"Perhaps, you say. Ah! don"t deceive me. It would kill me."

Her thin hands had drawn Mme. Daubrel to her with strange energy. Her eyes questioned not less than her voice.

Frightened by this excitement, Marthe dared not say another word.

Dumesnil saw that an end must be put to this agony, even at the risk of a dangerous crisis.

"Well, then, yes," said he, in his turn. "Your children will soon be with you. The prince has telegraphed to your friend that he will be in Paris within a month with Alexander and Tekla. If he has them brought to France, it won"t be to deprive you longer of their caresses."

The poor woman"s face betrayed that she could not believe what was told her.

"The prince," she stammered, "the prince? He will give me back my children? I shall see my son again--my daughter? Ah, no, it is impossible."

"Read this," said Marthe, giving her Pierre Olsdorf"s telegram.

Mme. Meyrin seized it, and when she had read it slowly, in a low voice, several times, as if the better to take in the sense of these blessed words which had winged their way through s.p.a.ce to bring her a crowning consolation, she grew deathly pale, crossed her hands and, with a sob, raising her eyes, brilliant from fever, to heaven, murmured:

"Oh, G.o.d, I pray that Thou wilt let me live a month longer."

Almost at the same moment, more than five hundred leagues distant, at Pampeln, there was pa.s.sing another scene not less touching, though of another kind.

Vera Soublaieff had been two months without a letter from the prince, and her anxiety was great when she received his telegram from Bombay begging her to get ready to go to Paris.

At first she thought she must have misread and was dreaming; but soon she calmed herself, understood the truth, and felt her heart swell with a great joy. She was going to see again the man she loved, whom she had waited for three years, whose long absence had caused her such cruel sorrow.

Suddenly Vera reflected that if the prince charged her to take his children to Paris, some painful event must have happened. She who had been the Princess Olsdorf was doubtless dead, and Vera was ashamed of having thought of her own happiness alone. And yet, she thought, if Mme.

Meyrin was dead, she would have been told of it by Mme. Daubrel. Without trying to fathom the mystery of what was going on, she ran out to Alexander and Tekla, who were playing a little way off before the main entrance to the chateau, and covered them with kisses, telling them they would soon see their father again. She dared not, however, in spite of their tenderly questioning looks, utter their mother"s name; but she prepared to follow the instructions she had received.

CHAPTER X.

TWO HUSBANDS.

On arriving at Brindisi, twenty days after sailing from Bombay, Pierre Olsdorf sent a telegram to Vera Soublaieff, asking her to leave Pampeln for Paris at once. A few hours later he took train from Brindisi, arriving in Rome the next day, where a letter from Mme. Daubrel was awaiting him, in reply to the telegram he had sent her before embarking for Europe.

The gentle Marthe confirmed the bad news she had sent before. On learning that the prince was coming to Paris, Mme. Meyrin had expressed the deepest grat.i.tude, but no hope was felt of her recovery. The doctors had given her up, and the patient knew the gravity of her illness. She only prayed of G.o.d that He would suffer her to live until the coming of the man whose forgiveness she wished to implore.

Pierre Olsdorf replied immediately to Mme. Daubrel that he would be in Paris in three or four days, as would his children. Then he went to the Russian Emba.s.sy. It was at the Palace Feoli, on the Corso. He sent his card in to Count Panen, the first secretary, who had been a school-fellow of his at the Inst.i.tute of n.o.bles.

Having been introduced at once and most cordially received by the young diplomatist, the prince went straight to the object of his visit.

"My dear count," said he to his countryman, "I have a great favor to ask of you."

"I am quite at your orders, prince," replied the secretary to the emba.s.sy.

"I wish you to act as my second in a very serious business. If you require it, I will give you all the explanations that you have the right to ask for; but I should prefer to be silent."

"From a man such as you," replied the count, quickly, "no confidence is needed, for he could not desire anything contrary to the strictest propriety. Keep your secret and command me."

