"Yes," she sighed; "Delianoffs motive for getting me to take the oath was as ingenious as his other villainies, for, when his plans were complete, he brought me to London, invited Vladimir here, and then, by the exercise of his occult power, he made me believe that the Prince's nephew was the man the Executive had ordered me to kill. But you saved me, for just as I was about to strike the fatal blow, you entered. Delianoff at that moment came behind you, and, with his curious touch, insinuated in your brain the image of sleep. Of what afterwards occurred I know nothing, for I fainted. "This scoundrel, who had planned that I should kill Vladimir and afterwards commit suicide, in order that his villainy should not be exposed, was mad with rage at the failure of his plot. When I regained consciousness, he dragged me about the room, brandishing a knife and threatening to murder me; but at last his anger cooled, and his demoniacal ingenuity devised a terrible torture. My passive will was still under his influence, and I could not escape or utter cry when he locked the fetters upon my wrists and chained me to yonder column. For several days he came regularly with food and water, but four days ago, after telling me how he had obtained possession of all that belonged to me, he laughed derisively, and said he should leave me to die of starvation." "Yes; we were only just in time," the doctor remarked, feeling her pulse, with his eyes upon his watch. "You would have been dead to-morrow." The Princess had no friends in London, therefore I gave up my chambers to her, taking up quarters at a neighbouring hotel, while the hospital nurse I engaged attended her until she fully recovered. She can never recover the bulk of her fortune; nevertheless she has the satisfaction of knowing that Delianoff speedily met with his deserts. Although ostensibly a Nihilist, it was ascertained that he acted as a spy in the pay of the Secret Police. His end was befitting a coward and a traitor, for while assisting in an attempt to wreck the Winter Palace, he handled a bomb carelessly, with the result that it exploded and killed him. Some are of opinion that, being an informer, the vengeance of the Narodnaya Volya fell upon him, and I incline to that belief. CHAPTER TWO. THE GOLDEN HAND. Ramblings, erratic and obsession-dogged, had taken me to Bagneres de Luchon, over the snow-capped Pyrenees by the Porte de Venasque to Huesca, thence to quaint old Zaragoza and Valencia, and in returning from Madrid I found myself idling away a few days at San Sebastian, that gay and charming watering-place which somebody has termed "the Brighton of Spain." The month was July, the town was filled with Madrileftos attracted by the excellent bathing, and glad to escape the stifling heat and dust of the Castellana or the Calle de Alcala, while the shell-like Concha, or bay, was given up to the _campamento_ of bathing-tents.