I had published the strange obituary notice Souvaroff had given me, and on the day of the inquest I again called at Springfield Lodge. Only Prascovie and the servant were at home. I had a pleasant _tete-a-tete_ with the fair Russian, and as we sat together, I commenced to relate my discovery on the night of my previous visit. "Ah," she exclaimed, interrupting me, "you need not tell me! I--I saw from the newspapers that you had found him. The inquest was held to-day. I'm so anxious to know the verdict." I told her, and an exclamation of relief involuntarily escaped her. This did not strike me as peculiar at the time, but I recollected the incident afterwards, and was much puzzled at its significance. "Do they know his name?" she asked eagerly. "No. There was nothing to serve as a clue to his identity." "Poor fellow!" she sighed sympathetically. "I wonder who he was." Then our conversation turned upon other topics. We smoked several cigarettes, and, after remaining an hour, I bade her adieu and departed, half bewitched by her grace and beauty. When, however, I called a week later and gave the usual four tugs at the bell, my summons remained unanswered. A dozen times I repeated it, but with the same effect, until a postman who chanced to pass informed me that the occupants had gone away suddenly five days before and left no address. Surprised at this hurried departure, I walked to the house of Grigorovitch, about half a mile distant, and told him of my friends and their flight. "Well," he said, with a smile, when I had told him their name, and explained the various circumstances, "I shrewdly suspect you've been tricked. I know no one by the name of Souvaroff. He is certainly not one of Us, and it is equally certain that he got you to insert that extraordinary paragraph by a very neat ruse." And he laughed heartily, enjoying a joke that I confess I was unable to appreciate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eight months passed, during which the strange incident gradually faded from my mind. The increased number of persons who were being sent from all parts of Russia to Siberia without trial had become a subject of much comment in England. Horrifying reports anent the state of the _etapes_, and the shocking brutality and inhuman treatment to which the oft-times innocent convicts were subjected, were continually reaching London from various sources, and public feeling against Russian autocracy had risen to fever heat.