No doubt was therefore entertained by the police as to the suicide’s identity, and the search for the assassin was consequently relinquished. * * * * * One winter’s afternoon several months afterwards, I was sitting at home, in London, when I received an unexpected visit from Mascha. “Congratulate me, Anton,” she said gaily, after we had exchanged warm greetings. “I have married!” “Married!” I ejaculated. “Yes, our wedding took place in Paris yesterday. Although you know my husband by sight, you have never spoken to him.” “What’s his name?” “Gaston Guéneau.” “The son of Count Jules Guéneau?” I asked, surprised. “Yes,” she replied, laughing. “I knew him when he was an _attaché_ at the French Embassy at Petersburg, and although after poor Ivan’s death we became engaged, we resolved to keep the matter a secret. He joined our Circle, but his revolutionary tendency was discovered by the police, and he was recalled to France. In one of his letters he told me that he had become friendly with a General Martianoff. Knowing that our enemy, the ex-Governor of Mstislavl, was in the service of the ‘Third Section,’ I suspected that he was being drawn into the cleverly-woven web. Therefore I proceeded to Paris in order to keep watch upon the spy, and warn Gaston against him. I had no idea that you were engaged in the same matter, or that you had discovered who murdered Natalya Lebedeff until one day, quite recently, when they were talking of it at a meeting at La Glacière.” “But you were aware that Shiryàlov had killed the General?” “Ah! there, even you are mistaken,” she said, with a smile. “Paul was innocent.” “How can that be?” I asked. “I was present when he entered the room, and when he left the house after the assassination.” “Exactly. But although he sought the spy intending to carry out the sentence of death that had been passed, he did not commit the deed. It was through me that the tyrant of Mstislavl was killed. On the night previous to the tragedy I was with Paramòn Pouzàtov who, as you know, was one of my admirers. I related to him the story of my life at Mstislavl, and the brutal treatment you and I had received at the hands of Martianoff. My description of his brutality, coupled with the vile conspiracy against Lebedeff, so incensed him that he swore he would remove the Tzar’s chief spy with his own hand. I did not regard his words seriously, but on the following morning, while I was waiting in the Boulevard in order to follow Martianoff when he emerged from his house, he approached me. He was wild-looking and haggard-eyed. ‘I have killed him!’ he whispered, at the same time handing me some papers. Then he hurried along the Boulevard and was quickly lost to view. The next I heard was that Shiryàlov was suspected.” “But Paul fled to America.”