me.

The mention I had made of the Minister of Finance, however, seemed to
cause him considerable hesitation. That high official had the ear of the
Emperor, and if I were a friend there might be inquiries. As I stood
before him leaning against a small buhl table, I watched all the complex
workings of his mind, and tried to read the mysterious motive which had
caused him to consign poor Elma to Kajana.

He was a proud bully, possessing neither pity nor remorse, an average
specimen of the high Russian official, a hide-bound bureaucrat, a slave
to etiquette and possessing a veneer of polish. But beneath it all I saw
that he was a coward in deadly fear of assassination--a coward who
dreaded lest some secret should be revealed. That concealed door in the
paneling with the armed guard lurking behind was sufficiently plain
evidence that he was not the fearless Governor-General that was
popularly supposed. He, "The Strangler of Finland," had crushed the
gallant nation into submission, ruining their commerce, sapping the
country by impressing its youth into the Russian army, forbidding the
use of the Finnish language, and taxing the people until the factories
had been compelled to close down while the peasantry starved. And now,
on the verge of revolt, there had arisen a band of patriots who resented
ruin, and who had already warned his Majesty by letter that if Baron
Oberg were not removed from his post he would die.

These and other thoughts ran through my mind in the silence that
followed our heated argument, for I saw well that he was in actual fear
of me. I had led him to believe that I knew everything, and that his
future was in my hands, while he, on his part, was anxious to hold me
prisoner, and yet dared not do so.

My wallet had probably been stolen by some lurking police-spy, for
Russian agents abound everywhere in Finland, reporting conspiracies that
do not exist and denouncing the innocent as "politicals."

The Baron had halted, and was looking through one of the great windows
down upon the courtyard below where the sentries were pacing. The palace
was for him a gilded prison, for he dared not go out for a drive in one
or other of the parks or for a blow on the water across to Hogholmen or
Dagero, being compelled to remain there for months without showing
himself publicly. People in Abo had told me that when he did go out into
the streets of Helsingfors it was at night, and he usually disguised
himself in the