eart.

Mr. Treherne welcomed me genially.

"You won't find the fire too much? There are very few nights in our West
Country, here by the sea at any rate, when a fire isn't a comfort after
sunset; a companion, too, for a lonely man, eh? It's very good of you to
come round to-night, Mr. Wynn. I have very few visitors, as you may
imagine. And so you have met my old friend, Anthony Pendennis?"

I was thankful of the opening he afforded me, and answered promptly.

"Yes; but only once, and in an extraordinary way. I'll tell you all
about it, Mr. Treherne; and in return I ask you to give me every bit of
information you may possess about him. I shall respect your confidence,
as, I am sure, you will respect mine."

"Most certainly I shall do that, Mr. Wynn," he said with quiet emphasis,
and forthwith I plunged into my story, refraining only from any allusion
to Anne's connection with Cassavetti's murder. That, I was determined, I
would never mention to any living soul; determined also to deny it
pointblank if any one should suggest it to me.

He listened with absorbed interest, and without any comment; only
interposing a question now and then.

"It is astounding!" he said gravely at last. "And so that poor child has
been drawn into the whirlpool of Russian politics, as her mother was
before her,--to perish as she did!"

"Her mother?" I asked.

"Yes, did she--Anne Pendennis--never tell you, or your cousin, her
mother's history?"

"Never. I doubt if she knew it herself. She cannot remember her mother
at all; only an old nurse who died some years ago. Do you know her
mother's history, sir?"

"Partly; I'll tell you all I do know, Mr. Wynn,--confidence for
confidence, as you said just now. She was a Polish lady,--the Countess
Anna Vassilitzi; I think that was the name, though after her marriage
she dropped her title, and was known here in England merely as Mrs.
Anthony Pendennis. Her father and brother were Polish noblemen, who,
like so many others of their race and rank, had been ruined by Russian
aggression; but I believe that, at the time when Anthony met and fell in
love with her,--not long before the assassination of the Tzar Alexander
the Second,--the brother and sister at least were in considerable favor
at the Russian Court; though whether they used their position there for
the purpose of furthering the political intrigues in which, as
transpired later, they were both involved, I really cannot say. I fear
it is