Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.The Masked Circe.The success of “The Masked Circe” in last year’s Royal Academy was incontestable, not only for the intrinsic beauty of the picture, but from the fact that the personal charms of a handsome woman were perpetuated without compromising her features. Woman’s vanity often outruns her natural diffidence, and the consciousness of her great beauty stifles the conscience of modesty.Visitors to the Academy know the picture. Circe, seated on a throne, with her back to a great circular mirror, presents a half-draped figure of marvellous delicate colouring and beauty of outline. One hand holds aloft a golden wine-goblet, and the other a tapering wand, while upon the tesselated pavement before the daïs purple grapes and yellow roses have been strewn. The black hair of the daughter of Perseis falls in profusion about her bare shoulders, and strays over her breast, but her features are hidden by a half-mask of black silk. The lips, with theirarc de cupidon, are slightly parted, disclosing an even row of pearly teeth, and giving an expression of recklessdiablerie.Of the thousands who have gazed upon it in admiration, none knows the somewhat remarkable story connected with it. As I have been closely associated with it, from the day it was outlined in charcoal, until the evening it was packed in a crate and sent for the inspection of the hanging committee, it is perhapsàproposthat I should relate the narrative.The studio of my old friend, Dick Carruthers, the man who painted it, is on Campden Hill, Kensington, within a few hundred yards of where I reside, and in the centre of an aesthetic artistic colony. We have been chums for years, for on many occasions he has displayed his talent as a black and white artist in illustrating my articles and stories in various magazines. He is a popular painter, and as handsome a man as ever had a picture “on the line.”Three years ago, when the prologue of this secret drama was enacted, he was in the habit of coming over when the light had faded, to smoke a cigarette and discuss art and literature with me. I was glad of a chat after a hard day’s work at my writing-table, but his companionship had one drawback. He drivelled over a girl he loved, and was forever suggesting that I might take her as a character and drag her into the novel upon which I was engaged.One day he drew a cabinet photograph carefully from his pocket, and placed it upon the blotting-pad before me.The girl he loved! Bah! I knew her, though I did not tell him so. She was a dark-haired, pink-and-white beauty that flitted through artistic Bohemia like a butterfly in a hothouse. The sight of the pictured face brought back to me the memory of days long past—of a closed chapter in my life’s history. I remembered the first time I saw Ethel Broughton, fully five years before. She wore a soiled pink wrapper, her satin slippers were trodden down at heel, and she had a bottle of champagne at her elbow. At that time her lover, grandiloquent and impecunious Mr Harry Oranmore, a bad but handsome actor, had been untrue to her, and she, a third-rate actress, who had aningénuepart at a Strand theatre, was reviling him. I had been taken to her house and introduced by a mutual friend, but she scarcely heeded me. Probably she was thinking of Oranmore, for she clasped her slim fingers round her suffering throat, and offered up an occasional sob, following it with a silent but protracted draught from her glass.The result of this interview was but natural. Dazzled by her beauty, I sympathised with her, endeavoured to cheer her, and concluded by falling violently in love with her. At that time I was writing numbers of dramatic criticisms, and I confess I used what weight my opinions possessed for the purpose of her advancement. It is needless to refer to the smooth and uninterrupted course of our love. Suffice it to say that we were both Bohemians, and that within a year I had the satisfaction of sitting before the footlights, watching her make her début as “leading lady” at a West End theatre, and a few days later of observing her photograph exhibited in shop windows among those of other stage beauties.But, alas! those halcyon days were all too brief. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. A scene occurred between us—and we parted.To think that sin should lie for years in the blood, just as arsenic does in a corpse!When I discovered that Dick Carruthers was wasting the very honest and ardent emotions of his heart at this feverish fairy’s shrine, I resolved to take him aside, and, without admitting that I knew her, give him a verbal drubbing. I did so, but he bit his moustache fiercely, and turned upon me.“She is charming,” he said, “and I love her.”“Ah! I know the type—”“You know nothing, old fellow!” he exclaimed, flushing angrily. “But”—he shrugged his shoulders—“the prejudices of the world count for—what? Nothing at all. The curse of the Philistine is his Philistinism.”“Very well, Dick, old chap, forget my words,” I said. “I approach your idol in the properly reverential spirit.”“You shall see her before long.” His gaze grew bright, soft, and vague, as one who catches glimpses of the floating garments of supernatural mysteries. “Ah, she is lovely! Only an artist can appreciate her beauty.”I saw that words were of no avail. Like Ulysses, he was living in the paradise of Aeaea, heedless of everything under the spell she had cast about him.One night, not long after I had expressed my sentiments to him regarding his infatuation, I entered his studio, and found his goddess seated by the fire, with her shapely feet upon the fender, sipping kümmel from a tiny glass, and holding a lighted cigarette between her dainty fingers.Dick flung down his palette, and came forward to introduce me. Her dark eyes met mine, and we tacitly agreed not to recognise each other, therefore we bowed as perfect strangers. As I seated myself, and she poured me out a liqueur, I caught her glancing furtively at me under her long lashes. She had grown even handsomer than when last I had seen her, and was the picture of the romanticBohemienne. Her dress was of black gauze, through which the milky whiteness of her figure seemed to shine. Yet, as she turned her beautiful face towards me, I was struck by the complete effect of physical and moral frailty that she presented.She expressed pleasure at meeting me, remarking that she had read my last novel, and had been keenly interested in it.When I had briefly acknowledged the compliment she paid me, she said—“One thing always strikes me in reading your stories. Your women are inevitably false and fickle. Perhaps, however, you write from personal experience of the failings of my sex,” she laughed.Glancing sharply at her, I saw that her eyes did not waver.“It is true I once knew a woman who proved false and infamous,” I replied, with some emphasis.“And you avenge yourself by reviling all of us. It is really too bad!” she said, pouting like a spoiled child.“By Jove, old fellow,” Dick chimed in, “do tell us about your romance! It would be interesting to know the reason you set your face against all the fair ones.”But I succeeded in turning the conversation into another channel. I saw I had intruded upon them, so, making an excuse, I bade themau revoir, and returned to my own book-lined den.Unlocking a drawer in my writing-table, I took out a packet of letters that still emitted a stale odour of violets. Then I lit my pipe, and one by one read them through, pausing and pondering over the declarations of passionate love they contained. Far into the night I sat reviewing the romance of bygone days, until I came to the last letter. It was a cold, formal note, merely a few lines of hurried scrawl, and read: “You are right. I have been false to you. Think no more of me. By the time you receive this I shall be on my way to New York; nevertheless, you will be always remembered by yours unworthily—Ethel.” Bitter memories of the past overwhelmed me; but at last, growing impatient, and tossing the letters back into the drawer, I strove to forget. The clock had struck two, and my reading-lamp was burning low and sputtering when I rose to retire for the night. I confess that my frame of mind surprised me, inasmuch as I actually found myself still loving her.“Good afternoon. I hope I don’t disturb you.”Looking up from my work, I saw Ethel.“Not at all. Pray sit down,” I said coldly, motioning her to an armchair. “To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”She pulled off her long gloves, and let her sealskin cape fall at her feet, while I put down my pen, and, rising, stood with my back to the fire.With her she had brought the odour of violets, the same that I remembered years ago; the same perfume that always stirred sad memories within me.“You don’t welcome me very warmly,” she said in a disappointed tone, as she grasped my hand, and looked steadily into my eyes.“No,” I said sternly. “Last night I told you that a woman had embittered my life. The woman I referred to was yourself.”“Ah,” she said, striving to suppress a sob, “Forgive me! I—I was mad then. I loved you; but I did not apprehend the consequence.”“Love? What nonsense to speak of it, when through your baseness I have been almost ruined. Think of your actions on the day before you left me; how you took from that drawer a signed blank cheque, with which you drew six hundred pounds,—nearly all the money I possessed,—and then fled with your lover. Is that the way a woman shows her affection?”Her head was bowed in humiliation.“Forgive me, Harold,” she said, with intense earnestness. “I admit that I wronged you cruelly, that I discarded the honest love you gave me; but you—you do not know how weak we women are when temptation is in our path. Cannot I now make amends?”I shook my head sadly.“Don’t say that you will not forgive,” she implored tearfully. “At least I am honest. My object in coming this afternoon was to repay the money I—I borrowed.” And she drew forth an envelope from her pocket and handed it to me.“There are notes for six hundred pounds,” she added, as I took it and felt the crisp paper inside.“How did you obtain it?” I asked, hesitating to receive it.“I have earned it honestly, every penny,” she replied. “Since we parted, I have become popular in America, and played ‘lead’ in nearly all the great cities. During the years that have gone I have many, many times wondered what had become of you, for in your writings I read plainly how soured and embittered you had become.”“And where is Oranmore?”“Dead. He contracted typhoid while we were playing in San Francisco, and it terminated fatally.”“Ethel,” I said gravely, taking her hand in mine, “you have fascinated Dick Carruthers, my friend; and you will treat him as you treated me.”“No, no. I love him,” she said in a fierce half-whisper, adding, “Keep secret the fact that we loved one another, and I swear before Heaven I will be true to him. If he marries me, he shall never have cause for regret—never!”“Suppose I told him? What would he think of you?”“You will not!” she cried, clinging to me. “You are too honourable for that. Promise to keep my secret!”“For the present I will preserve silence,” I answered, my heart softening towards her. “But I cannot promise that I will never tell him.”“I am going to sit to him as model,” she said, after a brief silence. “What character do you think would best suit me?”“Well, I should suggest that of Circe—the woman who broke men’s hearts,” I replied, mischievously.“Excellent! I shall be able to assume that character well,” she said, with a grim smile. “I will tell him.”Spring came and went, but I saw very little of Dick. He had received a commission from one of the illustrated papers to make a series of sketches of scenery in Scotland, and consequently he was away a good deal. Whenever he paid flying visits to London, however, he always looked me up, but, strangely enough, never mentioned Ethel. Nevertheless, I ascertained that they frequently met.At the close of a blue summer’s day, when the dreamy, golden haze wrapped the city in a mystic charm, I called at the studio, having heard that he had returned, and was settling down to work.When I entered, Dick was standing before his easel, pipe in mouth and crayon in hand, busily sketching; while on the raised “throne” before him sat Ethel, radiant and beautiful. A tender smile played about her lips. It seemed as though a happiness—full, complete, perfectly satisfying—had taken possession of her, and lifted her out of herself—out of the world even.“Welcome, old fellow!” Dick cried, turning to shake hands with me. “Behold my Circe!” and he waved his hand in the direction of his model. “Ethel will not sit for any other subject. It hardly does her justice—does it?”“It is a strange fancy of mine,” she explained, when I had greeted her. “I’m sure the dress is very becoming—isn’t it?” And she waved the goblet she was holding above her head.“Your pose is perfect, dear. Please don’t alter it,” urged the artist; who, advancing to his easel again, continued the free, rapid outline.We chatted and laughed together for nearly an hour, until the tints of pearl and rose had melted imperceptibly into the deep night sky; then Dick lit the lamps, while Ethel retired into the model’s sanctum to resume her nineteenth century attire.Presently she reappeared, and we went to dine together at a restaurant in Piccadilly, afterwards visiting a theatre, and spending a very pleasant evening.Poor Dick! I was sorry that he was so infatuated. He was such a large-hearted, honest fellow, that I felt quite pained when I anticipated the awakening that must inevitably come sooner or later. He knew absolutely nothing of her past, and was quite ignorant that she had been a popular actress.In the months that followed, I visited the studio almost daily, and watched the growth of the picture. Dick was putting his whole soul into the composition, and my knowledge of art—acquired by years of idling in the ateliers of the Quartier Latin, and dabbling with the colours a little myself—told me that he was engaged upon what promised to be his finest work.The face was a lifelike portrait. The delicate tints of the neck and arms were reproduced with a skill that betrayed the master hand, and the reflection in the mirror behind had a wonderfully natural appearance, while the bright colours enhanced the general effect of gay, reckless abandon.The fair model herself was charmed with it. Woman’s vanity always betrays itself over her picture.One evening, at the time the canvas was receiving its finishing touches, I returned home from a stroll across Kensington Gardens, and, on going in, heard some one playing upon my piano, and a sweet soprano voice singing Trotere’s “In Old Madrid.” I recognised the clear tones as those of Ethel.“Ah, Harold!” she cried, jumping up as I entered the room. “I was amusing myself until your return. I—I have something to tell you.”“Well, what is it?” I asked, rather surprised.“Cannot you guess? Dick has asked me to become his wife,” she said in a low tone.“The thing’s impossible!” I cried warmly. “I will not allow it. You may be friends, but he shall never marry you.”“How cruel you are!” she said, with a touch of sadness. “But, after all, your apprehensions are groundless. I have refused.”“Refused? Why?”“For reasons of my own,” she replied in a harsh, strained voice. “If—if he speaks to you, urge him to abandon thoughts of love, and regard me as a friend only.”“You are at least sensible, Ethel,” I said. “It is gratifying to know that you recognise the impossibility of such an union.”Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded, but did not reply.A dry, grey day in March. It was “Show Sunday,” that institution in the art world, when the painter opens his studio to his friends and the public, to show them the picture he is about to send to the Academy. The exhibition is in many instances but the showing beforehand of the garlands of victory in a battle which is doomed to be lost, for when the opening day comes, many of the anxious artists do not have the luck to see their pictures hung at all. Then insincere admirers smile in their sleeves at the painter’s chagrin. I have always been thankful that the happy writer of books has no such ordeal to face. He never reads his new romance to his friends, nor do his well-wishers applaud in advance. Reviewers have first tilt at “advance copies,” and very properly.From morn till eve on “Show Sunday,” Campden Hill is always blocked by the carriages of the curious, and studios are besieged by fashionable crowds, whose chatter and laughter mingles pleasantly with the clinking of tea-cups. On this occasion, as on previous ones, I assisted Dick to receive his visitors, but unfortunately Ethel had been taken suddenly unwell, and could not attend.My anticipations proved correct. “Circe” was voted an unqualified success. The opinions of critics who dropped in were unanimous that it was the artist’s masterpiece, and that the expression and general conception were marvellous—a verdict endorsed by gushing society women, bored club men, and the inanejeunesse dorée.A scrap of conversation I overheard in the course of the afternoon, however, caused me to ponder.An elderly man, evidently a foreigner, wearing the violet ribbon of the French Academy in his buttonhole, was standing with a young girl in the crowd around the easel.“Why, look, papa! That face!” the girl cried, when her eyes fell upon the canvas. “It isherportrait! Surely the Signore cannot know!”“Dio!” exclaimed the old man, evidently recognising the features. “The picture is indeed magnificent; but to think that she should allow herself to appear in that character! Come away, Zélie; let us go.”I heard no more, for they turned and left. Having acted as eavesdropper, I could hardly question them. Nevertheless, I was sorely puzzled.“Look! Read that!”In surprise I glanced up from my work of romance-weaving on the following morning, and saw Dick, pale and agitated, standing at my elbow.The letter he placed before me was in a woman’s hand, and emitted the faintest breath of violets. A glance was sufficient to recognise that the sprawly writing was Ethel’s.Taking it up, I eagerly read the following lines it contained:—“Dear Dick,—I regret to tell you that circumstances preclude me from ever meeting you again. I am going far away, where you cannot find me. It was foolish for us to have loved, therefore forget me. That you may meet some one far worthier than myself, and that ‘Circe’ may bring you fame and fortune, is the most sincere hope of your models.“Ethel.”“I warned you against your infatuation, old fellow,” I said seriously.“But I couldn’t help it. I—I loved her,” he answered in a hoarse, trembling voice.“Forget her,” I argued. “She is worthless and vain; why make yourself miserable?”“Ah, you are right!” he said, as if suddenly impressed by the force of my arguments, while his face assumed a hard, determined expression. “She is Circe indeed, and she had her foot upon my neck. But it is all over,” he added bitterly. “I shall think no more of her.”Then he wished me an abrupt farewell, and left, apparently in order to conceal his emotion.That evening I called at Dick’s house, but was informed by his housekeeper that he had packed his bag and departed, stating that he would not return for at least a month, perhaps longer. When I entered the studio, gloomy in the twilight, I was astonished to find that the “Circe” had been removed from the easel, and that it was standing in a corner with its face to the wall.Something prompted me to turn it, and when I did so, I discovered to my dismay that in his frenzy of mad despair he had taken a brushful of black paint and drawn it across the face, making a great, ugly, disfiguring daub over the forehead and eyebrows, utterly ruining the features, and producing a curiously forbidding effect.The colour was not dry, therefore I was enabled to remove the greater portion of it with a silk handkerchief, but I saw with regret that the tints of the forehead had been irretrievably ruined, rendering the picture valueless.The days went by. The limit for sending in to the Academy was approaching; but Dick did not write, and I could only wonder vaguely where he was wandering. It was a great pity, I thought, that such a fine work should not be exhibited. Yet the wilful obliteration had utterly spoiled it.While sitting in his studio musing one day, it suddenly occurred to me that if the flaw upon the forehead could be hidden, it might, after all, be sent for the inspection of the hanging committee.Taking it up, I examined it minutely in the light. The idea of placing a half-mask upon the face suggested itself, and without delay I proceeded to carry it into effect. The little skill with the brush that I possess enabled me to paint in the half-lights upon the black silk, and the laughing eyes being fortunately intact, I allowed them to peer through the apertures.The effect produced was startling, and none could have been more astonished at the result of my daubing than myself. The mask seemed to increase the recklessdiablerieof its wearer, and enhance the fairness of the complexion, while it added an air of mystery not at all unpleasing to the eye.A few days later, I dispatched it to the Academy, and waited patiently for the opening day, when I experienced the mingled surprise and satisfaction of seeing it hung “upon the line.”The “Masked Circe” was pronounced one of the pictures of the year. Thousands admired it. The papers were full of laudatory notices; but the man who painted it, unaware of the fame he had suddenly achieved, was hiding his sorrow somewhere in the Vosges. A stray copy of an English newspaper containing a notice of his work, which Dick picked up in a hotel, however, caused him to return.He burst into my room unceremoniously one morning, still attired in his travelling ulster. I saw that he was haggard-eyed and wild-looking. From his conversation, I knew that time had not healed the wound in his heart.“I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently, old chap, for touching up my daub. It seems that the public admireheras much as I have done. I—I shall find her some day; then she will return to me.”“Still thinking of her?” I observed reproachfully.“Yes; always, always,” he replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I—I cannot forget.”Dick’s popularity steadily increased; lucrative commissions poured in upon him, and he settled down to such hard, methodical work, that I began to think he had forgotten the woman who had enmeshed him.With beaming face he came to me one summer’s morning and announced that, although the committee of the Chantrey Bequest had offered to purchase the “Masked Circe,” he had just received a letter from the Count di Sestri, the well-known Anglo-Italian millionaire and art patron, saying that he desired to buy it, and asking him to go down to Oxted Park, his seat in Surrey, to arrange the price.“I am going to-day,” he said. “You masked her, and it is only fair that you should have a word in the bargain. You must come too.”At first I hesitated, but at length acquiesced.That evening the Count received us in the library of his country mansion, and congratulated Dick warmly upon his masterpiece. It was evident that he meant to secure it at any cost, therefore the price was soon arranged; and before we had been there half an hour, my companion had a cheque for four figures in his pocket.We were about to make our adieux, but the Count would not hear of it.“Dinner will be ready almost immediately,” he said. “You must stay. We are quiteen famille, you know. Only my wife and I.”A few moments later the door opened, and there was the rustle of a silken train.“Ah, here’s the Countess!” exclaimed the millionaire, stepping forward to introduce us.We turned, and saw a pale, beautiful woman, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.“Ethel! You?” we both cried in amazement.“Dick!” she gasped. “You—you have found me!”She reeled backwards, and before we could save her, fell senseless to the floor.A few words of excuse and explanation, and we left the Count, who, kneeling beside his wife and endeavouring to resuscitate her, was completely mystified at the strange recognition. Dick, almost beside himself with grief at discovering his idol already married, returned at once to London, while I remained at an inn at Oxted in order to glean some further information.Inquiries showed that the Count had met her while travelling in America, and had married her. Since that time they had apparently lived happily, and not a breath of scandal had besmirched her fair name. The reason she always refused us her address was now clear; and it was evident that, while in residence at her London house in Park Lane, she had been in the habit of paying us visits unknown to her husband, assuming the character of an unmarried and flightyBohemienne.On the following day I called at the Park to inquire after the Countess’s health.The footman looked pale and grave when I asked after her ladyship.“I much regret to inform you, sir, that my mistress is dead,” he said.“Dead?” I cried. “Impossible!”“Yes, sir. Her maid discovered her in her boudoir late last night, and found that she had taken an overdose of morphia. We sent for the doctor, but before his arrival life was extinct. The Count is insane with grief, more especially because the maid discovered that her ladyship had left a letter to some man she calls Dick, telling him that she loved him, and could live no longer.”Dick rarely smiles, and is invariably gloomy and sad, poor fellow. The Count, ignorant of the truth, has hung his latest purchase in the private gallery of his great palace in Rome, little dreaming that the “Masked Circe” is actually the picture of his dead wife.

