He looked directly at her, and studied her face for a minute, his own face still reamed with the lines of the hatred which held his nerves taut. “You trusted me?” he asked. “Yes.” “You deceived me,” he retorted, once more himself and completely readjusted to the meaning of her return. “Yes. To save my father. But I trusted you, too, else I could have avoided you. I would give my life to save my father, but it is too late now—I can neither save him nor myself. We live only so long as Zorogoff delays in coming.” “You speak to thwart me,” he said bitterly. She turned her palms upward in a gesture of submission and the slightest shrug of her shoulders, as if she had lost all interest in what the final result of what she said might be, and as if what he might do was a matter of little moment to her. “I speak to save your soul,” she said softly. “But we shall not quarrel about it—either what you are to decide about us, or about your soul.” “No?” he demanded, surprised that he should be nettled by her carelessness. “But you are pleading with me now.” She gave him a look of surprise and laughed harshly. “Pleading? For what? A few hours of life?” “You might both escape,” he suggested, “by the droshky which you have so cleverly planned. That is, if I should let you go.” “We could not get through without you. And what does it matter whether the Ataman Zorogoff kills my father in the morning, or you kill him now. No, Peter Petrovitch, I plead only to save you from blood upon your hands—and to save your own life—the life of an American officer.” At this, he thought of Wassili and smiled. “I mean Zorogoff,” she hastened to say. “He would not let you escape, if you gave him reason to destroy you—if you killed my father.” “You can argue for Zorogoff, who will destroy you both?” he asked, making no attempt to mask his incredulity. She lifted her shoulders again in that same almost imperceptible shrug, and looked casually out of the window. “You can help America help our people,” she said. “As for Zorogoff, I have death ready at my bidding for myself before he could take me to his palace—I can defeat the dog of a Mongol. But what do you gain by your vengeance upon my father? A few hours of his life! Is that the measure of the value of your vengeance?” “You think that I am too late—that I am already defeated in my purpose,” he said. “Yes. You are, Peter Petrovitch. Time has defeated you.” “No,” he insisted. “I have waited twenty years——” “And after twenty years, you come back to what? Michael Kirsakoff and his daughter hiding from his Cossacks! The old governor, worse off than peasants, with death lurking at the door! The general of the Czar’s army, in flight and hiding like one of his own escapes in the old days! What sweeter vengeance would you ask, Peter Petrovitch?”