rts."

"You speak the language?"

Piers offered proof of this attainment, by replying in a few Russian
sentences. His new acquaintance was delighted, again shook hands, and
began to talk in his native tongue. They exchanged personal
information. The Russian said that his name was Korolevitch; that he
had an estate in the Government of Poltava, where he busied himself
with farming, but that for two or three months of each year he
travelled. Last winter he had spent in the United States; he was now
visiting the great English seaports, merely for the interest of the
thing. Otway felt how much less impressive was the account he had to
give of himself, but his new friend talked with such perfect
simplicity, so entirely as a good-humoured man of the world, that any
feeling of subordination was impossible.

"Poltava I know pretty well," he said gaily. "I've been more than once
at the July fair, buying wool. At Kharkoff too, on the same business."

They conversed for a couple of hours, at first amusing themselves with
the rhetoric and arguments of the red-necked man. Korolevitch was a
devoted student of poetry, and discovered not without surprise the
Englishman's familiarity with that branch of Russian literature. He
heard with great interest the few words Otway let fall about his
father, who had known so many Russian exiles. In short, they got along
together admirably, and, on parting for the night, promised each other
to meet again in London some ten days hence.

When he had entered his bedroom, and turned the key in the lock, Piers
stood musing over this event. Of a sudden there came into his mind the
inexplicable impulse which brought him to this hotel, rather than to
that recommended by the Liverpool acquaintance. An odd incident,
indeed. It helped a superstitious tendency of Otway's mind, the
disposition he had, spite of obstacle and misfortune, to believe that
destiny was his friend.

CHAPTER XXX

At home again, Piers wrote to Olga, the greater part of the letter
being occupied with an account of what had happened at Liverpool. It
was not a love-letter, yet differed in tone from those he had hitherto
written her; he spoke with impatience of the circumstances which made
it difficult for them to meet, and begged that it might not be long
before he saw her again. Olga's reply came quickly; it was frankly
intimate, with no suggestion of veiled feeling. Her mother's letters,
she said, were in Dr. Derwent's hand