The success of “The Masked Circe” in last year’s Royal Academy was incontestable, not only for the intrinsic beauty of the picture, but from the fact that the personal charms of a handsome woman were perpetuated without compromising her features. Woman’s vanity often outruns her natural diffidence, and the consciousness of her great beauty stifles the conscience of modesty.

Visitors to the Academy know the picture. Circe, seated on a throne, with her back to a great circular mirror, presents a half-draped figure of marvellous delicate colouring and beauty of outline. One hand holds aloft a golden wine-goblet, and the other a tapering wand, while upon the tesselated pavement before the daïs purple grapes and yellow roses have been strewn. The black hair of the daughter of Perseis falls in profusion about her bare shoulders, and strays over her breast, but her features are hidden by a half-mask of black silk. The lips, with theirarc de cupidon, are slightly parted, disclosing an even row of pearly teeth, and giving an expression of recklessdiablerie.

Of the thousands who have gazed upon it in admiration, none knows the somewhat remarkable story connected with it. As I have been closely associated with it, from the day it was outlined in charcoal, until the evening it was packed in a crate and sent for the inspection of the hanging committee, it is perhapsàproposthat I should relate the narrative.

The studio of my old friend, Dick Carruthers, the man who painted it, is on Campden Hill, Kensington, within a few hundred yards of where I reside, and in the centre of an aesthetic artistic colony. We have been chums for years, for on many occasions he has displayed his talent as a black and white artist in illustrating my articles and stories in various magazines. He is a popular painter, and as handsome a man as ever had a picture “on the line.”

Three years ago, when the prologue of this secret drama was enacted, he was in the habit of coming over when the light had faded, to smoke a cigarette and discuss art and literature with me. I was glad of a chat after a hard day’s work at my writing-table, but his companionship had one drawback. He drivelled over a girl he loved, and was forever suggesting that I might take her as a character and drag her into the novel upon which I was engaged.

One day he drew a cabinet photograph carefully from his pocket, and placed it upon the blotting-pad before me.

The girl he loved! Bah! I knew her, though I did not tell him so. She was a dark-haired, pink-and-white beauty that flitted through artistic Bohemia like a butterfly in a hothouse. The sight of the pictured face brought back to me the memory of days long past—of a closed chapter in my life’s history. I remembered the first time I saw Ethel Broughton, fully five years before. She wore a soiled pink wrapper, her satin slippers were trodden down at heel, and she had a bottle of champagne at her elbow. At that time her lover, grandiloquent and impecunious Mr Harry Oranmore, a bad but handsome actor, had been untrue to her, and she, a third-rate actress, who had aningénuepart at a Strand theatre, was reviling him. I had been taken to her house and introduced by a mutual friend, but she scarcely heeded me. Probably she was thinking of Oranmore, for she clasped her slim fingers round her suffering throat, and offered up an occasional sob, following it with a silent but protracted draught from her glass.

The result of this interview was but natural. Dazzled by her beauty, I sympathised with her, endeavoured to cheer her, and concluded by falling violently in love with her. At that time I was writing numbers of dramatic criticisms, and I confess I used what weight my opinions possessed for the purpose of her advancement. It is needless to refer to the smooth and uninterrupted course of our love. Suffice it to say that we were both Bohemians, and that within a year I had the satisfaction of sitting before the footlights, watching her make her début as “leading lady” at a West End theatre, and a few days later of observing her photograph exhibited in shop windows among those of other stage beauties.

But, alas! those halcyon days were all too brief. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. A scene occurred between us—and we parted.

To think that sin should lie for years in the blood, just as arsenic does in a corpse!

When I discovered that Dick Carruthers was wasting the very honest and ardent emotions of his heart at this feverish fairy’s shrine, I resolved to take him aside, and, without admitting that I knew her, give him a verbal drubbing. I did so, but he bit his moustache fiercely, and turned upon me.

“She is charming,” he said, “and I love her.”

“Ah! I know the type—”

“You know nothing, old fellow!” he exclaimed, flushing angrily. “But”—he shrugged his shoulders—“the prejudices of the world count for—what? Nothing at all. The curse of the Philistine is his Philistinism.”

“Very well, Dick, old chap, forget my words,” I said. “I approach your idol in the properly reverential spirit.”

