with Jimmy than he had ever been
before.

"But that only brings me to the beginning of what I have to say," he
continued. "Now I want you, before we go any further, to give me your
word as a friend that, whatever I may say to you, you will not reveal
to any one else. You cannot think how important it is, both to her and
to me."

"I will give you that promise willingly," said Jimmy. "You can tell me
whatever you like, without any fear that I shall divulge it."

"Your promise is all I want," said Browne. Then, speaking very slowly,
and as earnestly as he knew how, he continued: "The truth of the matter
is that that girl is by birth a Russian. Her father had the misfortune
to get into trouble over an attempt upon the Czar's life."

"A Nihilist, I suppose?" said Jimmy.

Browne nodded. "Well, the attempt was discovered, and Katherine's
father was arrested and sent to Siberia, condemned to imprisonment for
life. He was there for many years, but later on he was drafted to the
island of Saghalien, on the eastern coast of Siberia, where he now is."

Jimmy nodded. "After that?"

"Well, on the morning of the second day after that dinner at
Lallemand's, Miss Petrovitch and Madame Bernstein left for Paris, on
some important business, which I now believe to have been connected
with the man who was exiled. I followed her, met her, and eventually
proposed to her. Like the trump she is, she did her best to make me
see that for me to love her was out of the question. Thinking only of
me, she tried to put me off by telling me how impossible it all was.
But instead of doing what she hoped, it only served to show me what a
noble nature the girl possessed."

"She is not rich, I suppose?" asked Jimmy.

"She has not a halfpenny more than three hundred a year assured to
her," the other replied; "and she shares that with Madame Bernstein."

"And yet she was willing to give up a hundred and twenty thousand a
year, and the position she would have in English society as your wife?"

"She was," said Browne.

"Then all I can say, is," said Jimmy, with considerable conviction,
"she must be one in a million. But I interrupted you; I'm sorry. Go
on."

"Well," continued Browne, "to make a long story short, she finished by
telling me the sad story of her life. Of course she said that she
could not possibly marry me, being the daughter of a convict. Then she
went on to add that news had lately come to her--how I cannot say--th