en in love
with her," he said. "But are not your intentions somewhat ill-advised
considering her position as a criminal lunatic?"

"She is neither," I protested quickly.

"Very well. You know better than myself," he laughed. "The offense for
which she was condemned to confinement in a fortress was the attempted
assassination of Madame Vakuroff, wife of the General commanding the
Uleaborg Military Division."

"Assassination!" I cried. "Have you actually sent her to prison as a
murderess?"

"I have not. The Criminal Court of Abo did so," he said dryly. "The
offense has since been proved to have been the outcome of a political
conspiracy, and the Minister of the Interior in Petersburg last week
signed an order for the prisoner's transportation to the island of
Saghalien."

"Ah!" I remarked with set teeth. "Because you fear lest she shall write
down your secret."

"You are insulting! You evidently do not know what you are saying," he
exclaimed resentfully.

"I know what I am saying quite well. You have requested her removal to
Saghalien in order that the truth shall be never known. But Baron
Oberg," I added with mock politeness, "you may do as you will, you may
send Elma Heath to her grave, you may hold me prisoner if you dare, but
there are still witnesses of your crime that will rise against you."

In an instant he went ghastly pale, and I knew that my blind shot had
struck its mark. The man before me was guilty of some crime, but what it
was only Elma herself could tell. That he had had her arrested for an
attempted political assassination only showed how ingeniously and
craftily the heartless ruler of that ruined country had laid his plans.
He feared Elma, and therefore had conspired to have her sent out to that
dismal penal island in the far-off Pacific.

"You do not fear arrest, m'sieur?" he asked, as though with some
surprise.

"Not in the least--at least, not arrest by you. You may be the
representative of the Emperor in Finland, but even here there is justice
for the innocent."

A sinister smile played around the thin, gray lips of the man whose very
name was hated through the great empire of the Czar, and was synonymous
of oppression, injustice, and heartless tyranny.

"All I can repeat," he said, "is that if you bring the young
Englishwoman here I shall be quite prepared to hear her appeal." And he
laughed harshly.

"You ask that because you know it is impossible," I said, whereat he
again laug