en the needy
and the giver, giving nothing himself, and living on his brokerage,
sitting in a comfortable chair, with his feet on a Turkey carpet in his
office on a main thoroughfare. Paul had met none of these, and the only
organized charity of which he was cognizant was the great Russian
Charity League, betrayed six months earlier to a government which has
ever turned its face against education and enlightenment. In this he had
taken no active part, but he had given largely of his great wealth. That
his name had figured on the list of families sold for a vast sum of
money to the authorities of the Ministry of the Interior seemed all too
sure. But he had had no intimation that he was looked upon with small
favor. The more active members of the League had been less fortunate,
and more than one nobleman had been banished to his estates.

Although the sum actually paid for the papers of the Charity League was
known, the recipient of the blood money had never been discovered. It
was a large sum, for the government had been quick to recognize the
necessity of nipping this movement in the bud. Education is a dangerous
matter to deal with; England is beginning to find this out for herself.
For on the heels of education socialism ever treads. When at last
education makes a foothold in Russia, that foothold will be on the very
step of the autocratic throne. The Charity League had, as Steinmetz put
it, the primary object of preparing the peasant for education, and
thereafter placing education within his reach. Such proceedings were
naturally held by those in high places to be only second to Nihilism.

All this, and more which shall transpire in the course of this
narration, was known to Paul. In face of the fact that his name was
prominently before the Russian Ministry of the Interior, he proceeded
all through the winter to ship road-making tools, agricultural
implements, seeds, and food.

"The prince," said Steinmetz to those who were interested in the matter,
"is mad. He thinks that a Russian principality is to be worked on the
same system as an English estate."

He would laugh and shrug his shoulders, and then he would sit down and
send a list of further requirements to Paul Howard Alexis, Esquire, in
London.

Paul had met Mrs. Sydney Bamborough on one or two occasions, and had
been interested in her. From the first he had come under the influence
of her beauty. But she was then a married woman. He met her again toward