hen everybody
in Russia was poorly dressed, and his shabbiness did not preclude the
possibility of his being the proprietor of the house, as indeed he was.

He was eyeing them with suspicion, not wholly unjustified, for the
patent respectability of Cherry's Derby hat was no compensation for the
armoury belted about his rotund middle.

But when the man's eyes fell upon Malinkoff, his whole demeanour
changed, and he advanced with outstretched hand.

"General Malinkoff," he said, "you remember me; I entertained you
at----"

"At Kieff! Of course!" smiled Malinkoff. "I did not know the Ivan
Petroff of Moscow was the Ivan of the Ukraine."

"Now, gentlemen, what is your wish?" asked the man, and Malinkoff
explained the object of the visit.

Petroff looked serious.

"Of course, I will do anything her Highness wishes," he said. "I saw her
yesterday, and she told me that she had a dear friend in St. Basil."
Malcolm tried to look unconcerned under Malinkoff's swift scrutiny and
failed. "But I think she wished you to meet another--guest."

He paused.

"He has gone into Moscow to-night against my wishes," he said with
trouble in his face; "such an old man----"

"Kensky?" said Malcolm quickly.

"Kensky." The tone was short. "I told him that no good would come of
it--her Highness was married to-night."

Malcolm took a step forward, but it was an unsteady step.

"Married?" he repeated. "To whom was she married?"

Petroff looked down at the floor as though he dare not meet the eye of
any man and say so monstrous a thing.

"To the servant Boolba," he said.

CHAPTER XV

THE RED BRIDE

Irene Yaroslav came back to the home which had always been associated in
her mind with unhappy memories, to meet the culminating disaster which
Fate had wrought. Whatever thoughts of escape she may have treasured in
secret were cut into by the sure knowledge that she was watched day and
night, and were now finally terminated by the discovery that the big
apartment house, a suite of which Boolba had taken for her disposal when
he had ousted her from her father's house, was practically in possession
of the Soviet Guard.

She drove to the palace with an undisguised escort of mounted men, one
on either side of the carriage, one before and one behind, and went up
the stairs--those grim stairs which had frightened her as a child and
had filled her nights with dreams, passing on her way the now empty
bureau which it had been Boolba