“And yet the life that is only a conglomeration of trifles is a poor life to look back upon.”

“Meaning mine?” she asked.

“Your life has not been trifling,” he said gravely.

She looked up at him, and then for some moments kept silence while she idly opened and shut her fan.  There was in the immediate vicinity of Karl Steinmetz a sort of atmosphere of sympathy which had the effect of compelling confidence.  Even Etta was affected by it.  During the silence recorded she was quelling a sudden desire to say things to this man which she had never said to any.  She only succeeded in part.

“Do you ever feel an unaccountable sensation of dread,” she asked, with a weary little laugh; “a sort of foreboding with nothing definite to forebode?”

“Unaccountable—­no,” replied Steinmetz.  “But then I am a German—­and stout, which may make a difference.  I have no nerves.”

He looked into the fire through his benevolent gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Is it nerves—­or is it Petersburg?” she asked abruptly.  “I think it is Petersburg.  I hate Petersburg.”

“Why Petersburg more than Moscow or Nijni or—­Tver?”

She drew in a long, slow breath, looking him up and down the while from the corners of her eyes.

“I do not know,” she replied collectedly; “I think it is damp.  These houses are built on reclaimed land, I believe.  This was all marsh, was it not?”

He did not answer her question, and somehow she seemed to expect no reply.  He stood blinking down into the fire while she watched him furtively from the corners of her eyes, her lips parched and open, her face quite white.

A few moments before she had protested that she desired his friendship.  She knew now that she could not brave his enmity.  And the one word “Tver” had done it all!  The mere mention of a town, obscure and squalid, on the upper waters of the mighty Volga in Mid-Russia!

During those few moments she suddenly came face to face with her position.  What had she to offer this man?  She looked him up and down—­stout, placid, and impenetrable.  Here was no common adventurer seeking place—­no coxcomb seeking ladies’ favors—­no pauper to be bought with gold.  She had no means of ascertaining how much he knew, how much he suspected.  She had to deal with a man who held the best cards and would not play them.  She could never hope to find out whether his knowledge and his suspicions were his alone or had been imparted to others.  In her walk through life she had jostled mostly villains; and a villain is no very dangerous foe, for he fights on slippery ground.  Except Paul she had never had to do with a man who was quite honest, upright, and fearless; and she had fallen into the common error of thinking that all such are necessarily simple, unsuspicious, and a little stupid.

She breathed hard, living through years of anxiety in a few moments of time, and she could only realize that she was helpless, bound hand and foot in this man’s power.