"I hope not, I hope not," said Lord Ashiel earnestly. "I have got her to promise to come to Scotland, and in a few days I may get some definite clue as to which of them it is. It is a very odd coincidence that both the girls bear names so much like that of my poor wife's." He paused reflectively, and then added, "In the meantime you will go on with your inquiries, will you not?" "I will," said Gimblet. "And I hope for better luck." A silence followed. Lord Ashiel half rose to go, then sat down again. Evidently he had something more to say, but hesitated to say it. At last he spoke: "When I was at St. Petersburg, twenty years ago, I was aroused to a state of excitement and indignation by the social and political evils which were then so much in evidence to the foreigner who sojourned in the country of the Czars. I was young and impressionable, impulsive and unbalanced in my judgments, I am afraid; at all events I resented certain seeming injustices which came to my notice, and my resentment took a practical and most foolish form. To be short, I was so ill-advised as to join a secret society, and have done nothing but regret it ever since." "I can well understand your regretting it," said the detective. "People who join those societies are apt to find themselves let in for a good deal more than they bargained for." "It was so, at all events so far as I am concerned," said Lord Ashiel, "I had, you may be sure, only the wildest idea of what serious and extremely unpleasant consequences my unreflecting action would entail. Withdrawal from these political brotherhoods is to all intents and purposes a practical impossibility; but, in a sense, I withdrew from all participation in its affairs as soon as I realized to what an extent the theories of its leaders, as to the best means to adopt by which to rectify the injustices we all agreed in deploring, differed from my own ideas on the subject. And I should not have been able to withdraw, even in the negative way I did, if accident had not put into my hand a weapon of defence against the tyranny of the Society." Lord Ashiel paused hesitatingly, and Gimblet murmured encouragingly: "And that was?" "No," said Lord Ashiel, after a moment's silence, "I must not tell you more. We are, I know, to all appearances, safe from eavesdroppers or interruption; but, if a word of what I know were to leak out by some incredible agency, my life would not be worth a day's purchase. As it is, I am alarmed; I believe these people wish for my death. In fact, there is no doubt on that subject. But they dare not attempt it openly. I have told them that if I should die under suspicious circumstances of any sort, the weapon I spoke of will inevitably be used to avenge my death, and they know me to be a man of my word. For all these years that threat has been my safeguard, but now I am beginning to think that they are trying other means of getting me out of the way."