oom-arrest. Good-day."
He clicked his heels together and bowed slightly. His spies clustered
about him, and they left the room.
All at once my bones seemed to crumble and my flesh dissolve. I fell
into a chair. Marie and I looked at each other. We began to laugh. "We
mustn't get hysterical," we said, and kept on laughing.
The room was so dark that we looked like two shadows. Panna Lolla had
come after Janchu and taken him into Count S----'s room. We imagined the
excited curiosity of the rest of the _pension_.
"I'll wager that woman was a spy, after all."
"But why--why should _we_ have a _revision_?"
"Anyway, they couldn't have found much. We'll be set free in a few
days," Marie said.
"They found my letter about the Jews," I replied.
"What letter? Oh, my dear, what did you say?"
"I forget. But everything I saw or heard, I think."
We began to laugh again.
"Will they send our telegrams?"--"Will Peter come on?"--"What shall we
do for money?"
The room was pitch-dark except for the electric light from the street.
We heard the creak and rattle of the empty commissariat wagons returning
from the barracks. We fell silent, feeling suddenly very tired and
lethargic.
"Where is Janchu? It's time for his supper," Marie said, without moving.
I started out of the room to call him, and fell across a dark figure
sitting in front of the door. He grunted and pushed me back into the
room.
"I want Janchu," I said in perfectly good English, while he closed the
door in my face.
"There's a spy outside our door," I whispered to Marie.
Panna Lolla came in with Janchu and turned on the light.
"There's a man outside our door, and two secret-service men at the
_pension_ door and two soldiers downstairs," she whispered excitedly in
one breath. "No one can leave the _pension_, and they take the name and
address of every one who comes here. And that woman _was_ a spy. Antosha
saw the chief go into her room and heard them talking together. And she
left when they did."
I lay all night, half asleep, half awake, hearing the street noises
clearly through the open windows. I cried a little from exhaustion and
nerves, and then controlled myself, for my head began to ache, and who
knew what would happen the next day? I had to keep strength to meet
something that was coming. I had no idea what it was, but the
uncertainty of the future only made it more ominous and threatening.
That letter--In the darkness I saw the ch
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