; I could, myself, almost forsake it, did you ask such a
sacrifice."

"Shame on you!" she stormed at him, snatching away her hand and darting
out of his reach. "Shame on you for that! Those were treacherous words,
and I expected them least of all, from you. You make me ashamed;
ashamed for you, and for the cause I uphold. Are all men so weak, and
so easily led? Does the mere beauty of a woman make cowards of them
all? Could a pair of flashing eyes, or the touch of soft hands, change
the destinies of an empire?"

"They have done so more than once, princess."

"You make me hate myself--and you."

"I am afraid that you took me too literally," he said, with perfect
composure, for although he knew that he had angered her, she was yet so
beautiful in her impetuous resentment of his words that he was lost in
admiration. Indeed he had uttered no more than the truth when he told
her that he might even forsake the cause if such a woman as Zara could
have been his reward; and he knew by long years of experience, that he
uttered the sentiments of nine men out of ten who might fall under her
influence.

"My mission is accomplished here," she told him, "and already my
passage is engaged for the return voyage. I leave New York at once and
I shall probably never return to it. What you have told me of the
measures taken in our behalf, has encouraged me greatly; and yet
because of one thing you have said, I dread the return to St.
Petersburg."

"What was that, princess?"

"I must correct myself. You intimated it; you did not say it."

"What was it?"

"You suggested, in one statement you made, that you had reason to fear
that the spy-system as arrayed against us at home, might be augmented
by the addition of skilled operators and experts from this country. I
had thought that we nihilists had a monopoly of that sort of
employment, and that the czar and his nobles could claim only the
loyalty of their own spies. But your suggestion fills me with doubt and
dread. If Alexander were to introduce imported spies among our
people----"

He interrupted the princess by laughing heartily.

"Again you took me too literally," he asserted. "Here and there, there
may be one who will seek Russia and the czar for such employment, but
it will be for the emolument it will bring, and cannot be induced by
patriotic sentiment. We would have little cause to dread such people,
since we would not be long in identifying them, and ultimately I
believ