She sat looking up into his strong, grave face, and during all that followed she never moved.

“I know you,” he said, “to be courageous, and must ask you to believe that I exaggerate nothing in what I am about to tell you.  I tell it to you instead of leaving Paul to do so because I know his complete fearlessness, and his blind faith in a people who are unworthy of it.  He does not realize the gravity of the situation.  They are his own people.  A sailor never believes that his own ship is unseaworthy.”

“Go on!” said Etta, for he had paused.

“This country,” he continued, “is unsettled.  The people of the estate are on the brink of a revolt.  You know what the Russian peasant is.  It will be no Parisian emeute, half noise, half laughter.  We cannot hope to hold this old place against them.  We cannot get away from it.  We cannot send for help because we have no one to send.  Princess, this is no time for half-confidences.  I know—­for I know these people better even than Paul knows them—­I am convinced that this is not the outcome of their own brains.  They are being urged on by some one.  There is some one at their backs.  This is no revolt of the peasants, organized by the peasants.  Princess, you must tell me all you know!”

“I—­I,” she stammered, “I know nothing!”

And then suddenly she burst into tears, and buried her face in a tiny, useless handkerchief.  It was so unlike her and so sudden that Steinmetz was startled.

He laid his great hand soothingly on her shoulder.

“I know,” he said quietly, “I know more than you think.  I am no saint, princess, myself.  I too have had my difficulties.  I have had my temptations, and I have not always resisted.  God knows it is difficult for men to do always the right thing.  It is a thousand times more difficult for women.  When we spoke together in Petersburg, and I offered you my poor friendship, I was not acting in the dark.  I knew as much then as I do now.  Princess, I knew about the Charity League papers.  I knew more than any except Stepan Lanovitch, and it was he who told me.”

He was stroking her shoulder with the soothing movements that one uses toward a child in distress.  His great hand, broad and thick, had a certain sense of quiet comfort and strength in it.  Etta ceased sobbing, and sat with bowed head, looking through her tears into the gay wood fire.  It is probable that she failed to realize the great charity of the man who was speaking to her.  For the capacity for evil merges at some point or other into incapability for comprehending good.

“Is that all he knows?” she was wondering.

The suggestion that Sydney Bamborough was not dead had risen up to eclipse all other fear in her mind.  In some part her thought reached him.

“I know so much,” he said, “that it is safest to tell me more.  I offered you my friendship because I think that no woman could carry through your difficulties unaided.  Princess, the admiration of Claude de Chauxville may be pleasant, but I venture to think that my friendship is essential.”