“True. But only in order to baffle the police. He has not committed suicide, for I have here a letter which he wrote from New York to my husband only a week ago.” I took the note and read it. There was no doubt it was from him, for I recognised the handwriting. Subsequent inquiries I made fully confirmed Mascha’s solution of the mystery. It had fallen to Paul Shiryàlov’s lot to encompass the death of General Martianoff, but prompted by vengeance Pouzàtov—one of the most desperate of the Terrorists—had entered the room and assassinated the Chief of Secret Police while I was absent delivering the letter in the Avenue de l’Opéra. After Shiryàlov had made good his escape, and Pouzàtov considered himself secure, he pressed Mascha to marry him. But she refused, and kept her promise to Gaston. Count Guéneau having died, she now lives happily at the Château with her husband. Both are still enthusiastic and sanguine as to the ultimate success of the struggle for freedom, and being possessed of an ample fortune, contribute generously to the Revolutionary Fund. The Terrorists are now pausing. They believe that the ravages caused by recent famines in Russia can never be repaired. The vast Empire of the Tzar has now no alternative but to resign herself and gradually sink to the position of a decaying power like Turkey, or to throw open her gates to European progress, that goes hand in hand with freedom. At present there is no corner in the Russian Empire where the _moujik_ is not moaning. In the fields and along the highways, in prisons and dungeons, at the mines in shackles of iron, by the side of hayricks and empty barns, under the waggons and on the steppes, the air is everywhere filled with groaning—groaning in hovels, cursing even the sunlight, groaning before the palaces of justice, and buffeted at the entrance of garish mansions, groaning alike in town and village, the wretched _moujik_ is even ready to rise and strike a desperate blow for liberty. Sounds of woe float over the mighty Russian rivers from Archangel to the Caspian. They call it a song, the chant of the _bourlaki_ (workmen) dragging the boats along, but alas! it is the sorrowful dirge of an endless agony.