“You shall see her before long.” His gaze grew bright, soft, and vague, as one who catches glimpses of the floating garments of supernatural mysteries. “Ah, she is lovely! Only an artist can appreciate her beauty.”

I saw that words were of no avail. Like Ulysses, he was living in the paradise of Aeaea, heedless of everything under the spell she had cast about him.

One night, not long after I had expressed my sentiments to him regarding his infatuation, I entered his studio, and found his goddess seated by the fire, with her shapely feet upon the fender, sipping kümmel from a tiny glass, and holding a lighted cigarette between her dainty fingers.

Dick flung down his palette, and came forward to introduce me. Her dark eyes met mine, and we tacitly agreed not to recognise each other, therefore we bowed as perfect strangers. As I seated myself, and she poured me out a liqueur, I caught her glancing furtively at me under her long lashes. She had grown even handsomer than when last I had seen her, and was the picture of the romanticBohemienne. Her dress was of black gauze, through which the milky whiteness of her figure seemed to shine. Yet, as she turned her beautiful face towards me, I was struck by the complete effect of physical and moral frailty that she presented.

She expressed pleasure at meeting me, remarking that she had read my last novel, and had been keenly interested in it.

When I had briefly acknowledged the compliment she paid me, she said—

“One thing always strikes me in reading your stories. Your women are inevitably false and fickle. Perhaps, however, you write from personal experience of the failings of my sex,” she laughed.

Glancing sharply at her, I saw that her eyes did not waver.

“It is true I once knew a woman who proved false and infamous,” I replied, with some emphasis.

“And you avenge yourself by reviling all of us. It is really too bad!” she said, pouting like a spoiled child.

“By Jove, old fellow,” Dick chimed in, “do tell us about your romance! It would be interesting to know the reason you set your face against all the fair ones.”

But I succeeded in turning the conversation into another channel. I saw I had intruded upon them, so, making an excuse, I bade themau revoir, and returned to my own book-lined den.

Unlocking a drawer in my writing-table, I took out a packet of letters that still emitted a stale odour of violets. Then I lit my pipe, and one by one read them through, pausing and pondering over the declarations of passionate love they contained. Far into the night I sat reviewing the romance of bygone days, until I came to the last letter. It was a cold, formal note, merely a few lines of hurried scrawl, and read: “You are right. I have been false to you. Think no more of me. By the time you receive this I shall be on my way to New York; nevertheless, you will be always remembered by yours unworthily—Ethel.” Bitter memories of the past overwhelmed me; but at last, growing impatient, and tossing the letters back into the drawer, I strove to forget. The clock had struck two, and my reading-lamp was burning low and sputtering when I rose to retire for the night. I confess that my frame of mind surprised me, inasmuch as I actually found myself still loving her.

“Good afternoon. I hope I don’t disturb you.”

Looking up from my work, I saw Ethel.

“Not at all. Pray sit down,” I said coldly, motioning her to an armchair. “To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”

She pulled off her long gloves, and let her sealskin cape fall at her feet, while I put down my pen, and, rising, stood with my back to the fire.

With her she had brought the odour of violets, the same that I remembered years ago; the same perfume that always stirred sad memories within me.

“You don’t welcome me very warmly,” she said in a disappointed tone, as she grasped my hand, and looked steadily into my eyes.

“No,” I said sternly. “Last night I told you that a woman had embittered my life. The woman I referred to was yourself.”

“Ah,” she said, striving to suppress a sob, “Forgive me! I—I was mad then. I loved you; but I did not apprehend the consequence.”

“Love? What nonsense to speak of it, when through your baseness I have been almost ruined. Think of your actions on the day before you left me; how you took from that drawer a signed blank cheque, with which you drew six hundred pounds,—nearly all the money I possessed,—and then fled with your lover. Is that the way a woman shows her affection?”

Her head was bowed in humiliation.

“Forgive me, Harold,” she said, with intense earnestness. “I admit that I wronged you cruelly, that I discarded the honest love you gave me; but you—you do not know how weak we women are when temptation is in our path. Cannot I now make amends?”

I shook my head sadly.

“Don’t say that you will not forgive,” she implored tearfully. “At least I am honest. My object in coming this afternoon was to repay the money I—I borrowed.” And she drew forth an envelope from her pocket and handed it to me.

“There are notes for six hundred pounds,” she added, as I took it and felt the crisp paper inside.

“How did you obtain it?” I asked, hesitating to receive it.

“I have earned it honestly, every penny,” she replied. “Since we parted, I have become popular in America, and played ‘lead’ in nearly all the great cities. During the years that have gone I have many, many times wondered what had become of you, for in your writings I read plainly how soured and embittered you had become.”

“And where is Oranmore?”

“Dead. He contracted typhoid while we were playing in San Francisco, and it terminated fatally.”

“Ethel,” I said gravely, taking her hand in mine, “you have fascinated Dick Carruthers, my friend; and you will treat him as you treated me.”

“No, no. I love him,” she said in a fierce half-whisper, adding, “Keep secret the fact that we loved one another, and I swear before Heaven I will be true to him. If he marries me, he shall never have cause for regret—never!”

“Suppose I told him? What would he think of you?”

“You will not!” she cried, clinging to me. “You are too honourable for that. Promise to keep my secret!”

“For the present I will preserve silence,” I answered, my heart softening towards her. “But I cannot promise that I will never tell him.”

“I am going to sit to him as model,” she said, after a brief silence. “What character do you think would best suit me?”

“Well, I should suggest that of Circe—the woman who broke men’s hearts,” I replied, mischievously.

“Excellent! I shall be able to assume that character well,” she said, with a grim smile. “I will tell him.”

Spring came and went, but I saw very little of Dick. He had received a commission from one of the illustrated papers to make a series of sketches of scenery in Scotland, and consequently he was away a good deal. Whenever he paid flying visits to London, however, he always looked me up, but, strangely enough, never mentioned Ethel. Nevertheless, I ascertained that they frequently met.

At the close of a blue summer’s day, when the dreamy, golden haze wrapped the city in a mystic charm, I called at the studio, having heard that he had returned, and was settling down to work.

When I entered, Dick was standing before his easel, pipe in mouth and crayon in hand, busily sketching; while on the raised “throne” before him sat Ethel, radiant and beautiful. A tender smile played about her lips. It seemed as though a happiness—full, complete, perfectly satisfying—had taken possession of her, and lifted her out of herself—out of the world even.

“Welcome, old fellow!” Dick cried, turning to shake hands with me. “Behold my Circe!” and he waved his hand in the direction of his model. “Ethel will not sit for any other subject. It hardly does her justice—does it?”

“It is a strange fancy of mine,” she explained, when I had greeted her. “I’m sure the dress is very becoming—isn’t it?” And she waved the goblet she was holding above her head.

“Your pose is perfect, dear. Please don’t alter it,” urged the artist; who, advancing to his easel again, continued the free, rapid outline.

We chatted and laughed together for nearly an hour, until the tints of pearl and rose had melted imperceptibly into the deep night sky; then Dick lit the lamps, while Ethel retired into the model’s sanctum to resume her nineteenth century attire.

Presently she reappeared, and we went to dine together at a restaurant in Piccadilly, afterwards visiting a theatre, and spending a very pleasant evening.

Poor Dick! I was sorry that he was so infatuated. He was such a large-hearted, honest fellow, that I felt quite pained when I anticipated the awakening that must inevitably come sooner or later. He knew absolutely nothing of her past, and was quite ignorant that she had been a popular actress.

In the months that followed, I visited the studio almost daily, and watched the growth of the picture. Dick was putting his whole soul into the composition, and my knowledge of art—acquired by years of idling in the ateliers of the Quartier Latin, and dabbling with the colours a little myself—told me that he was engaged upon what promised to be his finest work.

The face was a lifelike portrait. The delicate tints of the neck and arms were reproduced with a skill that betrayed the master hand, and the reflection in the mirror behind had a wonderfully natural appearance, while the bright colours enhanced the general effect of gay, reckless abandon.

The fair model herself was charmed with it. Woman’s vanity always betrays itself over her picture.

One evening, at the time the canvas was receiving its finishing touches, I returned home from a stroll across Kensington Gardens, and, on going in, heard some one playing upon my piano, and a sweet soprano voice singing Trotere’s “In Old Madrid.” I recognised the clear tones as those of Ethel.

“Ah, Harold!” she cried, jumping up as I entered the room. “I was amusing myself until your return. I—I have something to tell you.”

“Well, what is it?” I asked, rather surprised.

“Cannot you guess? Dick has asked me to become his wife,” she said in a low tone.

“The thing’s impossible!” I cried warmly. “I will not allow it. You may be friends, but he shall never marry you.”

“How cruel you are!” she said, with a touch of sadness. “But, after all, your apprehensions are groundless. I have refused.”

“Refused? Why?”

“For reasons of my own,” she replied in a harsh, strained voice. “If—if he speaks to you, urge him to abandon thoughts of love, and regard me as a friend only.”

“You are at least sensible, Ethel,” I said. “It is gratifying to know that you recognise the impossibility of such an union.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded, but did not reply.

A dry, grey day in March. It was “Show Sunday,” that institution in the art world, when the painter opens his studio to his friends and the public, to show them the picture he is about to send to the Academy. The exhibition is in many instances but the showing beforehand of the garlands of victory in a battle which is doomed to be lost, for when the opening day comes, many of the anxious artists do not have the luck to see their pictures hung at all. Then insincere admirers smile in their sleeves at the painter’s chagrin. I have always been thankful that the happy writer of books has no such ordeal to face. He never reads his new romance to his friends, nor do his well-wishers applaud in advance. Reviewers have first tilt at “advance copies,” and very properly.

From morn till eve on “Show Sunday,” Campden Hill is always blocked by the carriages of the curious, and studios are besieged by fashionable crowds, whose chatter and laughter mingles pleasantly with the clinking of tea-cups. On this occasion, as on previous ones, I assisted Dick to receive his visitors, but unfortunately Ethel had been taken suddenly unwell, and could not attend.

My anticipations proved correct. “Circe” was voted an unqualified success. The opinions of critics who dropped in were unanimous that it was the artist’s masterpiece, and that the expression and general conception were marvellous—a verdict endorsed by gushing society women, bored club men, and the inanejeunesse dorée.

A scrap of conversation I overheard in the course of the afternoon, however, caused me to ponder.

An elderly man, evidently a foreigner, wearing the violet ribbon of the French Academy in his buttonhole, was standing with a young girl in the crowd around the easel.

“Why, look, papa! That face!” the girl cried, when her eyes fell upon the canvas. “It isherportrait! Surely the Signore cannot know!”

“Dio!” exclaimed the old man, evidently recognising the features. “The picture is indeed magnificent; but to think that she should allow herself to appear in that character! Come away, Zélie; let us go.”

I heard no more, for they turned and left. Having acted as eavesdropper, I could hardly question them. Nevertheless, I was sorely puzzled.

“Look! Read that!”

In surprise I glanced up from my work of romance-weaving on the following morning, and saw Dick, pale and agitated, standing at my elbow.

The letter he placed before me was in a woman’s hand, and emitted the faintest breath of violets. A glance was sufficient to recognise that the sprawly writing was Ethel’s.

Taking it up, I eagerly read the following lines it contained:—

“Dear Dick,—I regret to tell you that circumstances preclude me from ever meeting you again. I am going far away, where you cannot find me. It was foolish for us to have loved, therefore forget me. That you may meet some one far worthier than myself, and that ‘Circe’ may bring you fame and fortune, is the most sincere hope of your models.“Ethel.”

“Dear Dick,—I regret to tell you that circumstances preclude me from ever meeting you again. I am going far away, where you cannot find me. It was foolish for us to have loved, therefore forget me. That you may meet some one far worthier than myself, and that ‘Circe’ may bring you fame and fortune, is the most sincere hope of your models.

“Ethel.”

“I warned you against your infatuation, old fellow,” I said seriously.

“But I couldn’t help it. I—I loved her,” he answered in a hoarse, trembling voice.

“Forget her,” I argued. “She is worthless and vain; why make yourself miserable?”

“Ah, you are right!” he said, as if suddenly impressed by the force of my arguments, while his face assumed a hard, determined expression. “She is Circe indeed, and she had her foot upon my neck. But it is all over,” he added bitterly. “I shall think no more of her.”

Then he wished me an abrupt farewell, and left, apparently in order to conceal his emotion.

That evening I called at Dick’s house, but was informed by his housekeeper that he had packed his bag and departed, stating that he would not return for at least a month, perhaps longer. When I entered the studio, gloomy in the twilight, I was astonished to find that the “Circe” had been removed from the easel, and that it was standing in a corner with its face to the wall.

