I was sitting at home, reading and smoking, in a very lazy mood, one winter's evening, when the servant girl entered and handed me a soiled, crumpled letter, which, she said, had been left by a strange-looking foreign woman. This did not surprise me, for I sometimes received mysterious unsigned notes from my friends the refugees when they desired to see me. The exiles are continually under the observation of the "Okhrannoe Otdelenie," or Secret Police attached to the Russian Embassy, hence the cautiousness of their movements. I tore the envelope open and read its contents. The words, written in a fine educated hand,--evidently a woman's,--were: "Come to Springfield Lodge, St. Margaret's Road, Regent's Park, to-night at nine. Important." I confess the communication puzzled me, for I knew no one living at the address, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, I resolved to obey the summons. With some little difficulty I found the house. It stood back from the road, concealed behind a high wall. The thoroughfare was very quiet and eminently respectable. Each house stood in its own grounds, and had an air of wealth and prosperity about it, while the bare black branches of the great trees on either side of the road met overhead, forming a long avenue. I gave the summons used at Grigorovitch's, namely, four distinct tugs at the bell; and presently the heavy door was opened by a Russian maid-servant. "Who are you?" she demanded in broken English. I told her my name, and showed her the note I had received. "_Harosho_! Step this way, sir, if you please," she exclaimed, when she had examined the letter by the feeble light shed by a neighbouring street lamp. Then she closed the door and walked before me through a well-kept garden up to the house. Entering, she conducted me to a small and rather well-furnished apartment, the French windows of which opened out upon a spacious tennis-lawn. Around the walls were hung several choice paintings, and I noticed that upon the table lay a number of pamphlets similar to those which the organisation were secretly circulating throughout the Empire of the Tzar. In a few moments the door opened, and a very pretty young Russian lady of about twenty-three years of age came forward to meet me. "Good-evening," she said, smiling. "My father will be here in a few minutes. You will not object to wait, will you?" I assured her I was in no hurry, whereupon she begged me to be seated, at the same time producing a large box of cigarettes, offering me one, and, in accordance with Russian etiquette, taking one herself.