The Mission of Poubalov — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

114 AN W DEPARTURE. directly with Ivan’s taking off, grew upon her. How read- ily he had abandoned the suggestion of elopement! Aban- don? he had ignored it utterly. Not once in her conyersa- tion with him had he put that forth as an explanation worthy of investigation. Could it have been his subtle purpose to interest her in a line of inquiry that should lead directly away from that? A shiver passed over her frame, and Louise inquired anxiously what was the mat- ter? “New theories keep occurring to me,’ responded Clara gravely, ‘‘and each one is a shock worse than the one that preceded it. Let me tell you this one. Suppose that Lizzie ‘White,’’ Clara spoke with difficulty, every word seemingly dragged forth by a violent effort, ‘‘suppose she were in some way Poubalov’s agent; I will not, cannot think that Ivan went away with her, but might if not be possible that this remarkable man, who has such mastery over or- dinary minds, had made her an accomplice? Don’t you see the cleverness of the plan? If Ivan was forced to go to New York, Lizzie’s departure for that city the same day is immediately assumed by everybody to mean that they eloped, and probably all in Boston who think of the mat- ter at all, suppose that they have been married. Ivan may be a prisoner in New York, and Lizzie may be under Pou- balov’s pay, or influence, the latter more likely, to act, not as his jailer, but as a mask for his presence there. ‘‘Poubslov has some object to attain in keeping him thus guarded, to torture some political secret from him, perhaps. Now what better could he do than divert suspi- cion in my mind from Lizzie to those whom he calls Nihil- ists, or sven upon himself? He saw at first glance that I would not tolerate the thought of an elopement as among the possibilities, so he had need to disarm me of suspicion in that direction. Has not everything he has done oe ae done with a view to keeping me in Boston? What does he care how much poor Litizki dogs his steps, so long as the victim of his intrigue and villainy is hundreds of miles wway? His one fear in Boston is that Bidiuis “hens de sou