might also have found ourselves within
the walls of a prison, since you met her at our room, and the mere
acquaintanceship with a suspected person is enough to condemn one here.
By the way, we have moved our lodging, but will give you our new address
when we meet you, that is, if you are good enough to continue our
acquaintance in spite of the trouble that has been caused you by the
credulity and folly of my cousin."

Godfrey, who had begun to learn prudence, did not open the letter until
he returned home, and as soon as he had read it dropped it into the
stove. He was pleased at its receipt, for he had not liked to think that
he had been duped by a girl. From the first he had believed that she,
like himself, had been deceived, for it had seemed to him out of the
question that a young music mistress, who did not seem more than twenty
years old, could have been mixed up in the doings of a desperate set of
conspirators; however, he quite understood the alarm she must have felt,
for though his story might have been believed owing to his being a
stranger, and unconnected in any way with men who could have been
concerned in a Nihilist plot, it would no doubt have been vastly more
difficult for her to prove her innocence, especially as it was known
that there were many women in the ranks of the Nihilists.

It was a fortnight before he met either of the students, and he then ran
against them upon the quay just at the foot of the equestrian statue of
Peter the Great, opposite the Isaac Cathedral. They hesitated for a
moment, but he held out his hand cordially.

"Where have you been, and how is it I have not seen you before?"

"We were afraid that you might not care to know us further," Akim said,
"after the trouble that that foolish cousin of mine involved you in."

"That would have been ridiculous," Godfrey said. "If we were to blame
our friends for the faults of persons to whom they introduce us, there
would be an end to introductions."

"Everyone wouldn't think as you do," Akim said. "We both wished to meet
you, and thank you for so nobly shielding her. The silly girl might be
on her way to Siberia now if you had given her name."

"I certainly should not have done that in any case. It is not the way of
an Englishman to betray his friend, especially when that friend is a
woman; but I thought even before I got your letter that she must in some
way or other have been misled herself."

"It was very good of you," Petroff