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The two girls left the castle of Thors in a sleigh with one attendant at ten o'clock in order to reach the hut selected for luncheon by mid-day. Etta did not accompany them. She had a slight headache. At eleven o'clock Claude de Chauxville returned alone, on horseback.
Steinmetz looked grave while he unfolded the thick stationery. We are in great distress at Thors cholera, I fear. The fame of your doctor has spread to my people, and they are clamoring for him. Can you bring or send him over? You know your room here is always in readiness. Come soon with the great doctor, and also Herr Steinmetz. In doing so you will give more than pleasure to your old friend,"
There was no hereditary calmness in her sense of possession. "And where is Thors?" she asked. Paul stretched out his arm, pointing with a lean, steady finger: "It lies out there," he answered. Another of the little incidents that are only half forgotten. Some of the persons assembled in that room remembered the pointing finger long afterward.
"Now, starosta," he said, "we have only an hour to spend in Thors. This is the Moscow doctor. If you listen to what he tells you, you will soon have no sickness in the village. The worst houses first and quickly. You need not be afraid, but if you do not care to come in, you may stay outside."
Moreover, his knowledge of the countess led him to fear that she would soon tire of his society. This lady had a lamentable facility for getting to the bottom of her friends' powers of entertainment within a few days. It was De Chauxville's intention to make secure his invitation to Thors, and then to absent himself from the countess.
"Whatever is the best lie to tell," burst in Paul "as we seem to live in an atmosphere of them I must go to Thors; that is quite certain." "There is no must in the case," put in Steinmetz quietly, as a parenthesis. "No man is compelled to throw himself in the way of infection. But I know you will go, whatever I say." "I suppose I shall," admitted Paul. "And Catrina will find you out at once."
Paul was an easy subject for such treatment. His own method inclined to err on the side of reticence. He gave few confidences and asked none, as is the habit of Englishmen. "Well," he said, "I do not suppose he will stay long at Thors, and I know that he will not stay at all at Osterno. Besides, what harm can he actually do to us? He cannot well go about making enquiries.
"Tell me," he said. "I want to know that badly." The Count Lanovitch looked up with a peculiar soft smile acquired in prison. There is no mistaking it. "Oh, I bear no ill will," he said. "I do," answered Steinmetz bluntly. "Who stole the papers from Thors?" "Sydney Bamborough." "Good God in heaven! Is that true?" "Yes, my friend." Steinmetz passed his broad hand over his forehead as if dazed.
"Madame the Countess awaits mademoiselle for tea," said the maid's voice suddenly, in the gloom of the door-way. "I will come." The village of Thors twenty miles farther down the river Oster, twenty miles nearer to the junction of that river with the Volga was little more than a hamlet in the days of which we write.
Under the mallets of the smiting arms the inner battlements fell as under the hammers of a thousand metal Thors. Over their fragments and the armored men who fell with them strode the Things, grinding stone and man together as we passed. All of the terraced city except the side hidden by the mount lay open to my gaze.
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