be
much of the peasant about him!"

"I was but jesting, _mon ami_," Grodwitz assured me. "But now your
ordeal is over. You will take a hand at bridge, _hein_?"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE GAME BEGINS

That hand at bridge lasted till long past midnight, and I only got away
at last on the plea that I was dead tired after my two days' ride.

"Tired or not, you play a good hand, _mon ami_!" Grodwitz declared. We
had been partners, and had won all before us.

"They shall have their revenge in good time," I said, stifling a yawn.
"_Bonsoir, messieurs_."

I sent Nicolai to bed, and wrapping myself in a dressing gown which I
found laid out for me, sat down in a deep divan chair to await the Duke,
and fell fast asleep. I woke with a start, as the great clock over the
castle gateway boomed four, and saw the Duke sitting quietly smoking in
a chair opposite.

He cut short my stammered apologies in the frank unceremonious manner he
always used when we were alone together, and plunged at once into the
matter that was uppermost in his mind, as in mine.

Now at last I learned something of the working of that League with which
I had become so mysteriously entangled, and of his and Anne's connection
with it.

"For years its policy was sheerly destructive," he told me. "Its aims
were as vague as its organization was admirable. At least nine-tenths of
the so-called Nihilist murders and outrages, in Russia as elsewhere,
have been planned and carried out by its executive and members. To
'remove' all who came under their ban, including any among their own
ranks who were suspected of treachery, or even of delaying in carrying
out their orders, was practically its one principle. But the time for
this insensate indiscriminating violence is passing,--has passed. There
must be a policy that is constructive as well as destructive. The
younger generation sees that more clearly every day. She--Anna--was one
of the first to see and urge it; hence she fell under suspicion,
especially when she refused to carry out certain orders."

He broke off for a moment, as if in slight embarrassment.

"I think I understand," I said. "She was ordered to 'remove' you, sir,
and she refused?"

"That is so; at least she protested, even then, knowing that I was
condemned merely as a member of the Romanoff family. Later, when we met,
and learned to know each other, she found that I was no enemy, but a
stanch friend to these poor peoples of Russia, stri