A year later, Colonel Solovieff had been recalled from London and appointed chief of the Secret Police of St. Petersburg. His success in discovering Nihilist plots in London and Paris had mainly been due to the information furnished by Adine, therefore he had compelled her to return to the Russian capital and take up her residence in the great mansion that had belonged to her late husband. Her implication in the revolutionary conspiracies had placed her completely in his power, and although forced to obey, she made one stipulation--that Paul Denissoff should be allowed to return to Petersburg unmolested. For a long time the colonel withheld this permission, but at length consented, and the fugitive returned to the woman he loved. He was unaware of Adine's alliance with the police, and she feared to tell him, lest he should despise her. A few members of the revolutionary party living in various parts of Russia had been denounced by her, and the Ministry of the Interior, believing the arrests of great importance, had commended Solovieff in consequence; but, truth to tell, the persons convicted were of the least dangerous type, and she always exercised the utmost caution, lest she should bring to justice any enthusiastic member of the party or compromise herself. Number 87 Nevski Prospekt was a small, rather dilapidated house of three storeys. The window shutters of the ground and first floors being closed, gave it the appearance of being uninhabited. One apartment on the top floor, however, was furnished as a sitting-room, and was tenanted occasionally by Colonel Solovieff. It would have been folly for Adine to have met the chief of police at her house or at any place where they might be observed; therefore, in order to elude the vigilance of spies, both police and revolutionary, that everywhere abound in the Russian capital, he had taken the house in order to provide them with a secret meeting-place. One afternoon early in spring, she was standing alone in this room, gazing thoughtfully out of the window, awaiting the man she despised and hated. Though possessing wealth, beauty, and influence, her life had been fraught with much bitterness. While she was yet in her teens, she loved Paul Denissoff, at that time a student at Moscow University; but her mercenary mother had compelled her to marry Orlovski, one of the merchant princes of the capital. For two years they lived together very unhappily, until late one night he was found lying dead in the street, shot by an unknown hand.