Zara leaped to her feet and strode rapidly across the room twice,
wringing her hands. She paused, confronting me.
"Oh, my God!" she cried. "To think, if you had only told your friends
of the errand, and of the plans you had made for reaching the presence
of the czar, that it would have succeeded and you would have killed
him--killed him."
She rushed again to my side, and seized me by the shoulders, so that
she turned my face until it exactly confronted hers.
"Dubravnik," she cried. "I can almost believe that I am indeed talking
to him--to the man whose history I am relating--when I look at you. In
some ways you are like him, so like him! But I will still deceive
myself with the idea that I am really talking to him about himself. It
is easier so. Oh, my love, be patient with me. I must forget for the
moment that you are the man I love. I must compel myself to believe
that I am talking to him--to the brother of Yvonne."
"Alexander was always a coward, and he proved it then. He thought that
his hour had come, and that a just vengeance for all the lives that he
had taken, was about to fall upon him.
"'Do not shoot,' he pleaded. 'You shall have any demand you wish to
make. Everything you desire shall be granted.' You only laughed at him.
"'Do you know who I am?' you cried.
"'No,' he replied. 'Who are you?' "You told him your name, and he cowered lower in his chair, begging for
mercy as a hungry dog begs for food; and all the time you laughed,
repeating at every pause he made, those words so terrible for him to
hear: 'I have come to kill you because you killed Yvonne.' "Once he attempted to leave his chair, but you warned him to remain
seated. You rehearsed the evils he had done, and was doing. You told
him of the night when your sister was arrested. You related how the
police had invaded her room. You went over again, the story of your
pleading with him. You repeated how he had torn the buttons from your
coat, and disgraced you because you loved your sister. You left no
detail unrecited concerning that time of weary waiting you had
undergone, while seeking tidings of your sister. You described the long
journey to Saghalien, and the disappointment that awaited you when you
arrived. And all the time he cringed lower and lower in his chair,
expecting each moment that you would work yourself into the additional
frenzy that was necessary to make you pull the trigger of your weapon.
Ah, you made him suffer tortures such as he never endured, before or
since, even if you did not succeed in killing him. Then, slowly, and
with deadly earnestness, you related the story of the months of
wandering over Siberia searching for Yvonne, and finally you came to
the climax, where you told of her discovery and her death, at your own
hands. You had approached nearer and nearer to him during the recital.
Twice there had been a summons at the door of the cabinet, but each
time, threatened by your pistol, the czar had ordered that he was not
to be disturbed. Now, as you came to the end of all you had to say--as
you told how you had returned to St. Petersburg, and why you had waited
so long before the killing, hoping also to find the other and to kill
him, too, you put the pistol almost in Alexander's face, and with a
loud laugh of exultation--for you were mad, then, mad--you pulled the
trigger."