The Mission of Poubalov — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

A DANGEROUS MAN. 00 CHAPTER VII. A DANGEROUS MAN, For some minutes after Poubalov left the house Clara sat motionless, reviewing the strange discourse of the Russian, trying to persuade herself one moment to trust him, and the next impulsively throwing aside the theories so finely spun from his inuendoes and circumlocutions. She shuddered at the thought of Ivan in the hands of sucb fanatics as she knew were included in the most rabiG enemies of Russian polity, and as promptly felt such a so- lution of the mystery to be impossible. Equally impossible semed fhe solution that premised a fear on the part of | Ivan so great that he dared not let even his intended wife know of his whereabout. Removed from the influence of Poubalov’s magnetic personality and his subtle arguments, Clara felt that it was to him rather than to the Nihilists that she must look for implacable hostility to Ivan. Yet why should Ivan, resident in and prospective citizen of the United States, fear him, an ‘“‘official agent of a friendly government’’? Fear? That was not like the Ivan she knew and loved! Was it not again impossible that her lover should have been so stirred by fear of anybody or anything as to take flight and conceal his hiding-place from her? On the other hand, how could she know what influ- ences had been suddenly applied to Ivan to make him take a seemingly indefensible if not impossible course? And what was more impossible, in any of the suggested solu- tions, than his very disappearance, which was a painful fact, although hard to realize even after nearly twenty- four hours had passed since the time set for his wedding? GOMIIGDOOks