Four days of consultation and work, and the plan was complete. The governor had demanded its first requisite to be that it should make him seem guiltless of complicity in the escape. Among the prison guards were two of his creatures of such dark records that, should they turn against him, their word would count for nothing. For a thousand rubles each these two gladly undertook the roles of scapegoats. At the hour set for the escape they were to be the watch before Borodin’s cell; a guard’s uniform was to be smuggled in to him; and, aided by a clever disposition of the prison forces which would keep all eyes off the cell for a few moments, he would be whisked out at the time of the changing of the guard and would march away as one of the relieved watch, and so out of the Fortress. A sleigh would be in readiness to carry him to the house in Three Saints’ Court, where he would change his guard’s clothing for a disguise, and from thence he would immediately set out for the German frontier. As for the two guards, they would straightway take to flight and would be far over the Finnish border before Governor Delwig made his discovery of the escape. The plan had dozens of details, and Sonya and Drexel were ever on the move--always on their guard to avoid a sudden meeting with Captain Nadson. But though Drexel’s every hour was filled his mind went more than once to his relatives at the Hotel Europe, and he reached one definite decision regarding Alice’s approaching marriage. The hour this escape was consummated (two days before the day set for the wedding) he would return to his hotel, share with uncle, aunt and cousin the secret of Berloff’s position and character, and do whatever else might be needed to save his cousin from that arch-villain. In the meantime, to still any possible uneasiness, he wrote a letter to his uncle stating that he would be back from Moscow in time for the wedding, and this he sent to a friend in Moscow to be mailed. These days made a deep impression on Drexel. He was in constant contact and coöperation with men and women whom he had to admire, yet whose ideals were the exact opposite of those that had ruled his life till two weeks before. Self-interest did not enter into their thought; their ideas, their energies, their very lives, were all directed to the interest of the people. Living in the midst of this fire of devotion, he felt for an instant now and then that a strange new fire was being kindled in him; but in the tense activity he did not analyze the impression made upon him, indeed he was not wholly conscious of it. He was stirred, he was busy--that was all. Of another matter he was more conscious. His love made him sensible to every change in Sonya’s manner to him. She was engrossed with the plan for her brother’s deliverance; yet little things, the way she looked at him, the way she spoke to him, made him daringly hope that her comradely feeling might be turning to something more.