Something prompted me to turn it, and when I did so, I discovered to my dismay that in his frenzy of mad despair he had taken a brushful of black paint and drawn it across the face, making a great, ugly, disfiguring daub over the forehead and eyebrows, utterly ruining the features, and producing a curiously forbidding effect.

The colour was not dry, therefore I was enabled to remove the greater portion of it with a silk handkerchief, but I saw with regret that the tints of the forehead had been irretrievably ruined, rendering the picture valueless.

The days went by. The limit for sending in to the Academy was approaching; but Dick did not write, and I could only wonder vaguely where he was wandering. It was a great pity, I thought, that such a fine work should not be exhibited. Yet the wilful obliteration had utterly spoiled it.

While sitting in his studio musing one day, it suddenly occurred to me that if the flaw upon the forehead could be hidden, it might, after all, be sent for the inspection of the hanging committee.

Taking it up, I examined it minutely in the light. The idea of placing a half-mask upon the face suggested itself, and without delay I proceeded to carry it into effect. The little skill with the brush that I possess enabled me to paint in the half-lights upon the black silk, and the laughing eyes being fortunately intact, I allowed them to peer through the apertures.

The effect produced was startling, and none could have been more astonished at the result of my daubing than myself. The mask seemed to increase the recklessdiablerieof its wearer, and enhance the fairness of the complexion, while it added an air of mystery not at all unpleasing to the eye.

A few days later, I dispatched it to the Academy, and waited patiently for the opening day, when I experienced the mingled surprise and satisfaction of seeing it hung “upon the line.”

The “Masked Circe” was pronounced one of the pictures of the year. Thousands admired it. The papers were full of laudatory notices; but the man who painted it, unaware of the fame he had suddenly achieved, was hiding his sorrow somewhere in the Vosges. A stray copy of an English newspaper containing a notice of his work, which Dick picked up in a hotel, however, caused him to return.

He burst into my room unceremoniously one morning, still attired in his travelling ulster. I saw that he was haggard-eyed and wild-looking. From his conversation, I knew that time had not healed the wound in his heart.

“I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently, old chap, for touching up my daub. It seems that the public admireheras much as I have done. I—I shall find her some day; then she will return to me.”

“Still thinking of her?” I observed reproachfully.

“Yes; always, always,” he replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I—I cannot forget.”

Dick’s popularity steadily increased; lucrative commissions poured in upon him, and he settled down to such hard, methodical work, that I began to think he had forgotten the woman who had enmeshed him.

With beaming face he came to me one summer’s morning and announced that, although the committee of the Chantrey Bequest had offered to purchase the “Masked Circe,” he had just received a letter from the Count di Sestri, the well-known Anglo-Italian millionaire and art patron, saying that he desired to buy it, and asking him to go down to Oxted Park, his seat in Surrey, to arrange the price.

“I am going to-day,” he said. “You masked her, and it is only fair that you should have a word in the bargain. You must come too.”

At first I hesitated, but at length acquiesced.

That evening the Count received us in the library of his country mansion, and congratulated Dick warmly upon his masterpiece. It was evident that he meant to secure it at any cost, therefore the price was soon arranged; and before we had been there half an hour, my companion had a cheque for four figures in his pocket.

We were about to make our adieux, but the Count would not hear of it.

“Dinner will be ready almost immediately,” he said. “You must stay. We are quiteen famille, you know. Only my wife and I.”

A few moments later the door opened, and there was the rustle of a silken train.

“Ah, here’s the Countess!” exclaimed the millionaire, stepping forward to introduce us.

We turned, and saw a pale, beautiful woman, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.

“Ethel! You?” we both cried in amazement.

“Dick!” she gasped. “You—you have found me!”

She reeled backwards, and before we could save her, fell senseless to the floor.

A few words of excuse and explanation, and we left the Count, who, kneeling beside his wife and endeavouring to resuscitate her, was completely mystified at the strange recognition. Dick, almost beside himself with grief at discovering his idol already married, returned at once to London, while I remained at an inn at Oxted in order to glean some further information.

Inquiries showed that the Count had met her while travelling in America, and had married her. Since that time they had apparently lived happily, and not a breath of scandal had besmirched her fair name. The reason she always refused us her address was now clear; and it was evident that, while in residence at her London house in Park Lane, she had been in the habit of paying us visits unknown to her husband, assuming the character of an unmarried and flightyBohemienne.

On the following day I called at the Park to inquire after the Countess’s health.

The footman looked pale and grave when I asked after her ladyship.

“I much regret to inform you, sir, that my mistress is dead,” he said.

“Dead?” I cried. “Impossible!”

“Yes, sir. Her maid discovered her in her boudoir late last night, and found that she had taken an overdose of morphia. We sent for the doctor, but before his arrival life was extinct. The Count is insane with grief, more especially because the maid discovered that her ladyship had left a letter to some man she calls Dick, telling him that she loved him, and could live no longer.”

Dick rarely smiles, and is invariably gloomy and sad, poor fellow. The Count, ignorant of the truth, has hung his latest purchase in the private gallery of his great palace in Rome, little dreaming that the “Masked Circe” is actually the picture of his dead wife.

