pulling round all right!

"Yours sincerely,
"WALTER FENNING."

A big surly-looking man. Could it be Mishka? I scarcely dared hope it
was, remembering how and where I parted from him; but that underlined
"Johann" might--must mean "Ivan," otherwise the Grand Duke Loris. To
give the German rendering of the name was just like Mishka, who was the
very embodiment of caution and taciturnity.

"Well, I've got my marching orders," I announced. "I'll have to go back
to London to-day, Mary, to meet Southbourne. Where's the time-table?"

Mary objected, of course, on the score that I was not yet strong enough
for work, and I reassured her.

"Nonsense, dear; I'm all right, and I've been idle too long."

"Idle! When you've turned out that Russian series."

"A month ago, and I haven't done a stroke since."

"But is this anything special?" she urged. "Lord Southbourne is not
sending you abroad again,--to Russia?"

"No fear of that, little woman; and if he did they would stop me at the
frontier, so don't worry. Harding mentioned the States in his note."

"Oh, that would be lovely!" she assented, quite reassured. I was
thankful that she and Jim were settled down in this out-of-the-way place
for the next few weeks, any way. It would be easy to keep them in
ignorance of my movements, and, once away, they wouldn't expect to hear
much of me. In my private capacity I was a proverbially remiss
correspondent.

They both came with me the seven-mile drive to the station; and even
Jim, to my relief, didn't seem to have the least suspicion that my
hurried departure was occasioned by any other reason than that I had
given.

Anne's name had never been mentioned between him and myself since my
release. Perhaps he imagined I was forgetting her, though Mary knew
better.

I sent a wire from Exeter to "M. Pavloff," and when I arrived at
Waterloo, about half-past ten at night, I drove straight to the Charing
Cross Hotel, secured a room there, and asked for Herr Pavloff.

I was taken up to a private sitting-room, and there, right enough, was
Mishka himself. In his way he was as remarkable a man as his master; as
imperturbable, and as much at home in a London hotel, as in the cafe
near the Ismailskaia Prospekt in Petersburg.

He greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be flattering from one of his
temperament. In many ways he was a typical Russian, almost servile, in
his surly fashion, towards those