“It was simple, darling,” I replied, caressing her tenderly. “General Korolénko now occupies a high position in the Ministry of the Interior in Petersburg. In exchange for his written confession of the mysterious death of Marie Smirnitskaya I obtained the document by which you are released, and I have brought it personally in order to take you back again to civilisation and happiness.” We conversed with the officer for a few minutes. Then he turned to her and said, “Death is preferable to the life to which you had been consigned. You are indeed fortunate to obtain release, and you both have my best wishes for your future welfare.” Wishing me _bon voyage_, he shouted the order to march, and a moment later the envious, despairing band of exiles moved slowly onward towards their doom. As we drove back together in the direction of Kalmakova I asked her about her arrest. What she related astounded me. “The spy who denounced me to the police was Madame Teréshkevna. There are claws beneath the velvet paw,” she said. “Agraféna Teréshkevna!” I cried. “I thought she was a member of the Circle?” “Yes. But it has since been ascertained that she is also in the pay of the Secret Police, and that she gives her brilliant entertainments in order to seek victims against whom to give information.” As she went on to describe the circumstances of her arrest, and the horrors of her imprisonment in the Fortress, I sat silently listening, and wondering whether I should ever solve the mysteries connected with my adventure in Onslow Square. The solution came in a curious manner about six months afterwards. Mariána and I, whose marriage was now publicly announced, had taken up our residence in London, and were frequently the guests of the Revolutionary refugees. At the house of one of these I met an elderly man who was introduced as Ivan Ivanovitch, which was, of course, an assumed name. It was he who explained the conspiracy against me.