row."

"To St. Petersburg?" she asked, eagerly.

"Yes. Dr. Kanoffskie is going on a leave of absence, and I am going with
him as his valet."

"To dear old St. Petersburg! Oh, how I wish I could see it once more!
Stay, will you take a letter to my brother there?"

"With pleasure."

"I have it here. It was written nearly a year ago, and I have carried it
in my bosom, hoping to find some way of sending it to him. Tell him how
it is with me here, and he will bless you for the message."

"But, come to think of it, would it not be better for both your brother
and myself if I simply took a verbal message from you to him? I shall be
under the police eye all the time, and the letter might be found and get
us both into trouble."

"Yes, you are right," she said, after a moment's reflection, and then
she told him the message she would have him deliver.

Then, receiving his address, he charged his mind with it, and started to
go.

"One moment more; tell me your name, that I may remember and pray for
you always," she said, appealingly.

"William Barnwell; and yours?"

"Zora Vola."

"I shall not forget it."

"As I shall never forget yours."

"I have hopes, Zora, and if I ever live to realize them, you shall
benefit thereby."

"God bless and keep you, sir!"

"And may He give you heart and hope in your misery," replied he, again
shaking her hands and returning to the hospital.

The next day Kanoffskie and his valet started with the government train
that makes that terrible journey from St. Petersburg to Siberia twice
every year, and at the end of three months they reached the capitol.

And, oh, what a relief it was to Barnwell, who had all but given up the
hope of ever seeing a semblance of civilization again. How his heart
thrilled as he nursed his hopes!

Kanoffsky seemed greatly altered, although for the past two months he
had lost much of the nervousness produced by old Batavsky's death, as
though from leaving the scene of it further and further behind.

His confidence in Barnwell seemed to grow stronger every day; but, on
arriving at St. Petersburg, he obeyed the governor's instructions
relative to reporting to the prefect of police, without an hour's loss
of time.

This he did as a measure of personal safety as much as for his
promptness in obeying orders, for he was determined to keep himself
entirely above police suspicion.

Should he fail to do so, and it should come to the ears of the
authorities