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The leaves on the trees of the Saski Gardens were hanging limp and lifeless. The whole world was dusty and expectant. Cartoner left Warsaw in a deluge of rain. It had come at last. In the afternoon Deulin went to call at the Bukaty Palace. He was ushered into the great drawing-room, and there left to his own devices. He did an unusual thing.
The house is just round the corner of the Kotzebue, and therefore faces the Saski Gardens a quiet spot in this most noisy town. The building is a low one, with a tiled roof and long windows, heavily framed, of which the smaller panes and thick woodwork suggest the early days of window-glass. Inside, the house is the house of a poor man.
She understood from the servant, who spoke a little German, that they had gone to their country house, a few miles from Warsaw. The next morning Netty went for a walk in the Saski Gardens. The weather had changed suddenly. It was quite mild and springlike. At last the grip of winter seemed to be slackening.
"You must go you must go!" whispered Netty, dragging at her hands. "I won't unless you promise to come to the Saski Gardens now for five minutes. I only ask five minutes. It is quite safe. There are many passing in and out of the large door. No one will notice you. The streets are full. I made an excuse to come in. A man I know was coming to these rooms with a parcel for you. I took the parcel.
He seemed to be absorbed in thought, or in the dull realization of his own misery, and took no note of the passers. Netty hardly glanced at him. She was looking impatiently towards the Kotzebue gate, which was the nearest to the Bukaty Palace of all the entrances to the Saski Gardens. At length she saw Martin, not in the gardens, but in the Kotzebue Street itself.
Netty was, no doubt, engaged in these and other golden dreams of maidenhood as she walked in the Saski Gardens this March morning. The faces of those who passed her were tranquil enough. The news of yesterday's doings in St. Petersburg had not reached Warsaw, or, at all events, had not been given to the public yet. Even rumor is leaden-footed in this backward country. Presently Netty sat down.
If he was in love, he was gayly, frankly, openly in love, and she hoped that it would be all right whatever that might mean. In the mean time, of course, she could not help it if she was always meeting him when she went for her walk in the Saski Gardens. There was nowhere else to walk, and it was to be supposed that he was passing that way by accident.
He crossed the square to the Winter Palace, and stood with the silent crowd there until the bells told all Petersburg the news that the mightiest monarch had been called to stand before a greater than any earthly throne. The next morning Miss Netty Cahere took her usual walk in the Saski Gardens. It was much warmer at Warsaw than at St.
"That is yet to be found out," was the reply, in a sharp, strained voice. "This is Cartoner's work." "I doubt it," whispered Martin. And yet in his heart he could scarcely doubt it at that moment. Nothing was further from his recollection than the note he had given to Netty in the Saski Gardens ten hours ago. "What does it mean?" he asked, with a sudden despair in his voice.
Wanda was thinking of these things in the Saski Gardens, and hardly heeded the passers-by, though for the feminine instincts were strong in her she looked with softer eyes on the children than she did on the Jew who hurried past, with bent back and a bowed head, from the richer quarter of the town to his own mysterious purlieus of the Franoiszkanska.
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