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She paused again, but I did not speak.

“Those papers—but you know their purport well enough—mean the exposure of Russian craft in every Court in Europe, with probably a war with the Powers that have been tricked and fooled. They know already that we have secret information, and we have been in negotiation with them. But I am a Russian, too, and planned this interview, hoping that when face to face with you I could touch the heart so long dead to the cries of friendship. I have failed; I see that. You will not remember; you cannot forget; even for you that would be impossible. You have denied me justice, but I thank my God you cannot take from me all my revenge.”

Her passion was rising fast now under the stimulus of her remembered wrongs, and she went to the door and threw it open.

“Go, monsieur, go,” she cried, with a magnificent gesture of defiance. “Cross the threshold in the mood you are, and as I live, those papers, proofs as they are of your ministers’ infamous treachery, shall be in the hands already stretched out eagerly to receive them—the hands of Russia’s enemies. That is what I mean. Go, monsieur, go—if you dare.” She held the door open and stared at me in indignant defiance and challenge.