On her entry, the criminal looked up in surprise. {228} "Why have you come here alone?" he growled. "I have killed twelve people. Are you not afraid that I shall kill you too?" "There is no reason why you should do that," was the quiet reply. "I have only come because I should like to help you a little. Your past sins can make no difference." The prisoner seemed taken aback, and gradually allowed himself to be drawn into a conversation that lasted more than half an hour, after which, when his visitor rose to go, this rough outcast, touched and softened, begged her to come again. Between her visits to the various prisons, Miss Voronoff spent all her time in correspondence and interviews with the relatives of the prisoners, and in untiring efforts to alleviate their sufferings and soften their fate. Many indeed are the bright moments that this consoling angel brought into the darkness of those hopeless lives! Miss Voronoff left behind her (she died only recently) an interesting book of sketches entitled _Among the Prisoners_. Never was a book published more worthy of being described as a human document. It is full of the charm and goodness of one saintly personality reacting upon the victims of a great tragedy. The following quotations that I have made from this book are so illuminating as to Russian character that they require no apology or explanation:-- "It was not until after a lapse of six years that I was once more able to visit the Wiborg Cellular Prison, in the consumptive ward of which I first began to work for poor prisoners. Then I was in {229} the company of Princess Maria Dondoukoff-Korsakoff. Now, this noble woman has gone to her reward, but everything around seemed to speak to me of her. There was not a bed in that ward upon which she had not sat (she seldom, if ever, used the chairs provided, feeling that in this way she was nearer to the patient). And many a sufferer had she comforted. Laying her hand upon his shoulder or his head, she would speak words which, delivered in her sweet and affable voice, could not fail to reach his heart. Ah! how many a heart was softened, how much physical pain relieved, how many souls gained back to God by her sweet ministrations! "And now, with these dear memories crowding upon me, I visited once again the Wiborg Cellular Prison. "It has been much improved; now there are two wards for consumptive patients, whereas formerly there was but one, which was both overcrowded and airless. In fact, the place, I remember, on one occasion was so close as to overcome the Princess, who was obliged to lie down and recover before continuing her ministrations to the sick. "Upon the occasion of this my first visit to the prison after six years, a touching incident occurred, which I should like to recall.