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Updated: June 13, 2025
For the name carried with it its own suggestion of beauty and of melancholy. What secret could Sonya Valesky be concealing that forced even her friends to warn others against her? Of course there could be no answer in her own consciousness to this puzzle, yet Nona kept the problem at the back of her mind during the following week of strenuous work.
There was one small window overhead, not much larger than a single pane of glass in an average old-fashioned window. But the light from the window fell directly upon the head of the woman who was seated beneath it. Sonya Valesky had not been told that she was to receive a visitor.
First of all, she must ask for a leave of absence from her Red Cross nursing and explain that it was necessary for her to return to Petrograd for a time. But where was she to obtain the money for her expenses? She had nothing of her own except the few roubles which she was paid for her work and which she had forfeited when she undertook to care for Sonya Valesky.
Nona inquired when she felt that she had gotten her voice under control. "Siberia," Lieutenant Orlaff returned briefly. Then feeling that his companion desired him to say more, he went on: "In many cases a man or woman who has done what Sonya Valesky has would be hung as a traitor. She has been preaching peace, which means she has been urging men not to fight. That is treason to Russia.
If Nona would be guided by an older woman she would give up the quest for Sonya Valesky. Certainly Sonya's fate was an unhappy one, but she was wholly responsible for it herself. If she had been content to take life as she found it she would now have been occupying a brilliant position. The Countess evidently had no use for reformers or persons who break away from recognized conditions.
Certainly it was far easier to tell the story of Sonya Valesky to him than to an older man or to one whose time was more valuable. Nevertheless, when she had finished, although there was no doubt of the secretary's attention and interest, Nona found him equally as discouraging as everybody else had been concerning Sonya Valesky's fate and any part which she might have hoped to play in it.
This portion was hardest of the story to understand, but Sonya Valesky had tried to make it clear. Nona's father had insisted that his young wife give up her views of life. She was to read no books, write no letters, have nothing to do with any human being who thought as she did.
After her letter had been read and considered then she could decide on the degree of her confidences. But after all, Barbara's prediction came true. The story that Sonya Valesky had to tell of her acquaintance with Nona's mother was not half so strange as the fact that the mother's history had been concealed from her daughter. The story was unique but comparatively simple.
Naturally Barbara and Mildred wholly disapproved of the risk Nona was running and she had not time nor strength to make them see her side of the situation. She had written them that Sonya Valesky had proved herself to have been an old friend of her mother's. For that reason and for several others she felt it her duty to care for her.
She would like to have told him what an American man would have attempted for a friend, who was a woman and in such a tragic position, no matter what her crime or mistake. But Nona was sure by this time that Sonya Valesky had committed no crime. She had come to know her too well, her exquisite gentleness, so oddly combined with a blind determination that took no thought of self.
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