Chapter Four.The Man with the Fatal Finger.Three years ago, while I was writing a novel which deals with Nihilism, and which brought the heavy hand of the Press Bureau at Petersburg upon me, I contrived, in order to sketch my characters from life, to obtain an introduction to the little colony of Russian revolutionists which exists in secret in a northwestern suburb of London. I eventually won their confidence, and ingratiated myself with them by advocating Russian freedom in a series of articles in a certain London journal, which had the effect of enlisting public sympathy with the exiles in such a manner, that the editor received a number of donations, which he handed to me, while I in turn conveyed the money to my friend, Paul Grigorovitch, the head of the branch of the Narodnoe Pravo.I was sitting at home, reading and smoking, in a very lazy mood, one winter’s evening, when the servant girl entered and handed me a soiled, crumpled letter, which, she said, had been left by a strange-looking foreign woman. This did not surprise me, for I sometimes received mysterious unsigned notes from my friends the refugees when they desired to see me. The exiles are continually under the observation of the “Okhrannoë Otdelenië,” or Secret Police attached to the Russian Embassy, hence the cautiousness of their movements.I tore the envelope open and read its contents.The words, written in a fine educated hand,—evidently a woman’s,—were: “Come to Springfield Lodge, St. Margaret’s Road, Regent’s Park, to-night at nine. Important.”I confess the communication puzzled me, for I knew no one living at the address, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, I resolved to obey the summons.With some little difficulty I found the house. It stood back from the road, concealed behind a high wall. The thoroughfare was very quiet and eminently respectable. Each house stood in its own grounds, and had an air of wealth and prosperity about it, while the bare black branches of the great trees on either side of the road met overhead, forming a long avenue.I gave the summons used at Grigorovitch’s, namely, four distinct tugs at the bell; and presently the heavy door was opened by a Russian maid-servant.“Who are you?” she demanded in broken English.I told her my name, and showed her the note I had received.“Harosho! Step this way, sir, if you please,” she exclaimed, when she had examined the letter by the feeble light shed by a neighbouring street lamp. Then she closed the door and walked before me through a well-kept garden up to the house. Entering, she conducted me to a small and rather well-furnished apartment, the French windows of which opened out upon a spacious tennis-lawn. Around the walls were hung several choice paintings, and I noticed that upon the table lay a number of pamphlets similar to those which the organisation were secretly circulating throughout the Empire of the Tzar.In a few moments the door opened, and a very pretty young Russian lady of about twenty-three years of age came forward to meet me.“Good-evening,” she said, smiling. “My father will be here in a few minutes. You will not object to wait, will you?”I assured her I was in no hurry, whereupon she begged me to be seated, at the same time producing a large box of cigarettes, offering me one, and, in accordance with Russian etiquette, taking one herself.She struck a vesta and lit hers quite naturally. Then, as she seated herself upon a low chair, I recognised that she was very handsome, and that every lineament and feature was perfect. Her countenance had an expression of charming ingenuousness and blushing candour, while her dark brilliant eyes had an intense and bewitching glance. In her brown hair was a handsome crescent of diamonds, and her evening dress of soft black net disclosed her white chest and arms.“Were you surprised at my curt note?” she asked suddenly, blowing a cloud of smoke from her pursed-up lips.“Well, to tell the truth, I was,” I admitted. “You see, we are strangers.”“Ah, I forgot! I suppose I ought to introduce myself,” she said, laughing. “I’m Prascovie Souvaroff. I know your name, and have heard how you assisted our cause.”After I had acknowledged the compliment, we commenced a commonplace conversation, which was interrupted by the entrance of a tall, elderly man, whose thin face, sunken cheeks, and deeply furrowed brow were indicative of heavy toil or long imprisonment.Prascovie rose quickly and introduced him.“Ivan Souvaroff, my father,” she exclaimed, and when we had exchanged greetings, she said, “Now I’ll go, because you want to talk. When you have finished your conversation, ring the bell, and I will return and bore you.” And, laughing gaily, she tripped out of the room.Souvaroff took a cigarette, lit it, and, seating himself thoughtfully, looked into my face and said—“I have to thank you for coming here to-night, sir; but the matter about which I desired to see you is one of urgency. I have heard from Grigorovitch and others how you have assisted us in London and in Petersburg, and I thought it probable you would render me a small personal service.”“If it is in my power, I shall be most happy,” I replied.“It is quite easy if you will only do it; it is merely to insert a paragraph in the papers as news. I have it here, ready written.” Then, taking a slip of paper from his pocket, he read the following announcement: “Prascovie, only daughter of Ivan Souvaroff, who escaped from Siberia after five years at the mines, died in London yesterday.”“Died?” I repeated, in surprise. “What do you mean? Your daughter was here, alive and well, a few moments ago!”“I’m aware of that,” he replied, smiling mysteriously. “You are not one of Us, otherwise I could tell you the reason.”“Does she know?”“No, no,” he exclaimed quickly. “Don’t tell her. Promise to keep the matter strictly secret. If you publish the paragraph, I will see she does not get hold of a copy of the paper.”“Very well,” I said; “I’ll do as you wish.”It was a puzzling paragraph, but I had already ceased to be astonished at any action on the part of these men, for the more I thought over their secrets, the more complicated they always appeared.As he handed me the piece of paper, with an expression of earnest thanks, I noticed that he wore a glove upon his right hand, and commented mentally that it was a rather unusual custom to wear one glove while in the house.A few moments after he had rung the bell, Prascovie returned, followed by the servant, bearing a steamingsamovar.“You’ve not been very long over your business,” she remarked, glancing at me with a smile. “Now it’s all over, let’s talk.”I was nothing loth to do this, and she and I resumed our chat. Then Souvaroff related the story of his imprisonment, his transportation to Siberia, his work in the Kara silver mines, and his subsequent escape and journey to England, where he had been joined by his daughter. Some English people thought, said he, that Russia was not prepared for the freedom the Narodnoe Pravo would like to see it possess; but he assured me that the time for autocracy was past, that the Tzar’s Empire had outgrown the period of benevolent despotism, and that the Russian people were quite capable of governing themselves. When he had described some of the exciting adventures connected with his escape, Prascovie, who had handed me some tea and lemon, seated herself at the piano and sang an old Russian love-song in a sweet contralto, full of harmony and tenderness.In the meantime, her father had left us, and when she had finished, she turned upon the music-stool, and with few forewords inquired the nature of Souvaroff’s business with me. Of course, I was compelled to refuse to satisfy her curiosity, and at my request she returned to the instrument and commenced another song. As she sang the second verse, there mingled with the music sounds of loud talking, boisterous laughter, and greetings in Russian, which proceeded from the hall. Evidently some one had arrived, and was being welcomed by my host.Prascovie heard it, and ceased playing.For a moment she sat in an attentive attitude. I noticed her face wore an expression of intense anxiety and that the colour had fled from her cheeks.A few moments later I distinguished the voice of the servant answering her master, and after some further conversation a man exclaimed—“Dobroi notsche, Souvaroff.” (“Good-night.”)To this the man addressed replied in a cheery tone, the front door slammed, and my host returned into the room.As he entered, he uttered some words in Polishpatoisto his daughter. It must have been some announcement of a startling character, for, uttering an ejaculation of alarm, she reeled and almost fell.In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and sank into an armchair in a grave, dejected attitude. All the light had left her face, and with her chin resting upon her breast she gazed down in thoughtful silence upon the rosettes on her little morocco slippers.Souvaroff appeared to have aged ten years since he left the room half an hour before, and although I endeavoured to resume our conversation, he only replied in monosyllables.I marvelled at this sudden change. Even if an unwelcome visitor had called, I could see no reason why such a strange effect should be produced.I remained to supper, after which Prascovie threw a shawl about her shoulders and walked with me to the gate. I expressed a desire to call again and spend another evening in listening to the passionate Caucausian songs, but she appeared strangely indifferent. She merely wished me “Prostchai” very formally, and when we shook hands, she drew back, and I fancied she shuddered.Then I turned away, and the gate was locked behind me.Slowly I walked along the deserted road, absorbed in thought. The night was bright and frosty, and there was no sound save the echo of my own footsteps. I had been strolling along for perhaps five minutes, when suddenly I saw some object lying across the pavement. The thoroughfare was very inadequately lit; indeed, so dark was it that I was unable to distinguish the nature of the obstacle.Bending down, I passed my hands rapidly over it. I found it was a man.He was evidently drunk, therefore I resorted to the expedient of giving him a gentle but firm kick in the ribs, at the same time urging him to wake up. This, however, had no effect; therefore, after repeated efforts to rouse him, I struck a vesta and held it close to his head.The moment I saw the yellow pallor of the face and look of unutterable horror in the glazing eyes, I knew the truth. He was dead!His age was not more than thirty-five. He had grey eyes, fair hair and beard, and from his dress I judged that he belonged to the upper class. The heavy overcoat he wore was unbuttoned, and a silk muffler was wrapped lightly around his throat.A glance sufficed to ascertain that he was beyond human aid, and after a moment’s hesitation, I started off in search of a constable.I was not long in finding one, and we returned to where the body lay. Other assistance was quickly forthcoming, and, a doctor residing in the neighbourhood having made an examination and pronounced life extinct, the remains were conveyed to the mortuary. Owing to the lateness of the hour and the quietness of the neighbourhood, there was no crowd of curious onlookers, nor was there anything to create horror, for no marks of violence could be discovered on the body.At the inquest duly held I attended and gave evidence. The medical testimony went to show that the unknown man had died suddenly owing to an affection of the heart, and the jury returned a verdict of “death from natural causes.” Nothing was discovered in the pockets which could lead to the unfortunate man’s identification, and although his description was circulated by the police, the body was buried three days later in a nameless grave.I had published the strange obituary notice Souvaroff had given me, and on the day of the inquest I again called at Springfield Lodge. Only Prascovie and the servant were at home. I had a pleasanttête-à-têtewith the fair Russian, and as we sat together, I commenced to relate my discovery on the night of my previous visit.“Ah,” she exclaimed, interrupting me, “you need not tell me! I—I saw from the newspapers that you had found him. The inquest was held to-day. I’m so anxious to know the verdict.”I told her, and an exclamation of relief involuntarily escaped her. This did not strike me as peculiar at the time, but I recollected the incident afterwards, and was much puzzled at its significance.“Do they know his name?” she asked eagerly.“No. There was nothing to serve as a clue to his identity.”“Poor fellow!” she sighed sympathetically. “I wonder who he was.”Then our conversation turned upon other topics. We smoked several cigarettes, and, after remaining an hour, I bade her adieu and departed, half bewitched by her grace and beauty.When, however, I called a week later and gave the usual four tugs at the bell, my summons remained unanswered. A dozen times I repeated it, but with the same effect, until a postman who chanced to pass informed me that the occupants had gone away suddenly five days before and left no address.Surprised at this hurried departure, I walked to the house of Grigorovitch, about half a mile distant, and told him of my friends and their flight.“Well,” he said, with a smile, when I had told him their name, and explained the various circumstances, “I shrewdly suspect you’ve been tricked. I know no one by the name of Souvaroff. He is certainly not one of Us, and it is equally certain that he got you to insert that extraordinary paragraph by a very neat ruse.”And he laughed heartily, enjoying a joke that I confess I was unable to appreciate.Eight months passed, during which the strange incident gradually faded from my mind.The increased number of persons who were being sent from all parts of Russia to Siberia without trial had become a subject of much comment in England. Horrifying reports anent the state of theétapes, and the shocking brutality and inhuman treatment to which the oft-times innocent convicts were subjected, were continually reaching London from various sources, and public feeling against Russian autocracy had risen to fever heat.Hence it was that one day when I entered my office I received instructions to proceed without delay to Siberia, in order to inspect the general condition of the prisoners and ascertain the truth of the harrowing details. The prospect of this mission delighted me, for not only was it certain to be fraught with a good deal of exciting adventure, but it would also enable me to complete the novel, already half written, and which I had been compelled to put aside owing to lack of information regarding life in the Asiatic penal settlements.That evening, after calling upon Grigorovitch and informing him of my projected journey, I returned home, and sat at my writing-table far into the night, finishing some work upon which I had been engaged. The whole of the following day I spent in packing my traps, and otherwise preparing for a long absence. In the evening, while I was busy writing some letters, the servant announced that a young lady, who refused her name, desired to see me. I was not particularly clean, and I confess that just then I was too much engaged in making arrangements for my departure to think of anything else. However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I told her to admit the stranger.“You?” I cried, when a moment later Prascovie Souvaroff entered.“Yes. Why not?” she asked, laughing, and offering me her hand.What could I say? I stammered out a greeting, invited her to be seated, and began to question her regarding her sudden disappearance.To my questions she replied—“It was imperative. You English know nothing of the persecution which follows those who flee from the wrath of the White Tzar. We were compelled to leave hurriedly, and as the Secret Police were watching both you and me it was unsafe for us to meet. To-night I have risked coming to you for a most important purpose,” she added, looking up into my face earnestly.“Oh! What’s that?” I asked.“I want you to take me to Siberia.”“To Siberia? You?” I repeated in astonishment.“Yes. I hear you are going. Any news affecting us travels rapidly. I—I have an intense desire to see what the country beyond the Urals is like.”“Who told you I was going?”“I’m not at liberty to say,” she replied. “All I ask is that I may be allowed to accompany you. I have here sufficient money to defray the cost of my journey;” and she drew from the breast of her dress a large packet of Russian bank-notes.I shook my head, replying that Siberia was no place for a delicately-reared woman, and pointed out the uninviting prospect of a winter journey of five thousand miles in a sleigh. “Besides,” I added, “your connection with the Terrorists would render it unsafe for you to return to Russia; and, again, there areles convenancesto be studied.”“Do you think that I, a Russian, am afraid of a cold sleigh journey?” she asked earnestly, after a few moments’ silence. “Scarcely! Of course, I should not travel in this dress, but would assume the disguise of a Russian lad, in order to act as your servant and interpreter. As forles convenances”—and, shrugging her shoulders, she pulled a little grimace, and added, “Bah! we are not lovers!”I asked for news of her father, but she informed me that he was in Zurich. She refused to give me her address, and all argument was useless. The point she urged, that she would be companion and interpreter combined, impressed me, and ere I had finally promised, she had given me instructions that I should, in applying for my passport from the Russian Embassy, also make application for one for “Ivan Ivanovitch, servant.”Four evenings later, I was on the platform at Charing Cross Station, watching my big iron-bound trunks being stowed away into the Continental express, and chatting to two old Fleet Street friends, who had come to see the last of me, when a rather short young man, enveloped in a long, heavy ulster, approached, and, touching his cap respectfully, said—“Good-evening, sir. I hope I’m not late.”“No, plenty of time,” I said indifferently, although I had a difficult task to keep my countenance. Turning to my friends, I explained, “That’s my interpreter, Ivanovitch.” Meanwhile, the object of our attention had walked across to the van to see his own trunk placed with mine.Five minutes afterwards, when we were in the carriage together, gliding out over the bridge that spans the Thames, I burst into a hearty laugh as I, for the first time, regarded her critically. Her disguise was so complete that, for the moment when she had greeted me, I had been deceived. Laughing at her successful make-up, she removed her round fur cap, and showed how she had contrived, by cutting her hair shorter, to make it appear like a man’s. Underneath her overcoat she wore a suit of thick, rough tweed, and with great gusto she related how she had filled up her large boots with wool.She produced the inevitable cigarettes, and we spent the two hours between London and Queenborough in smoking and chatting.To describe in detail our long railway journey across Europe by way of Berlin and Moscow would occupy too much space. Suffice it to say that I travelled through Holy Russia with a passport which bore theviséof the Minister of the Interior at Petersburg, and which ensured myself and my “servant” civility and attention on the part of police officials.At length we passed through the Urals and alighted at Ekaterinbourg, where the railway at that time ended. A fortnight after leaving London, I purchased a sleigh, hired three Government horses, and Prascovie and I, in the great fur coats, skin gloves, and sheepskin boots we had bought, took our seats; the baggage and provisions having been packed in the bottom of the conveyance, and covered with a layer of straw. Then our driver shouted to the little knot of persons who had assembled before the post-station, whipped up the three shaggy horses, and away we started on the first stage of our long, dreary drive across Siberia. Over the snow the horses galloped noiselessly, and the bells on the wooden arch over their heads tinkled merrily as we moved swiftly along through the sharp, frosty air.Soon we were out upon the Great Post Road, and as far as the eye could see, there was no other object visible on the broad, snow-covered plain but the long straight line of black telegraph poles and striped verst-posts that marked our route.Day after day we continued our journey, often passing through miles of gloomy pine forests, and then out again upon the great barren steppes. Frequently we met convoys of convicts, pitiful, despairing bands of men and women, dragging their clanking chains with them wearily, and trudging onward towards a life to which death would be preferable. No mercy was shown them by their mounted escorts, for if a prisoner stumbled and fell from sheer exhaustion, he was beaten back to his senses with the terrible knout which each Cossack carried.On dark nights we halted at post-houses, but when the moon shone, we continued our drive, snatching sleep as best we could. We lived upon our tinned meats and biscuits, the post-houses—which are usually about twenty to thirty miles apart—supplying tea and other necessaries.Although the journey was terribly monotonous and uncomfortable, with a biting wind, and the intense white of the snow affecting one’s eyes painfully, my fair fellow-traveller uttered no word of complaint. All day she would sit beside me chatting in English, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and now and then carrying on a conversation in Russian with our black-bearded, fierce-looking driver, afterwards interpreting his observations. Indeed, it appeared that the further we travelled from civilisation, the more light-hearted she became.Arriving at last at Tomsk, we remained there three weeks, during which time I visited thekamerasof the “forwarding prison,” the horrors of which I afterwards fully described. An open letter I had from the Minister of the Interior admitted me everywhere, but I was compelled to secrete the notes I made in the money-belt I wore under my clothes, otherwise they would have been discovered and confiscated by the pryingispravniks, or police officers, during the repeated examination of our baggage at almost every small town we passed through.Since leaving England, time had slipped rapidly away, until, one day, after we had left Tomsk, and were well on our way towards Yeniseisk, I chanced to take out my diary. I discovered that it was the last day of the old year.The journey had been most cheerless and wearisome. It was now about four o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun, which had struggled out for half an hour, had sunk upon the hazy horizon, leaving a pale yellow streak in the grey lowering sky. An icy wind blew in fierce gusts across the barren steppe; the monotony of the dull thud of the horses’ hoofs in the snow and the incessant jingle of the bells had grown utterly unendurable. The only stoppage we had made that day was about noon, when we changed horses, and Prascovie had then told me she felt very fatigued. Almost hidden under her furs, she was now sleeping soundly. Her head had fallen upon my shoulder; and I—well, although I tried to console myself with a cigar, I confess I was thinking of the folk at home, and had the nostalgia of England upon me. Suddenly she moved uneasily, and awoke with a start. She addressed a question to the driver, which he answered.“You must be terribly tired,” I said, recollecting that it was two days since we drove out of Tomsk, and that, owing to the lack of accommodation at the post-houses, we had been unable to rest.“No, I’m not very tired,” she replied. “But I feel so cramped and cold.”“Never mind,” I said cheerfully, placing my arm tenderly around her waist and drawing her closer to me: “in a couple of hours we shall get something hot to eat.” She did not answer, but in a few moments she again fell asleep with her head upon my shoulder; and I, too, also dozed off.Our lonely halting-place was, like all Siberian post-houses, built of pine logs, and little better than a large hut, devoid of any vestige of comfort, and horribly dirty. The sitting-room was a bare, uncarpeted place, with a large brick stove in the centre, a picture of the Virgin upon the wall, a wooden table, and three or four rough chairs, while the little dens that served as sleeping apartments contained nothing beyond a chair and a straw mattress.It was not long after our arrival that the greatsamovarwas placed upon the table, and, together with the two sinister-looking fellows who kept the place, we sat down to a rough, uncivilised meal. The evening we spent in smoking and drinking vodka, Prascovie and I being able to carry on a private conversation by speaking English.I asked why she was so unusually thoughtful, but she replied that it was only because she was in need of rest.“I am sorry I am breaking down,” she said apologetically, and laughing at the same time. “But I’m only a woman. It was, indeed, very kind of you to have been bothered with me.”“Don’t mention it,” I said. “I’m sure I’m indebted to you, for your knowledge of Russian assists me in my work. Do you remember,” I added, “that it is a year to-night since we first met?”“Was it?” she asked in a strange tone of alarm. “Ah, I remember. I—I was happy then, wasn’t I?”“Are you not happy now?” I inquired.“Yes—very,” she replied, smiling. “But I’m tired, and must go to my room, or I shall be fit for nothing to-morrow.”“Very well,” I replied. “I’ll tell you to go in a few minutes.”Then, after joining the driver and post-house keepers in another glass of vodka, I said to her—“Ivan, you can go. I shall require you no longer.”Gathering up her coat, hat and gloves, she bowed, and, wishing the men “Good-night,” went to her room.After smoking for another hour, I also sought my dirty little den. In the heart of Siberia one must expect to rough it, therefore I took my revolver from my belt, placed it under my pillow, and, after removing some of my clothes, strapped my fur rug around my neck, and, stretching myself upon the hard pallet, soon dropped off to sleep.Next morning, when I had dressed, I knocked several times at Prascovie’s door, but received no reply. Subsequently I pushed it open and entered, discovering, to my surprise, that the room was empty.Notwithstanding my limited knowledge of Russian, I managed to make the men understand that my servant was missing, and they searched the premises, but without avail. They examined the road outside, but, as it had been snowing heavily during the night, no footprints were visible.Prascovie had mysteriously disappeared!While I remained in charge of the post-house, the three men mounted the horses and rode out in different directions, thinking it possible that she had strayed away upon the steppe and become lost in a snowdrift. Towards evening, however, they returned, after a long and futile search.Anxious to solve the mystery, and reluctant to leave without her, I remained there several days. As the nearest dwelling was twenty miles distant, and her overcoat and hat still remained in her room, her disappearance was all the more puzzling. I examined her box, but found nothing in it except articles of male wearing apparel; so after a week of anxious waiting, I became convinced that to remain there longer was useless.With heavy heart, and sorely puzzled over the mystery, I continued my lonely journey towards the mines of Yeniseisk. Having inspected them, I journeyed south, alone and dejected, and investigated the great prisons at Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, afterwards returning through Omsk and Tobolsk, and thence to the Urals and civilisation.I missed her companionship very much, and long before my journey ended, I had grown dull, morose, and melancholy.After an absence of six months, I again returned to London. When I arrived home, fatigued and hungry, and before I had time to cast off my worn-out travelling suit, the servant girl handed me a small packet which she said had arrived by registered post a week before.It had a Russian stamp upon it, and bore the postmark of Kiakhta, a small town south of Irkutsk, on the border of Mongolia.Breaking open the seals, I found a small box, from which I took a thick gold ring, set with a magnificent diamond.Attached to it was a small piece of paper which bore, in a man’s handwriting, the following words:—“The husband of Prascovie Souvaroff, who owes to you the safe return of his beloved wife, sends this little gift as a slight recognition of the kindness she received at your hands.”There was neither, name, address, nor date; nothing to show who was the anonymous husband.The mystery was solved in a most unexpected manner.Some months after the results of my investigations had been published, I chanced one night to attend the banquet of the Association of Foreign Consuls held in the Whitehall Rooms of the Hôtel Métropole. As usual, a number of thecorps diplomatiquewere present, and among them Serge Velitchko, one of theattachésof the Russian Embassy, an old friend of mine, whom I had not seen since my return.“I congratulate you on your lucky escape, old fellow,” he exclaimed, after we had exchanged cordial greetings.“Escape? What do you mean?” I inquired.“Ah, it’s all very well,” he replied, laughing, as we strolled together into an ante-room that was unoccupied. “Prascovie was very fascinating, wasn’t she?”“How did you know?” I asked in amazement, for I imagined no one was aware that she had been my companion.“Oh, we knew all about it, never fear,” he said, with a smile. “By Jove! it was quite a romance, travelling all that distance with a pretty companion, and then losing her on the Yeniseisk Steppe. It was lucky for you, however, that she left you in time, otherwise you would, in all probability, have been working underground at Kara, or some other place equally delightful, by this time.”“Explain yourself,” I urged impatiently. “You’re talking in enigmas.”“Listen, and I’ll let you into the secret,” said my friend, casting himself lazily into a chair. “The man you knew as Souvaroff was, until about six years ago, wealthy and popular at our Court at Petersburg; but he was suspected of political intrigue, and sentenced to lifelong exile and hard labour in Siberia. After his banishment, Prascovie, who was then living at Moscow, was detected by the police distributing some revolutionary pamphlets, for which she also was sent to Siberia. At the prison at Irkutsk father and daughter met. While there, Prince Pàvlovitch Kostomâroff, the governor of the Yeniseisk province, who had previously known and admiredla belleSouvaroff in Petersburg society, discovered her, and offered her marriage. This she accepted, and they were married privately, because, had it become known that the Prince had wedded a political exile, he would have fallen into disfavour with the Tzar. The Prince not being governor of the province in which his wife was imprisoned, a difficulty presented itself how he should obtain her release. Even Ivan Kobita, controller of the prison, was ignorant of the secret union, but it so happened that he also became enamoured of his fair captive. At length, in return for her promise to marry him, he allowed her and her father comparative freedom. As might be expected, they were not long in taking advantage of this, for within a fortnight, aided by the Prince, and provided with a passport obtained by him, they managed to escape and come to England.”“And what of Kobita?”“He quickly discovered the ruse, and ascertained that the Prince had connived at their escape. Our Secret Police tracked the fugitives to their hiding-place in London. Still unaware that she was the Prince’s wife, Kobita obtained leave of absence and came to England. Before his arrival, however, he wrote, urging her to marry him, declaring that if she refused, he would expose the Prince as aiding and abetting dangerous Nihilists. Prascovie, who clearly saw that if the truth reached the Tzar, her husband would be disgraced and deprived of liberty, was at her wits’ ends. She was in desperation when, two years ago, Kobita arrived in London—”“Was that on the night I called upon them?”“Yes. It was on receipt of the letter from Kobita that Souvaroff sent for you and requested you to put the obituary notice in the papers, in order that when the Siberian official came to claim his daughter’s hand, he could convince him of her death. But this plan was not carried out quickly enough. Kobita arrived on the night of your visit, and was received by Prascovie’s father, who stated that she had gone to call upon a friend in the vicinity, and offered to send his servant to direct him to the house in question. To this Prascovie’s admirer had no objection, and, shaking Souvaroff warmly by the hand, wished himau revoir, and started off, accompanied by the servant, in search of the imaginary neighbour. The hand-shaking proved fatal, for he had not walked far before he fell dead. The whole thing had been carefully planned, and the trusty servant, who had been instructed how to act, extracted everything from the dead man’s pockets that would lead to identification. Hence his burial in a nameless grave.”“Do you assert that he was murdered?”“Yes. We were in possession of all these facts, but refrained from causing Souvaroff’s arrest, because it was not a wise policy to expose to the London public that Russia had established a bureau of secret police in their midst. Prascovie and her father hid for some months, and we lost sight of them until she called upon you, and accompanied you in disguise to Siberia. Once or twice you very narrowly escaped being apprehended; indeed, on one occasion orders were telegraphed to Tomsk for the arrest of your companion and yourself, because the declaration on your passport regarding ‘Ivan Ivanovitch’ was known to be false. By the intervention of a high official, however, the order was countermanded, and you were allowed to pass.”“What has become of Prascovie’s father?” I asked in astonishment. “Surely he was not Kobita’s murderer, for the man died of heart disease.”“You are mistaken. He died of Obeah poison. Souvaroff, who was once a consul in Hayti, knew of the secret poison which the natives extract from the gecko lizard, and which cannot be detected. So deadly is it, that one drop is sufficient to produce a fatal result, and the manner in which he administered it was somewhat novel. He prepared to receive his enemy by allowing the nail of the forefinger of his right hand to grow long, afterwards thinning it to a point as fine as a needle. Upon this point he placed the poison, and kept a glove on until Kobita’s arrival. Then, in wishing him adieu, he pricked the skin of his victim while shaking hands with him, producing an effect similar to syncope.”“Where is Souvaroff now?”“Dead. He returned to Petersburg as soon as his daughter had left with you, but was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the Fortress. While there, he wrote a confession of the murder, and afterwards committed suicide.”“And will they arrest Prascovie?”“No. She lives in another province to that in which she was imprisoned. No one there knows that she is an escaped convict, and as the Prince was once attached to this Embassy, we are not likely to divulge.”He chaffed me a little, laughed heartily in his good-natured way, and soon afterwards we rejoined the guests.I have heard nothing since of my unconventional travelling companion. A short time ago, however, I received an anonymous present of furs, and I shrewdly suspect whence it came. The Prince’s ring, which is the admiration and envy of many of my friends, still glitters on my finger, and I regard it as a souvenir of the most happy and romantic journey of my life.

