“I blame myself bitterly,” he said. “My wife is an English girl. We were married in England the year before the War. I brought her to Russia. Russia was England’s ally then. How could I foresee the war that very few wiser people foresaw? How could I know that revolution would come when it did, and that it would make so many differences?” There was a long pause. “Poor girl, she was not used to such sufferings. And I brought them on her.” He showed me a photograph. “Look,” he said, “and please take this. I have put the address of her brother and sister in England on the back. I have sent her and the little baby to Helsingfors. She is very ill. Her spine is packed in plaster of Paris. I sold everything that was left and gave her fourteen pounds, all I could raise. I sent her to England to her family. I hope she will arrive safely.” I looked incredulous at the courage and, I must confess, what looked like the folly of it. “Has she a British passport?” I asked. “She is now a Russian, you know, since her marriage with you, and she may have difficulties in getting into England. They are frightened of Bolsheviks in England.” “No, she has no passport,” he said, “but I am sure the British Consul will be kind and help her home. I am sure of it. She too has absolute confidence in her country’s Government, and would be utterly amazed to receive any unkindness from it.” With my own experience of passport difficulties in mind I marvelled at such faith. I have since learnt that it has been amazingly justified, and that the poor girl is safe at home. Her husband also learnt it before we left him. “But go back to your story of Petrograd,” I said, very interested. “Well, we lived happily in our little house, selling first one thing and then another for food. One night, a gang of men forced their way in, showed Soviet passports, and took a great many of our valuable things. We were glad our lives were spared. Three times this thing happened, and we had very little left. One night, when my brother was with us, there came another intruder in the name of the Government. He tried to kill my brother. I shot him in the legs. He crawled to my feet and begged for his life. My brother and I left to hide. We were in hiding four months. The man I shot in the legs really was a Commissar. All the others were thieves with forged warrants. My wife was tormented every day to make her tell where I was. She did not know. She nearly died of suffering. And the little baby came.” He looked dreamily away. “If she had stayed in Petrograd for the coming winter she would have died. It was the only way.” “She shall come to me in England if she needs a home,” I said. And with this promise, that any human being would have given, he was greatly comforted. CHAPTER XII The Dictatorship of the Communists