It was now nearly dark, the town full of soldiery and discontented civilians; Hélène did not notice these things nor yet the bitter cold; she hastened along the frozen roads, the dried snow flying from beneath her feet, the fresh snow, beginning to drift in flakes from the leaden sky, falling on her dark clothes and chilled face and hands.
She found the house where he lodged; it was not far from the residence of the King-Elector. At the sight of the light in the windows the blood seemed to stir in her body again; he was still there; she would see him again, nothing seemed to matter but that the whole future narrowed to this moment of their meeting.
A Polish soldier was just leaving the house. Hélène brushed by him, stepped into the dim-lit hall, and asked the Livonian servant standing there for his master.
Before the man had time to reply General Patkul appeared in the doorway of a room immediately inside the entrance.
They advanced towards each other, and he seized her in his arms and almost carried her into the room.
It was a small rough chamber, lit by an oil lamp and a log fire; some half-packed valises lay on the floor and the table was strewn with papers, portfolios, and maps.
He expressed no surprise at thus seeing her again so soon after their farewell, but, caressing her, led her to the great chair with arms by the fire, threw back her damp coat, and chafed her cold hands.
“I had to come,” she murmured, looking up at him in speechless joy. “You know that, do you not?”
“I have been thinking of you so it seems as if you had never left me,” he answered; his whole face and neck had flushed, and his narrowed short-sighted eyes had darkened till they looked black as he gazed at her. “You come between me and everything, Hélène, even my unfortunate country.”
“You must not go,” she said, with sudden energy, “it is quite impossible--do you hear?”
“Darling--I leave to-morrow morning. Presently I will take you home in a sledge and you will dream of me, knowing that I am happy in the thought of you, and in that I am doing my plain duty.”
As he spoke, with great tenderness and the gravity of an ardent enthusiast, he went on his knees, and taking her little cold slippered feet in his hands, rubbed them and held them nearer to the fire.