me
she wanted me to take possession of the estate, and to live for a little
time each year in Russia. She said that the peasants on the place would
be better off if I did that."

"Yes," Boris nodded. "That is what those who criticise us do not always
remember. Russian nobles do look after their peasants. The peasants in
Russia have not had the advantages of the poor in other countries. They
are like children still. My father is a father to all the people on our
estate. When they are sick, he sees that they are cared for. If there
are bad crops, he gives them food and money. We must all do such
things."

"That's what she told me. Well, she wrote letters and she could get no
answers. So she decided to come herself. But she was taken ill. Not
seriously, but ill enough so that the doctor did not want her to travel.
And that was why I came. I went to my uncle, because he was in charge of
her affairs. And then, though he was kind enough when I first saw him,
and promised to help me, I was arrested. All my papers were taken away,
and all my money. And he brought me to Virballen, after I had been kept
in a sort of prison for three or four weeks. There I was taken off the
train for Berlin and put across the border, without any money or
passports. The German lieutenant himself was going to send me to Berlin,
but then the news came that war had been declared, and he advised me to
walk. I was held up at the first village I came to, and I got as far as
this. You saw what happened here in this little village."

"That is very, very strange," said Boris, vastly puzzled. "Do you know
what charge was made against you?"

"No! Some tommyrot about a conspiracy against the Czar. But just what it
was I was never told. I am forbidden to re-enter Russia."

"I don't understand at all," said Boris. "Mikail can't want to keep your
mother's property for himself. He is a very rich man--by far the richest
of the family, though none of the Suvaroffs are poor. And I know about
your mother's lands, because they are next to our own."

"The money that comes from them has always been sent to her," said Fred.
"That was what I was thinking of, too. There was no trouble, you see,
until it seemed that we might want to live on the place from time to
time."

"Yes. My father has had something to do with the arrangements. Your
mother is well off, even without her own property, isn't she?"

"Yes. My father was not a millionaire, but he always had plenty,"