Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1916 — The Traitress [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Traitress

By H. M. EGBERT

(Copyright. 10W. by W. Q. Chapman.) Basel is a little green oasis amid the awful deserts of the war. The little, neat Swiss town is always overflowing with those engaged in reconstructing what they can out of the chaos of suffering and desolation. It Is packed with Red Cross nurses and ambulances, and parties of French and German soldiers who are to be exchanged salute each other without animosity as they take the sun upon their crutches. My officer friend and I enjeyefl the sunlight together every morning, but he spent his afternoons lying down upstairs in his bedroom, shielded from the light by the green shutters. He was still far from strong. Hence he was not present late that afternoon when the Red Cros nurse made her confession to me. We had noticed each other from the beginning. I believe. There was something striking and arresting in her appearance. She was a Russian, I discovered afterward, and, like all Russians who are not peasants, was of noble affiliations. I had performed some trifling service for her, and somehow she came to tell me this —you know how often we make confessions to comparative strangers. "I am a spy, the daughter of a spy. I say ‘am,’ although I have not plied my trade for a long time, because once a spy always a spy % My father was a general in the army; he sold his country's secrets. Not for himself, but for the benefit of the Nihilistic fraternity, to which he belonged. That was his sense of patriotism—perverted but not wholly base. “He was discovered, as in the end he was bound to be, and put to death. He left me penniless. I was then a girl of nineteen. 1 spied too —for a living. It had been suggested to me that, with my advantages, I was capable of extracting secrets from Russian army officers, aiwayß unsuspicious. The proposal came from the foreign country

Which my father had secretly served. I accepted it, and it put me In possession of a comfortable income. “For years I went up and down through Russia, gathering information, until I had covered the land with a network of intrigue. I had agents under me; I was trusted absolutely by the foreign country I served. And then the war broke out, and all this devil’s sowing came to the ripening. “Colonel Repovitch was in charge of the arsenal at Krujevatz. The arsenal contained models of the new 25-centi-meter gun which was to be used by the Serbian and Russian forces. If I could procure a model of this gun, or even the ‘key* to the breech mechanism, I was to receive a hundred thousand rubles. “It was sport to me, this jesting with men’s lives and nations’ safety; and if I thought about it seriously at all I only thought of my father, shot by the Russian government, and of my duty to avenge him. The Russian government had not the least suspicion of my activities. f “I went to the garrison town of Krujevatz, and there, posing as a Russian countess, engaged in hospital work. I had no difficulty in scraping acquaintance with Colonel Repovitch, whom it was my mission to fascinate. We became friends. Before I had wormed cut of him the secret —and he trusted me implicitly and believed me to be a countrywoman of his —I realized that I loved him, as he loved me. I had never loved before. I had been too hard, too selfish and . too much engrossed in my sordid occupation. "I spent a terrible hour when I found myself face to face with my destiny. At last, summoning dll my pride to my assistance, won. I thought of my martyred father and —and of the hundred thousand rubleß then waiting for me in the pocket of the military spy, Count N—“1 knew where Colonel Repovitch kept his keys. I took them, opened his safe, and extracted the model of the gun. Colonel Repovitch was cm

(luty for a week in a distant town. When he came back the model reposed safely in his safe again, and the hundred thousand rubles were in my own pocket. “The news soon leaked out. Colonel Repovltch was placed on trial. Even then nobody suspected me, except , the colonel. He knew—and he would not betray me. Instead, he simpl/ sent me message, by a trusted orderly, to leave the country. “I went to Vienna, where I learned he had been condemned to death as a spy and was to be shot as soon as the czar confirmed the sentence. Why did I place my head within the lion’s Jaws again? - "I went back to Serbia because I loved him, and I felt that this treachery, which had taken a man's life away, had awakened something that had slumbered within me against my knowledge. I went back to confess — but first I must see Colonel Repovltch. "I reached Krujevat®—you know how these journeys can be arranged even in time of war. The colonel had not been put to death, but the czar’s order was expected hourly. By means of my influence —for he had not denounced me—l managed to secure an interview with him in his cell.

“When he saw me his face seemed to light up. In that hour of Imminent death the husk of the man had fallen away, revealing only the goodness of the spirit. He took my hands In his and bade me sit down. “ ‘Tell me how you came to do it,’ he said, as if he had been a father speaking to a child. “I burst into tears. Something hard in me melted also, and I confessed everything. I told him of my father’s occupation and his death; how I had come to take up the work of espionage; there was nothing that I did not reveal. When I had ended speaking he said;' gently: “‘At least my death will not have been.in vain if I have saved Russia the services of one of her enemies’ most trusted agents.’ “Then he spoke solemnly, because the time was very short and the warden was growing impatient. “ ‘I told you that I loved you, Vera,’ he said. “I had no suspicion of your occupation. When I discovered that you had forced the safe I felt that death would have been preferable to the knowledge of the dishonor of the one woman whom I had loved and believed in. You took away my faith. Can you give it back to me?’ “‘Yes, I would if it were possible,’ I answered, weeping. " ‘lt is possible, Vera,’ he answered. “‘How?’ I asked. «‘By telling me that you did love me and were not playing a part,’ said Colonel Repovltch. “I fell upon my knees and told him that I had been sincere. I had loved him Indeed, and it had been the love of a good man and the knowledge of my hideous perfidy that had awakened my soul. He listened till I had done. “‘I prayed for that,' he said. ‘Now I can die happily, Vera. And you will—?’ “ ‘I shall devote the rest of my life to trying to atone for my past life,’ I answered. “He kissed me, and then, as the guard was growing very impatient, I departed. I never saw him again. The enemy entered the town on the second day, and I have no doubt that he had already been shot in the citadel.” It would be impossible to exaggerate the horror on the face of the Red Cross nurse as she finished speaking. Then I took up the tale. “You cannot be Sure that he died,” I answered. “Suppose, for instance, that the order of the czar had not arrived before the storming of Krujevatz, and that he escaped.” “He would give himself up,” she answered with conviction.

“Well, then,” I resumed, “let us suppose that the order had not arrived. Imagine that the prison was thrown open in the face of the enemy, and that he took a rifle and fought like a common soldier, distinguishing himself so greatly that afterward the case was reopened. Suppose—just for a possibility, which can do no harm —“that the truth came out. Suppose he was pardoned and restored to his rank in the army." She looked at me with wide eyes. “What do you mean? What do you know?” she cried. “Suppose,” I continued, “that he fought through the rest of that campaign until he received a crippling, wound, which was the cause of his retirement, on half-pay, and that he left the service full of honors and warmly appreciated by his royal master.” She grasped me by the hand. “You have heard something; you are concealing something. Do not keep me in suspense!” she cried. “If you know anything of Colonel Repovitch, if indeed he does not lie beneath the sod in the arsenal of Krujevatz, tell me, for pity's sake!” At that moment my officer friend, having finished his siesta, came down the steps of the hotel, looking for me. When he was a hundred paces away, halting on his cane, and. stretching himself in the farm sunshine, I called to him. “Repovitch!” I cried. “Come here! Here is a lady who wants to make your acquaintance.” The Red Cross nurse stood still aa if turned to ice. “Where is the lady who wants to meet an old cripple?” asked Repovitch, hobbling gayly toward us. I took the nurse by the hand, and led her toward him. I could feel the blood throbbing fiercely in her veins. “Here,” I answered. Thus I left them.

Came Down the Steps.