Three years ago, while I was writing a novel which deals with Nihilism, and which brought the heavy hand of the Press Bureau at Petersburg upon me, I contrived, in order to sketch my characters from life, to obtain an introduction to the little colony of Russian revolutionists which exists in secret in a northwestern suburb of London. I eventually won their confidence, and ingratiated myself with them by advocating Russian freedom in a series of articles in a certain London journal, which had the effect of enlisting public sympathy with the exiles in such a manner, that the editor received a number of donations, which he handed to me, while I in turn conveyed the money to my friend, Paul Grigorovitch, the head of the branch of the Narodnoe Pravo.

I was sitting at home, reading and smoking, in a very lazy mood, one winter’s evening, when the servant girl entered and handed me a soiled, crumpled letter, which, she said, had been left by a strange-looking foreign woman. This did not surprise me, for I sometimes received mysterious unsigned notes from my friends the refugees when they desired to see me. The exiles are continually under the observation of the “Okhrannoë Otdelenië,” or Secret Police attached to the Russian Embassy, hence the cautiousness of their movements.

I tore the envelope open and read its contents.

The words, written in a fine educated hand,—evidently a woman’s,—were: “Come to Springfield Lodge, St. Margaret’s Road, Regent’s Park, to-night at nine. Important.”

I confess the communication puzzled me, for I knew no one living at the address, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, I resolved to obey the summons.

With some little difficulty I found the house. It stood back from the road, concealed behind a high wall. The thoroughfare was very quiet and eminently respectable. Each house stood in its own grounds, and had an air of wealth and prosperity about it, while the bare black branches of the great trees on either side of the road met overhead, forming a long avenue.

I gave the summons used at Grigorovitch’s, namely, four distinct tugs at the bell; and presently the heavy door was opened by a Russian maid-servant.

“Who are you?” she demanded in broken English.

I told her my name, and showed her the note I had received.

“Harosho! Step this way, sir, if you please,” she exclaimed, when she had examined the letter by the feeble light shed by a neighbouring street lamp. Then she closed the door and walked before me through a well-kept garden up to the house. Entering, she conducted me to a small and rather well-furnished apartment, the French windows of which opened out upon a spacious tennis-lawn. Around the walls were hung several choice paintings, and I noticed that upon the table lay a number of pamphlets similar to those which the organisation were secretly circulating throughout the Empire of the Tzar.

In a few moments the door opened, and a very pretty young Russian lady of about twenty-three years of age came forward to meet me.

“Good-evening,” she said, smiling. “My father will be here in a few minutes. You will not object to wait, will you?”

I assured her I was in no hurry, whereupon she begged me to be seated, at the same time producing a large box of cigarettes, offering me one, and, in accordance with Russian etiquette, taking one herself.

She struck a vesta and lit hers quite naturally. Then, as she seated herself upon a low chair, I recognised that she was very handsome, and that every lineament and feature was perfect. Her countenance had an expression of charming ingenuousness and blushing candour, while her dark brilliant eyes had an intense and bewitching glance. In her brown hair was a handsome crescent of diamonds, and her evening dress of soft black net disclosed her white chest and arms.

“Were you surprised at my curt note?” she asked suddenly, blowing a cloud of smoke from her pursed-up lips.

“Well, to tell the truth, I was,” I admitted. “You see, we are strangers.”

“Ah, I forgot! I suppose I ought to introduce myself,” she said, laughing. “I’m Prascovie Souvaroff. I know your name, and have heard how you assisted our cause.”

After I had acknowledged the compliment, we commenced a commonplace conversation, which was interrupted by the entrance of a tall, elderly man, whose thin face, sunken cheeks, and deeply furrowed brow were indicative of heavy toil or long imprisonment.

Prascovie rose quickly and introduced him.

“Ivan Souvaroff, my father,” she exclaimed, and when we had exchanged greetings, she said, “Now I’ll go, because you want to talk. When you have finished your conversation, ring the bell, and I will return and bore you.” And, laughing gaily, she tripped out of the room.

