Her own life, in confused
pictures, surged panorama-like before her mental vision: The garret
beginning; the cold and hunger hardships; the beatings, when a child;
the girl problems--so hard; the woman's--Faugh! what a life! Would that
the flame of the artist had burned more brightly or not at all. She
tried to imagine what she would have been, if she, too, had been born to
a golden cradle.

A great ennui swept over her. How old she felt on a sudden! And how
homesick, too. Yes; that was it--homesickness. She could have stretched
out her arms toward her much beloved and, sometimes, a little hated,
Russia. The bright domes of her native city seemed to shine now in her
eyes. She walked in spirit the stony pavement of the Kremlin. Cruelty,
intolerance, suffering--all these reigned in the city of extremes, but
she would have kissed even the cold marble at the feet of dead tyrants,
the way the people did, if she could have stood at that moment in one of
the old, old sacred places. Her brief flight into the new world had led
her to no pots of gold at rainbow end. The little honorarium from his
excellency for her part in this adventure, she did not want now. She
regretted that she had ever embarked upon it. What penalty might she not
have to pay yet? The law, with dragon fingers would reach out--no doubt
was reaching out now--to grip her. Well, let it.

A crisp, matter-of-fact voice--concealing any agitation the speaker may
have felt--broke in upon these varied reflections. Mr. Heatherbloom,
rather out of breath but quiet and determined, stood before them.

"Miss Dalrymple!--Mademoiselle! There is no occasion for alarm but it
will be necessary; for us to leave here at once!"

CHAPTER XXII

AN UNEXPECTED OFFER

"To leave?" It was Sonia Turgeinov who spoke. "You mean--" Her eyes
turned oceanward but saw nothing.

He made a quick gesture toward a break in the outline of the shore where
the island swept around. "Beyond!" he said succinctly and she had no
doubt as to his meaning. The tent he had put up where it could not be
seen from the sea. But their boat--He looked at the little craft, a too
distinct object on the sands. Those on a vessel skirting the shore could
not fail to discover that incriminating bit of evidence with their
glasses. And there was no way of getting rid of it. He could not destroy
it with his bare hands. It was unsinkable. If he set it adrift, wind and
sea would drive it straight back.

"They