The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 1 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

108 BY RIGHT OF SWORD, shapely. Don’t start from it. There is no blood showing on it now, and never was. I know how to thrust a dagger home too cleverly to leave a trace of either blood or guilt on me. In all this Moscow of ours the one person who is deemed above all others guiltless—is myself. Had it been in reality the Nihilist deadly secret stroke that men deem it, it could not have been more cunningly contrived, more secretly planned, more fatally executed. Yet the motive was not hate of a government, but love fora man. For you, Alexis ; you and you only. Now do you wish to go?’’ She moved away from the door, but I made no attempt to move. The horror of her story lead fascinated me. ‘* There was a tinge of hate in it, too, mark you, and more thana tinge. But Pil-tell you all. You ought to know, since you were in reality the cause of all. You gave me the motive, suggested the occasion, aud provoked that which led to it. More than that, too, you can by a single word from me be made to bear the brunt. Now, will you go?’’ Was the woman mad that she spoke in this way? If so, there was a devilish method in her madness as the story she told quickly showed me. ‘I knew the day would come when either I should kill him or he would kill me ; for he was a devil. Well, you roused all that was most evil, Vicious, and fiendish in him in that interview, and when I saw him he was like a man bereft of his wits. Every form of reproach he could heap on me in cold, con- temptuous, galling sneers he uttered with all the calculated aggravation that could make a taunt unbearable. He threatened me in every tone of menace, and when I answered, turned suddenly furious and struck me violent blows and vowed to kill me. It was then I recalled your words, that there was a Nihilist plot against his life ; and I vowed I would be the means of carrying it out ; for I knew I could easily put suspicion away from me. I lured him cunningly to that part of the house where he was found, plunged the dagger into his breast, put into his pocket the forged warning of a Nihilist attack, opened the house at a point where a man could have entered, fastened to the dagger the Nihilist watchword, and then crept away to my own rooms,”’ ‘‘Tt was a fiendish plot,’’ I exclaimed hotly. : ‘‘Tt was inspired by love for you, Alexis. It was truly ‘ For freedom’s sake ’—freedomethat should unite us forever.’’ ‘““Do you think I could ever be anything to a woman whose hand is red with murder ?’’ I cried, in indignant horror. ‘Tt was done for you—for love of you, Alexis.’’ ‘Love has no kin with murder,’’ I exclaimed bitterly. ‘Your life is mine, remember,’’ she answered firmly. Her determination and strength were inexhaustible. ‘‘ This makes you ten thousand times more surely mine than ever. I told you you were the cause-——and also, that you could be made to bear the brunt. Listen. You know well enough what chance a Nihilist has on whom the fangs of suspicion have fastened. You are a Nihilist. Your sister is one also. I know this. Well, what think you would that Nihilist have of his life whose dagger it was that found its way between my husband’s ribs. What then;if I had found the sheath of it and secreted it to save the man? Suppose, too, that I had kept back the dis- (S@) Eomichbooks