Souvaroff took a cigarette, lit it, and, seating himself thoughtfully, looked into my face and said—

“I have to thank you for coming here to-night, sir; but the matter about which I desired to see you is one of urgency. I have heard from Grigorovitch and others how you have assisted us in London and in Petersburg, and I thought it probable you would render me a small personal service.”

“If it is in my power, I shall be most happy,” I replied.

“It is quite easy if you will only do it; it is merely to insert a paragraph in the papers as news. I have it here, ready written.” Then, taking a slip of paper from his pocket, he read the following announcement: “Prascovie, only daughter of Ivan Souvaroff, who escaped from Siberia after five years at the mines, died in London yesterday.”

“Died?” I repeated, in surprise. “What do you mean? Your daughter was here, alive and well, a few moments ago!”

“I’m aware of that,” he replied, smiling mysteriously. “You are not one of Us, otherwise I could tell you the reason.”

“Does she know?”

“No, no,” he exclaimed quickly. “Don’t tell her. Promise to keep the matter strictly secret. If you publish the paragraph, I will see she does not get hold of a copy of the paper.”

“Very well,” I said; “I’ll do as you wish.”

It was a puzzling paragraph, but I had already ceased to be astonished at any action on the part of these men, for the more I thought over their secrets, the more complicated they always appeared.

As he handed me the piece of paper, with an expression of earnest thanks, I noticed that he wore a glove upon his right hand, and commented mentally that it was a rather unusual custom to wear one glove while in the house.

A few moments after he had rung the bell, Prascovie returned, followed by the servant, bearing a steamingsamovar.

“You’ve not been very long over your business,” she remarked, glancing at me with a smile. “Now it’s all over, let’s talk.”

I was nothing loth to do this, and she and I resumed our chat. Then Souvaroff related the story of his imprisonment, his transportation to Siberia, his work in the Kara silver mines, and his subsequent escape and journey to England, where he had been joined by his daughter. Some English people thought, said he, that Russia was not prepared for the freedom the Narodnoe Pravo would like to see it possess; but he assured me that the time for autocracy was past, that the Tzar’s Empire had outgrown the period of benevolent despotism, and that the Russian people were quite capable of governing themselves. When he had described some of the exciting adventures connected with his escape, Prascovie, who had handed me some tea and lemon, seated herself at the piano and sang an old Russian love-song in a sweet contralto, full of harmony and tenderness.

In the meantime, her father had left us, and when she had finished, she turned upon the music-stool, and with few forewords inquired the nature of Souvaroff’s business with me. Of course, I was compelled to refuse to satisfy her curiosity, and at my request she returned to the instrument and commenced another song. As she sang the second verse, there mingled with the music sounds of loud talking, boisterous laughter, and greetings in Russian, which proceeded from the hall. Evidently some one had arrived, and was being welcomed by my host.

Prascovie heard it, and ceased playing.

For a moment she sat in an attentive attitude. I noticed her face wore an expression of intense anxiety and that the colour had fled from her cheeks.

A few moments later I distinguished the voice of the servant answering her master, and after some further conversation a man exclaimed—

“Dobroi notsche, Souvaroff.” (“Good-night.”)

To this the man addressed replied in a cheery tone, the front door slammed, and my host returned into the room.

As he entered, he uttered some words in Polishpatoisto his daughter. It must have been some announcement of a startling character, for, uttering an ejaculation of alarm, she reeled and almost fell.

In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and sank into an armchair in a grave, dejected attitude. All the light had left her face, and with her chin resting upon her breast she gazed down in thoughtful silence upon the rosettes on her little morocco slippers.

Souvaroff appeared to have aged ten years since he left the room half an hour before, and although I endeavoured to resume our conversation, he only replied in monosyllables.

I marvelled at this sudden change. Even if an unwelcome visitor had called, I could see no reason why such a strange effect should be produced.

I remained to supper, after which Prascovie threw a shawl about her shoulders and walked with me to the gate. I expressed a desire to call again and spend another evening in listening to the passionate Caucausian songs, but she appeared strangely indifferent. She merely wished me “Prostchai” very formally, and when we shook hands, she drew back, and I fancied she shuddered.

Then I turned away, and the gate was locked behind me.

Slowly I walked along the deserted road, absorbed in thought. The night was bright and frosty, and there was no sound save the echo of my own footsteps. I had been strolling along for perhaps five minutes, when suddenly I saw some object lying across the pavement. The thoroughfare was very inadequately lit; indeed, so dark was it that I was unable to distinguish the nature of the obstacle.

Bending down, I passed my hands rapidly over it. I found it was a man.

He was evidently drunk, therefore I resorted to the expedient of giving him a gentle but firm kick in the ribs, at the same time urging him to wake up. This, however, had no effect; therefore, after repeated efforts to rouse him, I struck a vesta and held it close to his head.

The moment I saw the yellow pallor of the face and look of unutterable horror in the glazing eyes, I knew the truth. He was dead!

His age was not more than thirty-five. He had grey eyes, fair hair and beard, and from his dress I judged that he belonged to the upper class. The heavy overcoat he wore was unbuttoned, and a silk muffler was wrapped lightly around his throat.

A glance sufficed to ascertain that he was beyond human aid, and after a moment’s hesitation, I started off in search of a constable.

I was not long in finding one, and we returned to where the body lay. Other assistance was quickly forthcoming, and, a doctor residing in the neighbourhood having made an examination and pronounced life extinct, the remains were conveyed to the mortuary. Owing to the lateness of the hour and the quietness of the neighbourhood, there was no crowd of curious onlookers, nor was there anything to create horror, for no marks of violence could be discovered on the body.

At the inquest duly held I attended and gave evidence. The medical testimony went to show that the unknown man had died suddenly owing to an affection of the heart, and the jury returned a verdict of “death from natural causes.” Nothing was discovered in the pockets which could lead to the unfortunate man’s identification, and although his description was circulated by the police, the body was buried three days later in a nameless grave.

I had published the strange obituary notice Souvaroff had given me, and on the day of the inquest I again called at Springfield Lodge. Only Prascovie and the servant were at home. I had a pleasanttête-à-têtewith the fair Russian, and as we sat together, I commenced to relate my discovery on the night of my previous visit.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, interrupting me, “you need not tell me! I—I saw from the newspapers that you had found him. The inquest was held to-day. I’m so anxious to know the verdict.”

I told her, and an exclamation of relief involuntarily escaped her. This did not strike me as peculiar at the time, but I recollected the incident afterwards, and was much puzzled at its significance.

“Do they know his name?” she asked eagerly.

“No. There was nothing to serve as a clue to his identity.”

“Poor fellow!” she sighed sympathetically. “I wonder who he was.”

Then our conversation turned upon other topics. We smoked several cigarettes, and, after remaining an hour, I bade her adieu and departed, half bewitched by her grace and beauty.

When, however, I called a week later and gave the usual four tugs at the bell, my summons remained unanswered. A dozen times I repeated it, but with the same effect, until a postman who chanced to pass informed me that the occupants had gone away suddenly five days before and left no address.

Surprised at this hurried departure, I walked to the house of Grigorovitch, about half a mile distant, and told him of my friends and their flight.

“Well,” he said, with a smile, when I had told him their name, and explained the various circumstances, “I shrewdly suspect you’ve been tricked. I know no one by the name of Souvaroff. He is certainly not one of Us, and it is equally certain that he got you to insert that extraordinary paragraph by a very neat ruse.”

And he laughed heartily, enjoying a joke that I confess I was unable to appreciate.

Eight months passed, during which the strange incident gradually faded from my mind.

The increased number of persons who were being sent from all parts of Russia to Siberia without trial had become a subject of much comment in England. Horrifying reports anent the state of theétapes, and the shocking brutality and inhuman treatment to which the oft-times innocent convicts were subjected, were continually reaching London from various sources, and public feeling against Russian autocracy had risen to fever heat.

Hence it was that one day when I entered my office I received instructions to proceed without delay to Siberia, in order to inspect the general condition of the prisoners and ascertain the truth of the harrowing details. The prospect of this mission delighted me, for not only was it certain to be fraught with a good deal of exciting adventure, but it would also enable me to complete the novel, already half written, and which I had been compelled to put aside owing to lack of information regarding life in the Asiatic penal settlements.

That evening, after calling upon Grigorovitch and informing him of my projected journey, I returned home, and sat at my writing-table far into the night, finishing some work upon which I had been engaged. The whole of the following day I spent in packing my traps, and otherwise preparing for a long absence. In the evening, while I was busy writing some letters, the servant announced that a young lady, who refused her name, desired to see me. I was not particularly clean, and I confess that just then I was too much engaged in making arrangements for my departure to think of anything else. However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I told her to admit the stranger.

“You?” I cried, when a moment later Prascovie Souvaroff entered.

“Yes. Why not?” she asked, laughing, and offering me her hand.

What could I say? I stammered out a greeting, invited her to be seated, and began to question her regarding her sudden disappearance.

To my questions she replied—

“It was imperative. You English know nothing of the persecution which follows those who flee from the wrath of the White Tzar. We were compelled to leave hurriedly, and as the Secret Police were watching both you and me it was unsafe for us to meet. To-night I have risked coming to you for a most important purpose,” she added, looking up into my face earnestly.

“Oh! What’s that?” I asked.

“I want you to take me to Siberia.”

“To Siberia? You?” I repeated in astonishment.

“Yes. I hear you are going. Any news affecting us travels rapidly. I—I have an intense desire to see what the country beyond the Urals is like.”

“Who told you I was going?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” she replied. “All I ask is that I may be allowed to accompany you. I have here sufficient money to defray the cost of my journey;” and she drew from the breast of her dress a large packet of Russian bank-notes.

I shook my head, replying that Siberia was no place for a delicately-reared woman, and pointed out the uninviting prospect of a winter journey of five thousand miles in a sleigh. “Besides,” I added, “your connection with the Terrorists would render it unsafe for you to return to Russia; and, again, there areles convenancesto be studied.”

“Do you think that I, a Russian, am afraid of a cold sleigh journey?” she asked earnestly, after a few moments’ silence. “Scarcely! Of course, I should not travel in this dress, but would assume the disguise of a Russian lad, in order to act as your servant and interpreter. As forles convenances”—and, shrugging her shoulders, she pulled a little grimace, and added, “Bah! we are not lovers!”

I asked for news of her father, but she informed me that he was in Zurich. She refused to give me her address, and all argument was useless. The point she urged, that she would be companion and interpreter combined, impressed me, and ere I had finally promised, she had given me instructions that I should, in applying for my passport from the Russian Embassy, also make application for one for “Ivan Ivanovitch, servant.”

Four evenings later, I was on the platform at Charing Cross Station, watching my big iron-bound trunks being stowed away into the Continental express, and chatting to two old Fleet Street friends, who had come to see the last of me, when a rather short young man, enveloped in a long, heavy ulster, approached, and, touching his cap respectfully, said—

“Good-evening, sir. I hope I’m not late.”

“No, plenty of time,” I said indifferently, although I had a difficult task to keep my countenance. Turning to my friends, I explained, “That’s my interpreter, Ivanovitch.” Meanwhile, the object of our attention had walked across to the van to see his own trunk placed with mine.

Five minutes afterwards, when we were in the carriage together, gliding out over the bridge that spans the Thames, I burst into a hearty laugh as I, for the first time, regarded her critically. Her disguise was so complete that, for the moment when she had greeted me, I had been deceived. Laughing at her successful make-up, she removed her round fur cap, and showed how she had contrived, by cutting her hair shorter, to make it appear like a man’s. Underneath her overcoat she wore a suit of thick, rough tweed, and with great gusto she related how she had filled up her large boots with wool.

She produced the inevitable cigarettes, and we spent the two hours between London and Queenborough in smoking and chatting.

To describe in detail our long railway journey across Europe by way of Berlin and Moscow would occupy too much space. Suffice it to say that I travelled through Holy Russia with a passport which bore theviséof the Minister of the Interior at Petersburg, and which ensured myself and my “servant” civility and attention on the part of police officials.

At length we passed through the Urals and alighted at Ekaterinbourg, where the railway at that time ended. A fortnight after leaving London, I purchased a sleigh, hired three Government horses, and Prascovie and I, in the great fur coats, skin gloves, and sheepskin boots we had bought, took our seats; the baggage and provisions having been packed in the bottom of the conveyance, and covered with a layer of straw. Then our driver shouted to the little knot of persons who had assembled before the post-station, whipped up the three shaggy horses, and away we started on the first stage of our long, dreary drive across Siberia. Over the snow the horses galloped noiselessly, and the bells on the wooden arch over their heads tinkled merrily as we moved swiftly along through the sharp, frosty air.

Soon we were out upon the Great Post Road, and as far as the eye could see, there was no other object visible on the broad, snow-covered plain but the long straight line of black telegraph poles and striped verst-posts that marked our route.

