"All the rest is known to you--how Providence directed you to me as my deliverer, and how Woodroffe followed you in secret, and pretending to be my friend took me with him to Petersburg. He had learnt of my fortune from the Baron, and intended to marry me himself. But now that all is over it appears to me like some terrible dream. I never believed that so much iniquity existed in the world, or that men could fight a defenseless woman with such double-dealing and cruel ingenuity. Ah! the tortures I endured in Kajana are beyond human conception. Yet surely Oberg and Woodroffe will obtain their well-merited deserts--if not in this world, then in the world to come. Are we not taught by Holy Writ to forgive our enemies? Therefore, let us forgive." * * * * * There my silent love's strange story ended. A bald, straightforward narrative that held us all for some moments absolutely speechless--one of the strangest and most startling stories ever revealed. She watched every expression of my countenance, and then, when I had finished reading and placed my arm tenderly about her slim waist, she raised her beautiful face to mine to receive the passionate kiss I imprinted upon those soft, full lips. "This, of course, makes everything plain," exclaimed Jack. "Polovstoff was a very liberal-minded and upright official who was greatly in the favor of the Czar, and a serious rival to Oberg, whose drastic and merciless methods in Finland were not exactly approved by the Emperor. The Baron was well aware of this, and by ingeniously enticing him on board the _Iris_ he succeeded by handing that small bomb concealed in a cigar--a Nihilist contrivance that had probably been seized by his police in Finland--in freeing himself from the rival who was destined to occupy his post." "Yes," I said with a sigh. "The mystery is cleared up, it is true, yet my poor Elma is still the victim." And I kissed my love passionately again and again upon the lips. CONCLUSION Nearly two years have now gone by. There have been changes in holy Russia--many great and amazing changes consequent upon war and its disasters. Russia is no longer the great power that she once was supposed to be. Many events that have startled the world have occurred since that day when I first enfolded my silent love within my arms. One of them is known to you all. You read in the newspapers, without a doubt, how the Baron Xavier Oberg, the persecutor of Finland, the enemy of education, the relentless foe of the defenseless, the man who ordered women to be knouted to death in Kajana, the heartless official whom the Finns called "The Strangler," was blown to pieces by a bomb thrown beneath his carriage as he drove to the railway station at Helsingfors on his way to have audience with the Emperor.