The Everlasting Arms

"No," she almost gasped; "it is not true!" She simply could not persist in a lie while the pure, lustrous eyes of the girl were upon her.

"Then why did you tell me?"

"Because, oh, because I am mad! Because I am a slave, and because I am jealous, jealous for his love, because, oh – !" She flung herself into the chair again, and burst into an agony of tears.

"Oh, forgive me, forgive me for deceiving you!" she sobbed presently.

"You did not deceive me at all. I knew you were lying."

"But – but you seemed – horrified at what I told you!"

"I was horrified to think that one so young and beautiful like you could – could sink so low."

"Then you do not know what love is!" she cried. "Do you understand? I love him – love him! I would do anything, anything to win him."

"And if you did, could you make him happy?"

"I make him happy! Oh, but you do not know."

"Tell me," said Beatrice, "are you not the tool, the slave of someone else? Has not Mr. Faversham an enemy, and are you not working for that enemy?"

Her clear, childlike eyes were fixed on the other's face; she seemed trying to understand her real motives. Olga Petrovic, on the other hand, regarded the look with horror.

"No, no," she cried, "do not think that of me! I would have saved Dick from him. I – I would have shielded him with my life."

"You would have shielded him from Count Romanoff?"

"Do not tell me you know him?"

"I only know of him. He is evil, evil. Ah yes, I understand now. He sent you here. He is waiting for you now."

"But how do you know?"

"Listen," said Beatrice, without heeding her question, "you can be a happy woman, a good woman. Go back and tell that man that you have failed, and that he has failed; then go back to your own country, and be the woman God meant you to be, the woman your mother prayed you might be."

"I – I a happy woman – a good woman!"

"Yes – I tell you, yes."

"Oh, tell me so again, tell me – O great God, help me!"

"Sit down," said Beatrice quietly; "let us talk. I want to help you."

For a long time they sat and talked, while old Hugh Stanmore, who was close by, wondered who his grandchild's visitor could be, and why they talked so long.

It was after midnight when Olga Petrovic returned to her flat, and no sooner did she enter than Count Romanoff met her.

"Well, Olga," he asked eagerly, "what news?"

"I go back to Poland to-morrow, to my old home, to my own people."

She spoke slowly, deliberately; her voice was hard and cold.

He did not seem to understand. He looked at her questioningly for some seconds without speaking.

"You are mad, Olga," he said presently.

"I am not mad."

"This means then that you have failed. You understand the consequences of failure?"

"It means – oh, I don't know what it means. But I do know that that child had made me long to be a good woman."

"A good woman? Olga Petrovic a good woman!" he sneered.

"Yes, a good woman. I am not come to argue with you. I only tell you that you are powerless to hinder me."

"And Faversham? Does Olga Petrovic mean that she confesses herself beaten? That she will have her love thrown in her face, and not be avenged?"

"It means that if you like, and it means something more. Isaac Romanoff, or whatever your real name may be, why you have sought to ruin that man I don't know; but I know this: I have been powerless to harm him, and so have you."

"It means that you have failed —you!" he snarled.

"Yes, and why? There has been a power mightier than yours against which you have fought. Good, GOOD, has been working on his side, that is why you have failed, why I have failed. O God of Goodness, help me!"

"Stop that, stop that, I say!" His voice was hoarse, and his face was livid with rage.

"I will not stop," she cried. "I want to be a good woman – I will be a good woman. That child whom I laughed at has seen a thousand times farther into the heart of truth than I, and she is happy, happy in her innocence, in her spotless purity, and in her faith in God. And I promised her I would be a new woman, live a new life."

"You cannot, you dare not," cried the Count.

"But I will. I will leave the old bad past behind me."

"And I will dog your every footstep. I will make such madness impossible."

"But you cannot. Good is stronger than evil. God is Almighty."

"I hold you, body and soul, remember that."

The woman seemed possessed of a new power, and she turned to the Count with a look of triumph in her eyes.

"Go," she cried, "in the name of that Christ who was the joy of my mother's life, and who died that I might live – I bid you go. From to-night I cease to be your slave."

The Count lifted his hand as if to strike her, but she stood before him fearless.

"You cannot harm me," she cried. "See, see, God's angels are all around me now! They stretch out their arms to help me."

He seemed to be suffering agonies; his face was contorted, his eyes were lurid, and he appeared to be struggling with unseen powers.