"But is not the assassination of those who have paid for guidance into Germany quite unjustifiable?" I exclaimed, reproachfully, as we walked side by side across the long, dewy grass. "How can I prevent it!" she asked. "I do all I can to preserve the lives of our clients, but with men of their stamp it is impossible to stop it. Nearly every one of the brotherhood would slit a throat with as little compunction as lighting his cigarette: first, because it avoids the risk of crossing the boundary, and secondly, because of the money the victim has in his pockets. Again, persons who accept our escort are not those persons after whom any inquiry is made. When they are missed, their friends naturally conclude they've fallen into the hands of the police, or have escaped abroad and fear to write. Stepanovitch, for instance, does not obtain the rolls of notes he sometimes has by importing contraband goods, neither could he afford to keep a snug house down in Ludwinow, where he spends the winter, and is regarded as a highly respectable member of the Mir." "He is an assassin, then?" Sonia smiled and shrugged her shoulders. We were approaching a small village with a background of high pine trees, situated on the edge of the great treeless plain. Its name was Sokolini, she told me. Once, in the days of serfdom, it had been the property of a landowner, but now, enjoying liberty, its emancipation was attested by its half-ruined huts, whose bulging walls and smoke-blackened timbers were supported by wooden props. There were not more than thirty houses, all of a similarly squalid, miserable character, and as we entered the tiny place the cocks were crowing in the yards, for the sun had by this time fully risen. "Five miles through yonder forest as the crow flies brings us into German territory," she said, indicating the dense wood behind the houses, then pausing before the door of one of the tumble-down huts, pushed it open, and invited me to enter. The interior was one square room, with huge brick stove, the flat top of which served as bed in winter, a low sloping ceiling and two small windows with uneven panes of greenish glass that imparted to the rays of light a melancholy greyish tint. The bare miserable place was poorly furnished with wooden chairs, a rickety table, and a very old moth-eaten sofa covered with velvet that was once red, but now of faded brown. Over the door was nailed a cheap, gaudy ikon, and on the opposite wall was pasted a crude woodcut of his Majesty the Tzar. The room was, indeed, in strange contrast to the dainty little drawing-room in Pembroke Road. While I threw myself into a chair worn-out by fatigue, she removed the ugly wrapper from her head, and disappearing into a little inner den, the only other room in the house, soon reappeared with a steaming samovar, afterwards handing me tea with lemon.