's
time. I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold
of this cursed house. But I must speak or I shall be too late.

"I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man's wife. He was fifty and I
a foolish girl of twenty when we married. It was in a city of Russia, a
University--I will not name the place."

"God bless you, Anna!" murmured the old man again.

"We were reformers--revolutionists--Nihilists, you understand. He and I
and many more. Then there came a time of trouble, a police officer was
killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and in order to save
his own life and to earn a great reward my husband betrayed his own wife
and his companions. Yes, we were all arrested upon his confession. Some
of us found our way to the gallows and some to Siberia. I was among
these last, but my term was not for life. My husband came to England
with his ill-gotten gains, and has lived in quiet ever since, knowing
well that if the Brotherhood knew where he was not a week would pass
before justice would be done."

The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a
cigarette. "I am in your hands, Anna," said he. "You were always good to
me."

"I have not yet told you the height of his villainy," said she. "Among
our comrades of the Order there was one who was the friend of my heart.
He was noble, unselfish, loving--all that my husband was not. He hated
violence. We were all guilty--if that is guilt--but he was not. He wrote
for ever dissuading us from such a course. These letters would have
saved him. So would my diary, in which from day to day I had entered
both my feelings towards him and the view which each of us had taken. My
husband found and kept both diary and letters. He hid them, and he tried
hard to swear away the young man's life. In this he failed, but Alexis
was sent a convict to Siberia, where now, at this moment, he works in
a salt mine. Think of that, you villain, you villain; now, now, at this
very moment, Alexis, a man whose name you are not worthy to speak, works
and lives like a slave, and yet I have your life in my hands and I let
you go."

"You were always a noble woman, Anna," said the old man, puffing at his
cigarette.

She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.

"I must finish," she said. "When my term was over I set myself to get
the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian Government, would
procure my friend's release. I knew that