Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1913-02-17
The Argus Daily Story
A Siberian Exile-By F. A. Mitchell.
Copyrighted. 1918, by Associated Literary Bureau.

opportunity for escape. She had toiled
through snow or over frozen waters TO
some country, Sweden probably. where
she had arrived hungry, frostbitten.
more nearly dead than alive. And now
that she was free she was consumed
by one all absorbing passion-reveuge.
And here the presence in Paris of the
man who stood for all this wrecking.
the emperor of Russia, furnished q
climax
She was there to kill him.
The girl must have gone out by an
other door. probably TO avoid him. Dis
appointed. he was about to so to his
room when a servant approached him
and handed him a bit of paper. Open
ing IL. he read:
May I ask that you will Join me for
few minutes in my private parlor!
Most assuredly," were the words
that came to him. but he did not speak
them. He simply followed the servant
who led him to a door, knocked and
left him. The door was thrown open.
and before him stood the woman who
had occupied his thoughts for two
years. She shut the door behind him
and stood for a few moments as If
striving for composure Then she said
in a low. unsteady voice. as If fearing
to be overheard, 81 have sent for you
to ask you not to mention to any one
having seen me on my way to Kara"
"I certainly will not mention It."
Borden replied. ION the contrary, 10
there anything can do for you?"
There is. Engage passage for me to
America as your sister or some other
relative"
81 will do SO with pleasure When
do you wish to sail and from what
portT"
LAS to your first question. 1t depends.
AS to your second, Cherbourg will prob
ably be the best for me. Engage a
room for the next steamer. If l am
not ready to leave then must take the
next later"
IF 1 am to trust you it is but right
that you should trust me. Tell me your
story"
She did so, and he had been right In
his surmises as far as they went. Her
fate had made q mailman OF her IA.
Their. Her brother had gone to Kara
and had arranged for and effected her
escape. But he was killed by the
guards in doing so. Her mother had
died OF grief induced by the family mis-
fortunes.
"And now" said Borden after she
had given synopsis scarcely more de-
tailed than this. you are here In Paris
for revenge"
That he had OWNED her secret was
evident from the stare she gave him
and nervous shudder that passed
over her. Almost in a whisper Borden
added:
"You are here to assassinate the
car"
Whether 1t was that the danger, the
horror of 1t all, was suddenly revealed
to her; whether 1t was that her secret
had been so readily OWNED, causing
her to realize that her design was i'm
| practicable, does not matter. Possibly
| she did not know herself; possibly 10
| was a transfer of the burden she bore
! to one who sympathized with her. Her
| frame shook convulslvely; then, throw
ing herself back in her chair, she gave
way to passionate sobs.
Borden deemed the last of these sup
positions correct and permitted her To
take her time to decline from being
strung to the highest pitch to a normal
relaxedness. Then, reaching forward,
| he took her hand in his and said:
For two years you have never for
| q day been absent from my mind.
| Heaven has sent me to befriend you.
| Let me bear your burden. This meet
| ing has brought a change for US both
| l see for you, II not happy future, at
least one OF comparative comfort
Give up this mad design and let me
help you, plan for you, that you may
| gradually throw off a terrible past and
take on a more inviting future"
Borden In telling the story added:
There is an undercurrent to this ex-
! perience that no words can properly
express. Yet without it my story
would be like salt without SAVIOR. 10
| would have been merely an episode.
Had 1t not been for that Of which
speak this girl, suffering from a mad
ness to which she had been driven by
a cruel fate, would have Stunned me
instead Of calling on me to come to
her when We met In Paris. Whether
she would have tried to carry out her
desperate intention / do not know.
But one thing 1 knOw-owing to this
undercurrent of which l speak, taken
with our meeting, she was brought to
look upon what she had had in mind
with horror. More than this, the
whole current Of her life as well as
mine was turned into smoother waters.
As she herself afterward expressed IL,
the change was like riding into safe
harbor, leaving behind a tempest OF
angry winds and waves.
And what was this hidden power?
1t flashed between her and me when
she was staggering in the snow on her
way to Kara, when she looked UP and
saw pity In my eyes. Love. like the
electric spark, passed from me to her
and from her to me And like a spark
OF electricity. little in itself, it has
mower to move the universe"