After kissing her upturned face I sank into a chair without a word. “What ails you?” she asked, starting up in alarm, noticing my pale countenance and mud-bespattered clothes. “You—you are ill. Tell me.” “It’s nothing,” I assured her, striving to smile. “A slight faintness, that’s all.” Accepting the explanation, she re-seated herself and we commenced to chat. Of what we said I have no recollection. I know that when she lifted my hand to her lips I drew it away as if I had been stung. She was caressing the hand that was so soon to take her life! The thought was horrifying, and she was at a loss to understand the meaning of my action. “You are not well to-night, Vladimir,” she said half-reproachfully. “No, no, Irene,” I replied, “I’m well enough in health. It is the knowledge of our love that troubles me.” “Of our love?” I cast her hand aside, and jumping to my feet, paced the room in desperation. She clutched my arm, entreating me to tell her the cause of my agitation. Suddenly I stopped before her. “Princess,” I whispered hoarsely, grasping her slim, white wrist, “hear me! I am base, ignoble: I have deceived you!” “What! You love me not—you——” “I love you better than life. I would do anything to save you, yet, by a devilish conspiracy of circumstances I am compelled to kill you!” “Kill me!” she gasped in Russian. “God! You are an imbecile—mad!” Her face blanched; she tottered and almost fell. “Yes, I was mad,” I said bitterly. “Mad to love you when I knew that I must kill you. I am a Nihilist!” “A Nihilist!” “Yes. By your evidence some members of our Organisation have been sent to Siberia, and the sentence the Executive has passed upon you is death.” “Ah!” she cried wildly. “My God! It is the statement in the _Novosti_! Listen, Vladimir!” Pausing to gain breath, she shuddered at the sight of the long knife that I had drawn and held in my hand. “It was a vile lie concocted by my husband in order that the Nihilist vengeance should fall upon me. When Stepán Nekhlindoff’s plot failed he resorted to this scheme, and got some journalist he knew to insert the libellous statement, well knowing that I should not escape death.” “Is the allegation untrue, then?” I asked, amazed. “Yes. I swear it is. At the time of the trial I was at Odessa with the Archduchess Paul, and was perfectly ignorant of everything until I saw the paragraph. I wrote contradicting it, but they did not publish my letter. It was the Prince who desired that the Organisation should remove me and leave him free.” “I accept your explanation, Princess,” I said. “Yet how am I to save you? By my oath I am bound to obey the mandate of our Circle and encompass your death.” “I am innocent, Vladimir. Am I compelled to die?” she asked, glancing apprehensively at the knife that flashed so ominously in the lamplight. “Can I not have time—time to prepare for death?” “How long?” “Three days, or more. I—I shall not try to escape. I swear.”