They traversed the long bridge, went by the Winter Palace, and turned south past the Cathedral of St. Isaac. After walking a quarter of an hour Sonya paused. “We part here for the present. Go into that little shop across the street, and spend ten minutes in making some purchase. When you come out, look at the windows on the third floor above the door I enter. If the curtains are still down, you are to return. If one is up a few inches, it will mean that The White One desires to see you.” Drexel watched her enter a door half a block ahead, then he crossed to the shop and bought a package of cheap tea. When he came out he looked up at the windows. Light shone from beneath one of the curtains. He crossed eagerly, his pulses in a tumult--for in a moment he was to stand face to face with this famous mystery. His mind guessed wildly at what figure he should find. Perhaps some great professor, whose ethics or mathematics were only a mask for this his real activity. Perhaps some noted general from the Czar’s army. Perhaps even some mighty nobleman, hiding his identity beneath this vague and fearsome name. He climbed the stairs and knocked. Sonya admitted him and led him through a short hallway into a plainly furnished room. Here were three men, and a figure in a wheeled chair. Drexel swept the three men with swift, tense wonder. Two were the men he had seen with Sonya in the house in Three Saints’ Court, the third he saw for the first time. Which of the three was it? “This is Mr. Drexel,” said Sonya. She took his arm and led him forward. “And this is The White One.” It was to the wheeled chair that she led him. Drexel looked at the chair and stood amazed. For The White One, the leader feared and hated by the Government, the master mind, the very heart of the revolution, was a woman! Aye, and an invalid at that! Her hands were twisted, her body bent, and he had no guess of what infirmities lay hid beneath the rug that warmed her lower body. But disease had stayed its withering hands at her shoulders. Such a head it had never been his fortune to look upon before: a pale, deep-wrinkled face, powerful, patient, austere, mighty with purpose, yet in it a tremendous, lofty love; and crowning her head, and falling unconfined upon her shoulders, a mass of soft short hair as white as the virgin snow. The White One--well named indeed! CHAPTER XVII THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE Sonya had taken her stand beside the wheeled chair, her hand lightly upon The White One’s shoulder. As Drexel gazed upon the two women, side by side, and gathered the significance of the pair, a tremor of awe ran through all his being. Sisters in purpose, these two generations: one who had given all, one ready to give all. Sisters in purpose--yet what a contrast! Sonya, fresh, young, lithely erect; the other pale, old, shrivelled, twisted by a despot’s vengeful torture.