Day after day we continued our journey, often passing through miles of gloomy pine forests, and then out again upon the great barren steppes. Frequently we met convoys of convicts, pitiful, despairing bands of men and women, dragging their clanking chains with them wearily, and trudging onward towards a life to which death would be preferable. No mercy was shown them by their mounted escorts, for if a prisoner stumbled and fell from sheer exhaustion, he was beaten back to his senses with the terrible knout which each Cossack carried.

On dark nights we halted at post-houses, but when the moon shone, we continued our drive, snatching sleep as best we could. We lived upon our tinned meats and biscuits, the post-houses—which are usually about twenty to thirty miles apart—supplying tea and other necessaries.

Although the journey was terribly monotonous and uncomfortable, with a biting wind, and the intense white of the snow affecting one’s eyes painfully, my fair fellow-traveller uttered no word of complaint. All day she would sit beside me chatting in English, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and now and then carrying on a conversation in Russian with our black-bearded, fierce-looking driver, afterwards interpreting his observations. Indeed, it appeared that the further we travelled from civilisation, the more light-hearted she became.

Arriving at last at Tomsk, we remained there three weeks, during which time I visited thekamerasof the “forwarding prison,” the horrors of which I afterwards fully described. An open letter I had from the Minister of the Interior admitted me everywhere, but I was compelled to secrete the notes I made in the money-belt I wore under my clothes, otherwise they would have been discovered and confiscated by the pryingispravniks, or police officers, during the repeated examination of our baggage at almost every small town we passed through.

Since leaving England, time had slipped rapidly away, until, one day, after we had left Tomsk, and were well on our way towards Yeniseisk, I chanced to take out my diary. I discovered that it was the last day of the old year.

The journey had been most cheerless and wearisome. It was now about four o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun, which had struggled out for half an hour, had sunk upon the hazy horizon, leaving a pale yellow streak in the grey lowering sky. An icy wind blew in fierce gusts across the barren steppe; the monotony of the dull thud of the horses’ hoofs in the snow and the incessant jingle of the bells had grown utterly unendurable. The only stoppage we had made that day was about noon, when we changed horses, and Prascovie had then told me she felt very fatigued. Almost hidden under her furs, she was now sleeping soundly. Her head had fallen upon my shoulder; and I—well, although I tried to console myself with a cigar, I confess I was thinking of the folk at home, and had the nostalgia of England upon me. Suddenly she moved uneasily, and awoke with a start. She addressed a question to the driver, which he answered.

“You must be terribly tired,” I said, recollecting that it was two days since we drove out of Tomsk, and that, owing to the lack of accommodation at the post-houses, we had been unable to rest.

“No, I’m not very tired,” she replied. “But I feel so cramped and cold.”

“Never mind,” I said cheerfully, placing my arm tenderly around her waist and drawing her closer to me: “in a couple of hours we shall get something hot to eat.” She did not answer, but in a few moments she again fell asleep with her head upon my shoulder; and I, too, also dozed off.

Our lonely halting-place was, like all Siberian post-houses, built of pine logs, and little better than a large hut, devoid of any vestige of comfort, and horribly dirty. The sitting-room was a bare, uncarpeted place, with a large brick stove in the centre, a picture of the Virgin upon the wall, a wooden table, and three or four rough chairs, while the little dens that served as sleeping apartments contained nothing beyond a chair and a straw mattress.

It was not long after our arrival that the greatsamovarwas placed upon the table, and, together with the two sinister-looking fellows who kept the place, we sat down to a rough, uncivilised meal. The evening we spent in smoking and drinking vodka, Prascovie and I being able to carry on a private conversation by speaking English.

I asked why she was so unusually thoughtful, but she replied that it was only because she was in need of rest.

“I am sorry I am breaking down,” she said apologetically, and laughing at the same time. “But I’m only a woman. It was, indeed, very kind of you to have been bothered with me.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. “I’m sure I’m indebted to you, for your knowledge of Russian assists me in my work. Do you remember,” I added, “that it is a year to-night since we first met?”

“Was it?” she asked in a strange tone of alarm. “Ah, I remember. I—I was happy then, wasn’t I?”

“Are you not happy now?” I inquired.

“Yes—very,” she replied, smiling. “But I’m tired, and must go to my room, or I shall be fit for nothing to-morrow.”

“Very well,” I replied. “I’ll tell you to go in a few minutes.”

Then, after joining the driver and post-house keepers in another glass of vodka, I said to her—

“Ivan, you can go. I shall require you no longer.”

Gathering up her coat, hat and gloves, she bowed, and, wishing the men “Good-night,” went to her room.

After smoking for another hour, I also sought my dirty little den. In the heart of Siberia one must expect to rough it, therefore I took my revolver from my belt, placed it under my pillow, and, after removing some of my clothes, strapped my fur rug around my neck, and, stretching myself upon the hard pallet, soon dropped off to sleep.

Next morning, when I had dressed, I knocked several times at Prascovie’s door, but received no reply. Subsequently I pushed it open and entered, discovering, to my surprise, that the room was empty.

Notwithstanding my limited knowledge of Russian, I managed to make the men understand that my servant was missing, and they searched the premises, but without avail. They examined the road outside, but, as it had been snowing heavily during the night, no footprints were visible.

Prascovie had mysteriously disappeared!

While I remained in charge of the post-house, the three men mounted the horses and rode out in different directions, thinking it possible that she had strayed away upon the steppe and become lost in a snowdrift. Towards evening, however, they returned, after a long and futile search.

Anxious to solve the mystery, and reluctant to leave without her, I remained there several days. As the nearest dwelling was twenty miles distant, and her overcoat and hat still remained in her room, her disappearance was all the more puzzling. I examined her box, but found nothing in it except articles of male wearing apparel; so after a week of anxious waiting, I became convinced that to remain there longer was useless.

With heavy heart, and sorely puzzled over the mystery, I continued my lonely journey towards the mines of Yeniseisk. Having inspected them, I journeyed south, alone and dejected, and investigated the great prisons at Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, afterwards returning through Omsk and Tobolsk, and thence to the Urals and civilisation.

I missed her companionship very much, and long before my journey ended, I had grown dull, morose, and melancholy.

After an absence of six months, I again returned to London. When I arrived home, fatigued and hungry, and before I had time to cast off my worn-out travelling suit, the servant girl handed me a small packet which she said had arrived by registered post a week before.

It had a Russian stamp upon it, and bore the postmark of Kiakhta, a small town south of Irkutsk, on the border of Mongolia.

Breaking open the seals, I found a small box, from which I took a thick gold ring, set with a magnificent diamond.

Attached to it was a small piece of paper which bore, in a man’s handwriting, the following words:—

“The husband of Prascovie Souvaroff, who owes to you the safe return of his beloved wife, sends this little gift as a slight recognition of the kindness she received at your hands.”

There was neither, name, address, nor date; nothing to show who was the anonymous husband.

The mystery was solved in a most unexpected manner.

Some months after the results of my investigations had been published, I chanced one night to attend the banquet of the Association of Foreign Consuls held in the Whitehall Rooms of the Hôtel Métropole. As usual, a number of thecorps diplomatiquewere present, and among them Serge Velitchko, one of theattachésof the Russian Embassy, an old friend of mine, whom I had not seen since my return.

“I congratulate you on your lucky escape, old fellow,” he exclaimed, after we had exchanged cordial greetings.

“Escape? What do you mean?” I inquired.

“Ah, it’s all very well,” he replied, laughing, as we strolled together into an ante-room that was unoccupied. “Prascovie was very fascinating, wasn’t she?”

“How did you know?” I asked in amazement, for I imagined no one was aware that she had been my companion.

“Oh, we knew all about it, never fear,” he said, with a smile. “By Jove! it was quite a romance, travelling all that distance with a pretty companion, and then losing her on the Yeniseisk Steppe. It was lucky for you, however, that she left you in time, otherwise you would, in all probability, have been working underground at Kara, or some other place equally delightful, by this time.”

“Explain yourself,” I urged impatiently. “You’re talking in enigmas.”

“Listen, and I’ll let you into the secret,” said my friend, casting himself lazily into a chair. “The man you knew as Souvaroff was, until about six years ago, wealthy and popular at our Court at Petersburg; but he was suspected of political intrigue, and sentenced to lifelong exile and hard labour in Siberia. After his banishment, Prascovie, who was then living at Moscow, was detected by the police distributing some revolutionary pamphlets, for which she also was sent to Siberia. At the prison at Irkutsk father and daughter met. While there, Prince Pàvlovitch Kostomâroff, the governor of the Yeniseisk province, who had previously known and admiredla belleSouvaroff in Petersburg society, discovered her, and offered her marriage. This she accepted, and they were married privately, because, had it become known that the Prince had wedded a political exile, he would have fallen into disfavour with the Tzar. The Prince not being governor of the province in which his wife was imprisoned, a difficulty presented itself how he should obtain her release. Even Ivan Kobita, controller of the prison, was ignorant of the secret union, but it so happened that he also became enamoured of his fair captive. At length, in return for her promise to marry him, he allowed her and her father comparative freedom. As might be expected, they were not long in taking advantage of this, for within a fortnight, aided by the Prince, and provided with a passport obtained by him, they managed to escape and come to England.”

“And what of Kobita?”

“He quickly discovered the ruse, and ascertained that the Prince had connived at their escape. Our Secret Police tracked the fugitives to their hiding-place in London. Still unaware that she was the Prince’s wife, Kobita obtained leave of absence and came to England. Before his arrival, however, he wrote, urging her to marry him, declaring that if she refused, he would expose the Prince as aiding and abetting dangerous Nihilists. Prascovie, who clearly saw that if the truth reached the Tzar, her husband would be disgraced and deprived of liberty, was at her wits’ ends. She was in desperation when, two years ago, Kobita arrived in London—”

“Was that on the night I called upon them?”

“Yes. It was on receipt of the letter from Kobita that Souvaroff sent for you and requested you to put the obituary notice in the papers, in order that when the Siberian official came to claim his daughter’s hand, he could convince him of her death. But this plan was not carried out quickly enough. Kobita arrived on the night of your visit, and was received by Prascovie’s father, who stated that she had gone to call upon a friend in the vicinity, and offered to send his servant to direct him to the house in question. To this Prascovie’s admirer had no objection, and, shaking Souvaroff warmly by the hand, wished himau revoir, and started off, accompanied by the servant, in search of the imaginary neighbour. The hand-shaking proved fatal, for he had not walked far before he fell dead. The whole thing had been carefully planned, and the trusty servant, who had been instructed how to act, extracted everything from the dead man’s pockets that would lead to identification. Hence his burial in a nameless grave.”

“Do you assert that he was murdered?”

“Yes. We were in possession of all these facts, but refrained from causing Souvaroff’s arrest, because it was not a wise policy to expose to the London public that Russia had established a bureau of secret police in their midst. Prascovie and her father hid for some months, and we lost sight of them until she called upon you, and accompanied you in disguise to Siberia. Once or twice you very narrowly escaped being apprehended; indeed, on one occasion orders were telegraphed to Tomsk for the arrest of your companion and yourself, because the declaration on your passport regarding ‘Ivan Ivanovitch’ was known to be false. By the intervention of a high official, however, the order was countermanded, and you were allowed to pass.”

“What has become of Prascovie’s father?” I asked in astonishment. “Surely he was not Kobita’s murderer, for the man died of heart disease.”

“You are mistaken. He died of Obeah poison. Souvaroff, who was once a consul in Hayti, knew of the secret poison which the natives extract from the gecko lizard, and which cannot be detected. So deadly is it, that one drop is sufficient to produce a fatal result, and the manner in which he administered it was somewhat novel. He prepared to receive his enemy by allowing the nail of the forefinger of his right hand to grow long, afterwards thinning it to a point as fine as a needle. Upon this point he placed the poison, and kept a glove on until Kobita’s arrival. Then, in wishing him adieu, he pricked the skin of his victim while shaking hands with him, producing an effect similar to syncope.”

“Where is Souvaroff now?”

“Dead. He returned to Petersburg as soon as his daughter had left with you, but was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the Fortress. While there, he wrote a confession of the murder, and afterwards committed suicide.”

“And will they arrest Prascovie?”

“No. She lives in another province to that in which she was imprisoned. No one there knows that she is an escaped convict, and as the Prince was once attached to this Embassy, we are not likely to divulge.”

He chaffed me a little, laughed heartily in his good-natured way, and soon afterwards we rejoined the guests.

I have heard nothing since of my unconventional travelling companion. A short time ago, however, I received an anonymous present of furs, and I shrewdly suspect whence it came. The Prince’s ring, which is the admiration and envy of many of my friends, still glitters on my finger, and I regard it as a souvenir of the most happy and romantic journey of my life.

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