Princess Zara

Zara crossed to the divan and seated herself beside me, clasping one of

my hands in hers, and clinging to it as if she were herself in danger

of being torn from my side, or of losing me. For a time she pressed my

hand between hers, or stroked it gently, and when she resumed speech,

it was in a softly-spoken voice.

"Then you find friends," she said, gently. "Through their agents, the

nihilists ascertain where your sister has been taken. You learn that

she is a prisoner on the unspeakably horrible island of Saghalien. Yes,

and they tell you more, these new friends and helpers whom you have

found among the nihilists. They know about the plot that sent her

there. They know that the very man who pretended that he loved Yvonne,

bribed one of your servants to place those awful papers among her

things, that they might be found there by the police. You search for

him, but he is abroad, so you seek out, and find, the servant who was

bribed; and him, you strangle. After that, you disappear. The nihilists

report that you are dead. St. Petersburg believes it. But you are not

dead. You are on your way to Saghalien. Your new friends assist you

with disguises; they aid you on your long journey; they provide you

with money; and somehow--you never know how--you reach Saghalien, only

to find that Yvonne is not there; that she has been transferred. Then

you begin a weary search which consumes months; so many of them, that

they swell into two long years. You go from prison to prison, from town

to town, from hope to despair, from despair to hope, and at

last--YOU FIND HER!"

Zara dropped to her knees before me. I knew that the climax of her

story was at hand. Her beautiful eyes, widened, and speaking dumbly of

infinite sorrow, sought mine, and held them. I bent forward, and kissed

her on the forehead. Then she resumed: "You find her in a far away prison in the north. You find her half

clothed, lost to all sense of modesty, the sport, the victim, the THING

of the inhuman brutes who are her guards. You find her body; her

beautiful soul has fled. She is not dead, but she gazes at you with a

vacant stare of unrecognition. She laughs at you when you tell her that

you are her brother. She does not know you. She has forgotten her own

name. She taunts you with being another brute, like the men she has

known there, in that foul haunt of unspeakable vices. Then you go quite

mad. You clasp her in your arms, and draw her slender body against you.

When you release her, she falls at your feet, dead, for you have buried

your knife in her heart. Never again will she be the sport of brutal

men. You have dealt out mercy to your suffering sister, and the agony

you have endured gave you the necessary strength of will. You are God's

agent in the deed."