received
information of the attempt that was to be made, and that every
precaution had been taken to arrest the principal conspirator, but that
in some extraordinary manner he slipped through their fingers. But
surely you can never have been mixed up in that matter?"

"That is what it was," Godfrey said, "though I had no more idea of
having anything to do with a plot than I had of flying. I see now that I
behaved like an awful fool." And he told the story to Petrovytch and his
wife as he had told it to the head of the police. Both were shocked at
the thought that a member of their household should have been engaged,
even unwittingly, in such a treasonable affair.

"It is a wonder that we ever saw you again," the merchant's wife
exclaimed. "It is fortunate that we are known as quiet people or we
might have been arrested too. I could not have believed that anyone with
sense could be silly enough to put on a stranger's mantle and hat!"

"But I thought," Godfrey urged, "that at masked balls people did play
all sorts of tricks upon each other. I am sure I have read so in books.
And it did seem quite likely--didn't it now?--that an officer should
have come up to meet a young lady masked whom he had no chance of
meeting at any other time. It certainly seemed to me quite natural, and
I believe almost any fellow, if he were asked to help anyone to get out
of a scrape like that, would do it."

"You may do it in England or in France, but it doesn't do to take part
in anything that you don't know for certain all about here. The wonder
is they made any inquiries at all. If you had been a Russian the chances
are that your family would never have heard of you again from the time
you left to go to the opera. Nothing that you could have said would have
been believed. Your story would have been regarded by the police as a
mere invention. They would have considered it as certain that in some
way or other you were mixed up in the conspiracy. They would have
regarded your denials as simple obstinacy, and you would have been sent
to Siberia for life."

"I should advise you, Godfrey," Ivan Petrovytch said, "to keep an
absolute silence about this affair. Mention it to no one. Everyone knows
that something has happened to you, as the police have been everywhere
inquiring; but there is no occasion to tell anyone the particulars. Of
course rumours get about as to the action of the Nihilists and of the
police, but as little is said as possib