Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/357

 "Take me with you."

"Impossible, dearest; we are going on business. Volmer"

"Volmer, Volmer! It is always Volmer! Are you a child to be led like this? One would think you had no will but his."

Ivo's sensitive mouth trembled, his eyes grew dim and troubled, the sunshine seemed suddenly to die out of his beautiful face. He laid his head upon his wife's shoulder, wearily, like a tired child, and clung to her strong hand.

"No will but his! Sometimes I think so."

Nasha's heart sank within her. Her punishment had begun. The deceit by which she had won him was beginning to work out its own retribution, and he, the innocent, must suffer with her, the guilty. For his sake, she would make a last effort.

"Dear Ivo, do you love me?"

He raised his eyes to her face, then gently released himself from her arm, and holding her from him said, speaking low and gravely:—

"Have I given you cause to doubt me, Nasha?"

"No, oh, no! I am only too much afraid of believing my own heart. I like to hear you say what it tells me; then I feel sure."

"My love, my dear love!"

"If I am that, stay with me!" pleaded Nasha; "let Volmer go to Paris alone."

"You ask an impossibility. I cannot take back my word, dearest. I am bound."

Nasha kept silence. He did not know how true his words were. Bound? Yes! And she, who loved him better than her life, had consented to and riveted that bondage. Her love was powerless to save him; he would have to go the fatal way of all her brother's victims, while she stood by, watching, but impotent. This would be her awful punishment.

The following week the two men went back to Paris. Old Getha shook her head as their carriage passed out of sight. She had always known how it would be! No good ever came of hurried bridals; of course, the handsome gentleman had wearied of his wife, and no wonder! The Countess Nasha was as good as gold, and much more clever than most men; but gay young fellows only cared for pretty faces, and the chances were the Countess would never see her husband again. Beauty should mate with beauty.

For a long time similar thoughts filled Nasha's sad heart, and a thousand wild ideas, a thousand schemes, came into her head during her sleepless nights. She would go to Paris and bring him back—she would ask him at Volmer's hands, and then—but, no! She had done him a great wrong, and, now that he was free, she would not stir a finger to bring him back to captivity. His rightful place was in the world, where he could do so much good. Or, again, she would give way to her intense desire for his presence, and nurse the thought that he would return in the summer or the early autumn. But autumn brought nothing, save a hope that should have drawn him closer to her. Getha shook her head more mournfully than ever, but she was soon absorbed by her usual preparations for the winter, and by the time the frosts had come and the snow had put the household in a state of siege, all seemed as it had been in the years gone by, save for the ring on Nasha's finger and the unwonted fabrication of little garments which occupied her hands.

By the mercy of the saints the snow began