, disown their agent, and probably wreak vengeance upon her for her carelessness.
Obviously, then, though the brotherhood was at this moment in Madame Demidoff's power, the fair Russian was equally in the power of the brotherhood, and ––
It was at this point of his now calm reflections that the waiter brought Iván the pink, scented note, which had been left at the hotel for M. Volenski, while the bearer waited for an answer.
It was a triumph for Volenski. She had spoken truly; it would not serve either of their purposes to fight out so well-balanced a duel.
"Madame, –To-night at 7.30 o'clock I will wait on you as you graciously bid me, and trust that our enmity, after a mutual laying down of arms, will change into friendship over the walnuts and wine.–I am, Madame, your humble and devoted servant,
Iván Volenski."
He sent this note down, made a hasty toilet, and still purposely evaded his grim comrade, whom he did not wish to meet till he could lay the fateful papers in his hands.
Chapter XXII
And that night, in one of the daintily furnished sitting-rooms of Claridge's Hotel, before a gaily blazing fire, a man and a woman sat discussing their late mutual adventures over the hunt after the Emperor's candlesticks. They each had handed over to the other the respective compromising papers, and when that was done each heaved a sigh of relief, and a dainty white hand was stretched out in token of friendship and bond of mutual silence.
And the writer has been told, on the surest authority, that this compact has been most faithfully kept, for Lobkowitz and Mirkovitch never could afterwards induce Iván Volenski to join them in their numberless plots and plans; having handed the fateful papers back safely into the keeping of grim old Mirkovitch, the brotherhood looked to him in vain for help, and he never once joined in their meetings, up the back stairs of the dreary Vienna house; and as for Madame Demidoff, the Russian government had soon to accept her resignation, in view of her approaching marriage.
Last winter, at the brilliant