"Thank you. The man whom honor calls upon me to fight to the death, until one or the other of us falls, is Monsieur Paul Meyrin, a painter living in Rome."

"Paul Meyrin, the husband--"

Count Panen was going to exclaim, "The husband of the ex-Princess Olsdorf;" for like the rest of the Russian n.o.bility he was not ignorant of the divorce p.r.o.nounced a few years ago.

"Yes, he himself," said the prince, bitterly; "he himself."

"Forgive me."

"I should beg your pardon. Later on you shall know more. Meanwhile I must kill Monsieur Paul Meyrin. I don"t know where he is living, but you will easily get his address at the Ecole Francaise, at the Villa Medici.

Be so good as to take a friend with you, to whom you can answer for me if I am unknown to him. Whatever conditions Monsieur Meyrin stipulates for accept, provided that they are of a kind to give a fatal issue to our encounter. I only desire one thing--that this affair may be over quickly, to-morrow morning, if possible. I mean to leave for Paris immediately afterward, if I do not fall."

"In a couple of hours, unless Monsieur Meyrin meets us with a refusal, all will be arranged. A good friend of mine--Baron Zamoieff, our second secretary---will feel it his duty to join with me. Besides, he has the honor of knowing you."

"It is true, indeed; we are distantly related. I remember that in happier days I had the pleasure of receiving him in Courland."

"As for Monsieur Meyrin, I think I know where to find him. But what if he should ask us for explanations?"

"I hope he will understand with half a word. If he does not, you may tell him I will hesitate at no provocation, no matter what scandal may follow upon it. This man, in the past, has done me the deepest outrage possible; it has suited me to wait until now before demanding reparation from him, that is all."

"I understand."

"Thank you once more, dear count. I shall see you again soon, shall I not?"

"As soon as I have seen Zamoieff and we have been to Monsieur Meyrin"s, who lives near the Pia Gate, I take it. If you will go back to the Minerva we will join you there as soon as our mission is fulfilled."

"Yes, I will go back to the hotel. Good-bye for a short time."

In less than two hours" time, at the Minerva, a footman announced to Prince Olsdorf the two visitors he was expecting.

Pierre went forward quickly to meet them, offering his hand to Baron Zamoieff, and thanking him for kindly acting as his other second.

The Russian n.o.blemen responded cordially to the grasp of his hand, and the first secretary spoke at once.

"My dear prince," he said, seating himself on a divan with his colleague of the emba.s.sy, "we had no trouble in finding Monsieur Paul Meyrin, whom we both know slightly. He was in his studio on the Via Venti Settembri, close to the Pia Gate. I told him the object of our visit, and I must say that he seemed astounded for a moment. At first he could not understand what to think. However, recovering himself after a few moments" reflection, he replied: "Very well, gentlemen; I ask no explanation, singular as this challenge is, coming from a man whom I have not seen for four years, and who has kept silence all this time.

Two of my friends will have the honor to present themselves at the Palace Feoli within an hour." We are going back to the emba.s.sy to wait for them. As soon as we have arranged everything we will come back and tell you about it."

"Thanks, gentlemen," said Pierre Olsdorf, "I feared Monsieur Meyrin might escape me. Let me remind you I accept in advance his conditions, provided they are of the kind I have mentioned; if they are not, make your own: four b.a.l.l.s at twenty paces, with the right for each of us to advance five paces; and in default of result we fight with swords until it is absolutely impossible for one of the combatants to hold his weapon."

"Depend upon us, prince, all shall be arranged as you wish," said Count Panen. "Until this evening."

"Until this evening, count; until this evening, cousin, for we are relatives, my dear baron."

"I have that honor," replied Zamoieff, "and I thank you for the further one you do me in accepting me as a second. Until this evening."

In a few moments Pierre Olsdorf, left alone again, was putting his affairs in order, writing to Mme. Daubrel, to Vera, and to his son Alexander, letters which would be forwarded by Count Panen, if the writer should be killed in the duel with Paul Meyrin.