im?"

"Oh yes. The famous Father Zosim was staying here in Geneva for some two
months about a year ago," I said. "When he left here he seems to have
disappeared from the world."

"It appears that he is at work in Russia again. Somewhere in the
centre," Miss Haldin said, with animation. "But please don't mention
that to any one--don't let it slip from you, because if it got into the
papers it would be dangerous for him."

"You are anxious, of course, to meet that friend of your brother?" I
asked.

Miss Haldin put the letter into her pocket. Her eyes looked beyond my
shoulder at the door of her mother's room.

"Not here," she murmured. "Not for the first time, at least."

After a moment of silence I said good-bye, but Miss Haldin followed me
into the ante-room, closing the door behind us carefully.

"I suppose you guess where I mean to go tomorrow?"

"You have made up your mind to call on Madame de S--."

"Yes. I am going to the Chateau Borel. I must."

"What do you expect to hear there?" I asked, in a low voice.

I wondered if she were not deluding herself with some impossible hope.
It was not that, however.

"Only think--such a friend. The only man mentioned in his letters. He
would have something to give me, if nothing more than a few poor words.
It may be something said and thought in those last days. Would you want
me to turn my back on what is left of my poor brother--a friend?"

"Certainly not," I said. "I quite understand your pious curiosity."

"--Unstained, lofty, and solitary existences," she murmured to herself.
"There are! There are! Well, let me question one of them about the loved
dead."

"How do you know, though, that you will meet him there? Is he staying in
the Chateau as a guest--do you suppose?"

"I can't really tell," she confessed. "He brought a written introduction
from Father Zosim--who, it seems, is a friend of Madame de S-- too. She
can't be such a worthless woman after all."

"There were all sorts of rumours afloat about Father Zosim himself," I
observed.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Calumny is a weapon of our government too. It's well known. Oh yes! It
is a fact that Father Zosim had the protection of the Governor-General
of a certain province. We talked on the subject with my brother two
years ago, I remember. But his work was good. And now he is proscribed.
What better proof can one require. But no matter what that priest was
or is. All that cannot affect my brother'