Catrina wanted this too.  She wanted to torture herself with the sight of Etta, beautiful, self-confident, carelessly cognizant of Paul’s love.  She wanted to see Paul look at his wife with the open admiration which she had set down as something else than love—­something immeasurably beneath love as Catrina understood that passion.  Her soul, brooding under a weight of misery, was ready to welcome any change, should it only mean a greater misery.

“I can manage that,” she said, “if they will come.  It was a prearranged matter that there should be a bear-hunt in our forests.”

“That will do,” answered De Chauxville reflectively; “in a few days, perhaps, if it suits the countess.”

Catrina made no reply.  After a pause she spoke again, in her strange, jerky way.

“What will you gain by it?” she asked.

De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders.

“Who knows?” he answered.  “There are many things I want to know; many questions which can be answered only by one’s own observation.  I want to see them together.  Are they happy?”

Catrina’s face hardened.

“If there is a God in heaven, and he hears our prayers, they ought not to be,” she replied curtly.

“She looked happy enough in Petersburg,” said the Frenchman, who never told the truth for its own sake.  Whenever he thought that Catrina’s hatred needed stimulation he mentioned Etta’s name.

“There are other questions in my mind,” he went on, “some of which you can answer, mademoiselle, if you care to.”

Catrina’s face expressed no great willingness to oblige.

“The Charity League,” said De Chauxville, looking at her keenly; “I have always had a feeling of curiosity respecting it.  Was, for instance, our friend the Prince Pavlo implicated in that unfortunate affair?”

Catrina flushed suddenly.  She did not take her eyes from the ponies.  She was conscious of the unwonted color in her cheeks, which was slowly dying away beneath her companion’s relentless gaze.

“You need not trouble to reply, mademoiselle,” said De Chauxville, with his dark smile; “I am answered.”

Catrina pulled the ponies up with a jerk, and proceeded to turn their willing heads toward home.  She was alarmed and disturbed.  Nothing seemed to be safe from the curiosity of this man, no secret secure, no prevarication of the slightest avail.

“There are other questions in my mind,” said De Chauxville quietly, “but not now.  Mademoiselle is no doubt tired.”

He leaned back, and when at length he spoke it was to give utterance to the trite commonplace of which he made a conversational study.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE CASTLE OF THORS

A week later Catrina, watching from the window of her own small room, saw Paul lift Etta from the sleigh, and the sight made her clench her hands until the knuckles shone like polished ivory.